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Ching-Jo (Zoe) Lu

Greg McClure

WR 39B

21 February 2018

Exploring the Desire within Ourselves: Rhetorical Analysis of The Other Place

According to an American horror fiction writer, H.P. Lovecraft, once states in his

fiction The Shunned House, “From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.”, the

horror genre consists of irony and contrasts that were created not only for recreation but also for

the hidden emotions repressed by social norms. Horror fictions and films attract audience by

spreading them an irony that helps release the devil deep inside. Based on an article, “Why We

Are Drawn to True Crime Shows”, from TIME, “It [true crimes] allow us to experience fear and

horror in a controlled environment where the threat is exciting but not real” (Bonn). The irony

that people are fearful of real crimes but love being exposed to terror explains why Mary

Gaitskill’s story, The Other Place, connects the readers to the negative personality of the

protagonist. The Other Place presents an art-horror story by contradictorily revealing a conflict

of a person between the authority of modern social norms and the inner disobedience, which

fulfills the expectation of conflict that readers deem as necessary in traditional horror stories. The

author emphasizes tones and language used to inform the readers that desire comes from pain

and strong affiliation to beloved ones, and people tend to find substitutes for the painful desire. I

will be using, along with other scholarly works, Noël Carroll’s essay The Nature of Horror in

order to discuss the notion of categorical contradiction within the art-horror monster and in order

to make a primary point about the status of the story’s narrator.

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In the passage of the narrator talking about his background, Gaitskill shows the

contradiction between the nightmare and the reality of the protagonist and the belief he holds

“normal” which further contrasts readers’ expectations in the art-horror genre. I will be using

Noël Carroll's essay The Nature of Horror to build up my idea. In the sentence, “I believe I had a

normal childhood. But you have to go pretty far afield to find something people would call

abnormal these days” (Gaitskill), Gaitskill uses ironic language displaying a potential killer who

states that the public has to reach far enough to find things abnormal. People pay close attention

to obvious unusual scenes, but they cannot see the disguised “abnormal”, especially the speaker

who considers himself normal. In this case, the protagonist represents the contrast that people are

fearful of encountering the narrator, but once they see him, they cannot even recognize his

negative side. The irony is a crucial element in The Other Place for establishing an art-horror

story. In a scholarly essay, The Nature of Horror, written by Noël Carroll, a famous American

philosopher, he states, “An object or being is impure if it is categorical interstitial, categorical

contradictory” (Carroll 55). The monster, who is the protagonist, represents a categorical

contradictory being by revealing himself of his abnormal childhood but considering himself

“acting” normal. The horror hides behind the notion that the “normality” the narrator considers is

abnormal to the readers, and the small, evil actions he conducts are covered by morality and

social norms. Therefore, the expectation of readers changes subtly from seeing his gruesome

actions to recognizing the contrast within. Along with the protagonist’s statement, Gaitskill

shows a strong contradiction in this short passage.

Besides the irony in the short passage, the perception of the protagonist in the passage

unveils the contrast that conflicts with the readers’ traditional view of horror story by exposing

readers to the anxiety the protagonist considers normal. I will be using Magistrale and Morrison's
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article, Intro to Dark Night’s Dreaming, to strengthen the idea of contrast. In the scene that the

speaker indicates the fights between his mother and father are understandable, his indifferent

tone shows the mixture of his love for his family and his distorted personality toward the women

he targets. The protagonist deems the fights between his parents and the nightmare he has about

him being chased by a murderer as understandable and normal. People’s expectation on fights

and nightmares is unbearable and horrifying, but the narrator once again employs the categorical

contradiction of the public’s actual expectation and the protagonist’s plain tone to provide

readers another art-horror element. According to Morrison, who is an award-winning prestigious

professor, in his article written with Magistrale, a well-know professor professionalized in

