POETICS

ELSEVIER Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113

The paradox of suspense

Juan A. Prieto-Pablos*
Department of English Literature, Faculty of Philology,
University of Seville, 41004 Seville, Spain

Abstract

The conditions of suspenseful re-reading have always been a controversial topic of discus-
sion. In two very recent essays, suspenseful re-reading has been described as a paradox. The
object of this paper is to revise current definitions of suspense and describe the various levels
of emotional response it can elicit: emotions or feelings caused by uncertainty, by the read-
ers' construction of resolution hypotheses and their various degrees of certainty, by their ide-
ological involvement with textual values, by their expectations of gratification and relief.
Then, it goes on to explain how each of these responses operates under different conditions
of re-reading. All this may help, not to solve the paradox of suspense, but to clarify the terms
upon which the debate has been based until now.

I. Introduction

The title of this article has been used very recently by two critics in their discus-
sion of one of the most controversial questions in the study of suspense. Does one
feel suspense when re-reading or re-viewing suspense narrative? For Carroll (1996),
the answer is an undoubted 'yes'; for Yanal (1996), a rather more complex 'no'.
The divergence in their replies would seem to intensify the paradox of the phenom-
enon under discussion. Not only is suspenseful re-reading seemingly impossible; the
divergence could even lead us to wonder if these two critics are in fact referring to
the same phenomenon. The object of this paper is to revise current definitions of
suspense, in order to ascertain the existence of a series of hitherto not fully recog-
nized features which might allow us to better explain the paradox of suspenseful
re-reading.

1 would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this paper for their thorough reading of the text
and for offering their very helpful comments and suggestions, which not only were incorporated into the
article but also opened up further paths of research on the topic of suspense.
* E-mail: ppablos@cica.es

0 3 0 4 - 4 2 2 X / 9 8 / $ - see front matter © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
SSDI 0 3 0 4 - 4 2 2 X ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 1 4 - X
100 J.A, Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113

2. T o w a r d s a definition of suspense

2.1. Uncertainty and anxiety

Suspense has commonly been defined as the emotional state provoked by the
uncertainty of an expected outcome (Cuddon, 1991 ; The Random House dictionary
of the English language, 1987). The processes at work are various and, I would add,
extremely subtle. The initial source lies in the author or speaker. In narrative, the
word 'suspense' has been applied to the resource consisting in delaying or postpon-
ing (and, to a certain extent, concealing) ~ the outcome of a certain action or situa-
tion; in this sense it is equivalent to the traditional rhetorical figure of suspension.
The state of uncertainty is a receptive response to that delay. Yet there are at least
two activities at work in this state: the cognitive recognition of a gap in the infor-
mation provided, which hinders the reader's full comprehension of the message
expressed by the author; and the emotional anxiety provoked by this gap. This anx-
iety may in turn be expressed throughout a number of physiological signs such as
increase in sweat or rhythm of heartbeats - the only signs that allow empiricists to
measure the physical occurrence of responses to suspense (Zillmann et al., 1975; for
a description of neuropsychological responses, see Miall, 1995).
The reasons of the connection between the cognitive and the emotional response
should be sought in psychological processes. As recipients of a verbal message, we
expect it to be transmitted promptly and clearly, in accordance with the principles of
conversational cooperation outlined by Grice (1975); if the message is to be of a cer-
tain length, we expect to be given a summary or abstract with the essential pieces of
information, so that we can put all the pieces in the rest of the message together
(Olson et al., 1981). Underlying these practices or expectations, there is a basic need
to control the conditions of the transmission and reception of information. 2 The kind
o f delay or concealment of information featured in suspense texts challenges this
basic need and naturally produces anxiety. This connection would help explain why
anxiety increases proportionally to the rate of loss of control, i.e. to the degree of
uncertainty. I would say that this is the basis of the first and most basic type of sus-
pense, the one outlined in many definitions of the concept.

2.2. Anticipation and tension

There is, however, a second type of suspense, which is the consequence of our
cognitive response to conditions of uncertainty. In standard definitions it is sug-
gested that readers merely wait until the resolution is provided by the author (e.g.,

Concealment is the main feature of suspense as viewed by critics such as Barthes in his description
of the hermeneutic code (1990 [1970], also 1977).
z This need to remain in control is not unlike the one described by Freud in his analysis of the game of
'fort-da', in that control or possession of the object of the game generates gratifying affect and loss of
control produces discomfort and anxiety (see Freud, 1955; for an application of Freud's theory to the
analysis of literary response, see Holland, 1968; and Porter, 1981, esp. 101-103; for a discussion of the
impact of loss of control, see Grossvogel, 1979).
 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113 101

Rabkin, 1973; also Carroll, 1990: 137). Emotional tension would increase due to our
impatience and eagerness to be given that resolution, while our cognitive state of
uncertainty would remain unaltered, triggering that emotional tension. This view has
been altered in more recent studies, in which it is implicitly or explicitly accepted
that emotional tension is caused by the readers' lack of certainty regarding a number
of foreseeable outcomes, i.e. outcomes anticipated or expected .by the readers. It
would seem that the number must not be very high. Koch (1985) asserts that sus-
pense weakens in direct proportion to the number of possible options (see also Zill-
mann et al., 1975; Jose and Brewer, 1984). Carroll (1990, 1996) believes that it
should be reduced to as few as two, as he formulates the conditions of suspense in
terms of a straight yes/no question regarding an action that would lead to the future
outcome of a situation (as in 'Will the victim escape from the villain?').
In my opinion, that kind of question is only the backdrop for the production of
other, more intriguing activities and their corresponding questions. Some readers
might indeed limit their participation to merely waiting or asking Carroll's basic
question; but the common reader of suspense seems to engage in more elaborate
activities. When confronted with a situation such as the one outlined above, readers
proceed by actively looking for means that allow them to regain control over the
flow of information. This activity is justified not only by the natural need to avoid
loss of control, but above all by the conventional formulation of suspense conditions
in such a way that it leads readers to assume that they have or can find the means to
resolve the suspense by themselves, before the author does so explicitly.
To a very great extent, the conditions of narrative suspense are similar to those in
which students find themselves when prompted by the teacher to respond to a ques-
tion. The students' emotional state will be determined by their awareness of the fact
that they are expected to provide an answer because they are also expected to have
either the information that the question requires, or the background information that
leads to that answer. The teacher must have provided the necessary contextual infor-
mation, both in class lectures and in references to textual sources which the students
must have studied; the teacher may also offer clues and hints in order to activate the
pieces of information the students need. But these clues will not help if they do not
have that information, or if they are not capable of producing an acceptable answer.
Their anxiety will grow in direct proportion to their lack of control over the sitt~ation.
Likewise, in narrative communication, the author may leave information gaps in
the text; but he must also provide clues that allow the readers to avoid the discomfort
of their lack of knowledge and make them feel prompted to fill these gaps. The
author's activity need not be fully deliberate; as Iser (1974; 1989 [1971]: 3-30) has
explained, indeterminacy is a natural feature of narrative. In what is commonly
known as 'suspense' fiction, however, it is part of the author's requirements to work
on the basis of that premise and offer information which can indirectly be used by the
readers to fill in these indeterminate gaps (see Burack, 1967). These clues lead them
to look for extratextual information, mainly located in the readers' knowledge of
applicable genre conventions and approximate real-life situations; and also for intra-
texual information, provided within the narrative itself, anaphorically or cataphori-
cally. The process is relatively complex. Readers must first become aware of the lack
102 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113

of information; they must also be able to identify the clues; and then they must acti-
vate their memory banks to find situational correlates, recuperate information already
processed in their reading of the text or look for further intratextual information
which may suit their needs; and, finally, they must produce a substantially coherent
hypothesis to fill the gap. It is nonetheless a process which has become automatised
since the very earliest stages of our reading experiences. To use a current term, it has
become one of multiple possible cognitive schemas or templates activated during the
reading process (Bordwell, 1985: 34--36, 1989; Gerrig, 1993).
It is beyond the scope of this paper to include a description of the basic principles
of cognitive theory (for brief descriptions of schema theory, see Rumelhart, 1984;
Brewer and Nakamura, 1984; for a more substantial one, Fiske and Taylor, 1991).
However, one of its more interesting notions is that schemata are dynamically
related with experience: they can both determine the reader's experience of reality
and be determined by it. As a consequence, they may vary considerably from person
to person, and also according to the range of each person's experiences. This would
explain why responses to specific suspenseful situations may vary; and also why the
range of responses is nevertheless common to a majority of readers.
Among these common responses is the production of the kind of gap-filling
hypotheses which occur in suspense narrative. The general process of gap-filling had
already been discussed by Iser (1974, 1989 [1971]); it was retaken and expanded by
Sternberg (1978) and analysed empirically by researchers such as Olson et al. (1981).
In the words of Sternberg, "[a] literary text may be conceived of as a dynamic system
of gaps ... that have to be filled in by the reader through the construction of hypothe-
ses, in the light of which the various components of the work are accounted for,
linked and brought into pattern" (1978: 50). As a consequence, as Wulff (1996: !)
strongly asserts: "There is no experience of suspense without anticipation!"
If we accept this approach, we must conclude that readers of suspense will not
restrain their participation to wondering if the heroine will be saved and merely wait-
ing for the outcome. To give a number of rather basic examples, based on different
contextual variables: if the potential victim is the heroine of a romance, the common
reader will assume that she will be saved, in spite of the odds against her, because
romance heroines end up marrying their hero; if the situation is located at the begin-
ning or the middle of the narrative, the reader's conviction will be even stronger,
because the narrative cannot go on without the heroine; and if on top of all that the
role of the heroine is played by a first-star Hollywood actress in a film, then the con-
viction will be absolute, because she would not have accepted to take a small part in
the film. In general, therefore, the questions we ask ourselves concern not whether
she will be saved, but how. And even then we might be able to pose a number of
probable hypotheses as to how the outcome will be (Sternberg, 1978: 242-246; see
also Gerrig, 1993: 72-89). 3