English, Intro to Dark Night’s Dreaming, they mention, “The best horror fiction must be viewed

as contemporary social satire that reveals the collective cultural fears and personal anxieties of

everyday life” (Magistrale and Morrison 3). The collective cultural fear of confronting fights and

nightmares of people successfully relates to the contrast Gaitskill creates. She exposes readers to

the disguised social anxiety. While the protagonist acts like a normal person, under the skin hides

the indiscernible personality that attracts the modern readers. The fear inside the public irrigates

the protagonist’s inner disobedience. As it grows, the anxiety of readers grows. In this passage,

Gaitskill successfully manifests how the indiscernible personality interacts with the anxiety

readers hold. The indiscernible personality appears obviously in another short passage which the

protagonist introduces “the other place” by wandering around the neighborhood.

Gaitskill emphasizes the protagonist’s struggle of realizing the moment of “the other

place” and brings emotional reactions to readers by breaking readers’ traditional viewpoints of

modern art-horror fictions. I will be using Magistrale and Morrison's essay and Noël Carroll's

essay again to prove my point. In the sentence, “A world where I could sit and feel the power of
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nature come up through my feet, and be near other people without them being near me”

(Gaitskill), the speaker rationalizes the abnormal late-night wander and persuades himself to

normalize the existence of “the other place”. According to Magistrale and Morrison’s

essay, Intro to Dark Night’s Dreaming, they state, “The monster represents some aspect of a

repressed self transformed into the Other” (Magistrale and Morrison 4). The speaker’s repression

of his true self appears during the night when he is alone and wandering in the neighborhood.

And the short-term transformation during the night leads “the other place” to devour the narrator

gradually as stated in the later story. Although the speaker has rarely walks during the night later

and has changed his attention from getting drunk to feeling the power of nature, at the end of the

passage he still watches the girl sleeping soundly. The negative and positive sides of his action

represent his repression of his willingness of normalizing all abnormal actions so the actions can

be seen normal for others, who live in “the other place”. The struggle of the protagonist causes

tension for readers, which Carroll implies in The Nature of Horror, “Art-horror is an occurrent

emotional state; it has both physical and cognitive dimension” (Carroll 54). The art-horror in The

Other Place creates physical dimension, such as tension and shuddering by enhancing the

protagonist’s self comforting of his behaviors. Also, as the protagonist’s odd behaviors

revealing, it creates an emotional state in cognition by leaving readers trace of whether the

“power” inside outgrows his positive self. From readers’ viewpoint, the conflict of the

protagonist’s two sides is what generates the horror in the story, rather than those traditional

stories directly showing the evil side devouring the protagonists. Thus, the contrast between the

speaker’s self-conflict and readers’ expectation and anxiety brings the story perfectly to the

modern art-horror genre.

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With the anxiety readers already have, Gaitskill further provides a scene which the

protagonist threatens the woman on the car; the woman’s reaction stirs up emotional responses

for both readers and protagonist that “the two places” are converging to the same one. I will be

using Noël Carroll's essay to build up my idea that how readers give emotional responses. Within

the scene, “Like a star, a red dot appeared in the white of her left eye” (Gaitskill) and “Words

appeared in my head, like a sign reading 'I Don’t Want To.’” (Gaitskill), the term “like a star”

corresponds to the “sign” the narrator receives from his inner self. The situation puts the speaker

into a dilemma, and it is also a decision of whether to accept the convergence of the two places.

For the protagonist, the woman’s red dot not only means that this is a decision but an invitation

for him to confront the existence of “the other place”. Furthermore, he wants to figure out a

different viewpoint from the woman’s to visualize himself or even the connotation of his two

places. In the sentence, “ She shifted her eyes from my face to a spot somewhere outside the car

and fixed them there. I fought the urge to turn and see what she was looking at” (Gaitskill), the

protagonist’s curiosity of experiencing the woman’s perspective and his eagerness to find where

he belongs prove that there is an emotional response to not only the “real” him but also to

readers’ expectations. In Noël Carroll’s essay, The Nature of Horror, he writes, “what

distinguishes the horror story with mere stories with monsters is the attitude of characters”

(Carroll 52). The attitude appears vigorously that the protagonist acquires the sense of moral

codes and concurrently his inner voice betrays his desire to hurt anyone. His cognition and

acceptance represent the attitude of him firstly facing the reality and “abnormality”. Readers can

also tell from the scene that he recalls his dead mother and relates her to the woman. The

nostalgia that winds the protagonist since his childhood creates the desire he cannot bear, and the
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idea of desire Gaitskill signaling readers shows that nostalgia and pain of childhood are the keys

to the protagonist’s emotional responses.

Aside from the emotional responses, in the same passage of the protagonist with the gun,

Gaitskill shows the transformation in the horror genre by demonstrating the contrast between the

silence of the protagonist and the voices he creates inside. Here I will provide a quote

from Magistrale and Morrison's essay to emphasize the protagonist's transformation. This is

another paramount emotional response readers have— it is a slowly combination of disobedience

and social norms inside the protagonist. In the sentence, “I held my gun hand against my body to

hide the tremor” (Gaitskill), Gaitskill puts an emphasis on the contrast between “a gun” and “the

tremor”, which ironically shows the protagonist’s unsureness and weakening power. This brings

the readers the idea of silence in actions. The silence is outside; the narrator does not express any

of his feelings. But in the context, the narrator wanders from the expression on the woman’s face

to an inner voice restricting his action, which shows the conflict of suppressing his inner self and

acting powerful on the outside. The contradiction is discussed in Magistrale and Morrison’s

article, Intro to Dark Night’s Dreaming. They imply, “Horror art is the existence of a being that

emerges to disrupt the personal relationships with the status quo” (Magistrale and Morrison). The

personal relationship is “the other place” and where the protagonist believes he is. And the

disruption of his power and his relationships conversely becomes a coexistence. Gaitskill

provides the disruption of the contrast within himself to deeply discuss the power of his silence

that enforces the two “places” to emerge.

The silence is a vital transformation of the speaker and his desire deeply buried in his

mind. The desire appeared in the mundane world triggers actions, but the desire extensively

hidden is the one causing pain to a person. In The Other Place, Gaitskill alternates the narrator’s
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background story with his attitude to show the contrast and obstacles, but what lies beneath the

scenes is the notion of desire and pain. They seem separated but interconnected. From the

narrator’s abusive parents and abnormal childhood to his family he cherishes the most, the

protagonist buries his desire, but in the meantime he lets desire irrigate his painful memories

through time. The double pain of the protagonist gathers readers’ sympathy but simultaneously

offers them contradictory horror to show the power of his desire. In Deborah Treisman’s “Mary

Gaitskill on ‘The Other Place’”, Gaitskill mentions that “it’s a story about a delicate soul

carrying around something that is much too big and kinetic for him, but that he’s stuck with, that

won’t leave him alone” (Treisman). Desire devours the protagonist, but as the narrator finds a

substitute, which is his family, it soothes the desire and eventually crawls back to his deep mind.

Although it does not mean his desire vanishes, the protagonist accepts the existence without

destroying the social norms he abides by. The coexistence leads the readers to the art-horror

realm and discovers the nostalgic pain that lives inside people’s hearts.
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Works Cited

Bonn, Scott. “Why We Are Drawn to True Crime Shows”. TIME, January 8, 2016.

Carroll, N. "The Nature of Horror"The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Vol. 46, No.1

(Autumn, 1987), pp. 51-59.

Gaitskill, Mary. “The Other Place.” The New Yorker, February 14 & 21, 2011.

Lovecraft, Howard P. (1999) [1924]. "The Shunned House". In S. T. Joshi and Peter Cannon

(eds.). More Annotated Lovecraft (1st ed.). New York City, NY: Dell.

Magistrale, Tony and Morrison, Michael A. A Dark Night’s Dreaming. University of South

Carolina Press, March 31, 1996.

Treisman, Deborah. “Mary Gaitskill on "The Other Place".” The New Yorker, The New

Yorker, 18 June 2017.