3 The range of assumptions undertakenby the readers is extremelywide. They are closely related to the
degree of familiarisation with these conventionsand may therefore vary from reader to reader. I believe
they become more and more automatic after every reading experience; but they may also be triggered at
a conscious level by the author, or even by the reader, when in need to respond to an unfamiliar sus-
penseful situation.
 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113 103

The hypotheses built up while reading need not be very stable. Miall (1995)
describes the process as a shuffling o f several possible options: as soon as we c o m e
across an unfinished situation or an unconcluded statement,

"[a] range of complementary but also contradictory responses [becomes] possible. While some of the
inferences that are made may be confirmed or disconfirmed quickly ... others may not be satisfied so
soon: the reader may need to keep in play several possible meanings that will have a bearing not only
on the outcome of the story ... but also on what it means (the point of the story, or its theme). The reader
must, in other words, assess the strength of the different implications ... in the light of subsequent evi-
dence, and decide which offer the best fit to the story as a whole." (Miall, 1995: 277-278)

Eventually, however, a specific hypothesis (or set of hypotheses) will acquire a

special kind of strength. The underlying question 'Will I prove right in expecting this
o u t c o m e ? ' is the cause of what I have called the second type o f suspense. The ten-
sion c o m m o n l y associated to suspense situations derives primarily from this activ-
ity. 4 Tension will grow in proportion to the strength of our commitment to the
hypotheses we elaborate during the time elapsed between the outbreak o f the sus-
pensive situation and its resolution, in our anticipation of the way or ways in which
this resolution may occur.

2.3. Emotional commitment

I find two basic kinds o f commitment (hence two sources of tension) in the read-
ers' relation with their own hypotheses. There is an emotional or affective commit-
ment, determined by the terms of the interaction between reader and author. It must
not be forgotten that the author is the one who finally provides the resolution to the
suspensive situation, therefore the one on w h o m we depend for the relief of our
uncertainty and tension. The communicative conditions implicit in the reception o f
suspense discourse require that we trust the author absolutely; we trust that he will
not cheat in the organization o f textual clues, nor in giving us the right solution to
our questions when the time comes (Prieto-Pablos, 1996: 9 6 - 9 7 ; for the writers'
perspective, see Burack, 1967, especially the contributions by Haycraft and Chan-
dler). The author is the ultimate control anchor, in the event that we lose track o f the
clues provided in the text and fail to elaborate any substantial or stable hypotheses.
In allowing the author to retain full control of the narrative, however, we also
assume that he will provide the sufficient amount of clues to allow us to produce our
own hypotheses. As we find that these hypotheses are confirmed by what we read,
our relief intensifies our affective relation with the author, because he has given us
- so to say - what we expected (this encounter with what we expect, hence with
what we know and are familiar, is the source of most of the pleasure we draw from
re-reading a text or re-viewing a film, and from situations such as watching serials

4 Beyond the fact that it is a standard term in the analysis of reader response to literature and art (see
O'Toole, 1992: 132-170; Kreitel and Kreitel, 1972:251-256), my choice of the word 'tension' here is
arbitrary, and justified only by my interest in distinguishing between the emotional response produced
by the first type of suspense (for which I used the term 'anxiety') and the one produced by hypothesis
building. As regards all other respects, tension and anxiety should be viewed as synonymous.
104 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113

and sitcoms). When the hypotheses are not confirmed, we simply assume that our
premises were mistaken. We are normally not upset by the failure, because we
expect the author's resolution to be more coherent and significant and hence better
than ours. 5 The kind of tension I mentioned above is largely provoked by either of
these conditions, as the elaboration of hypotheses may become a sort of contest of
wit in which pleasurable relief is always guaranteed: in one case, because we prove
to be clever enough to build up sound hypotheses out of the clues concealed in the
text and therefore prove ourselves to be in control of the narrative; in the other,
because we are awarded with an exciting, surprising, unexpected resolution. Tension
would thus build up as a consequence of our expectation of gratifying relief.
Already in 1967, Haycraft warned against the extreme consequences of what he
called 'the puzzle element', particularly in the genre of the detective novel: "This
conception of the genre as primarily a competitive contest tends to deprive it of its
literary entity and relegate it to the realm of mechanical puzzles, to its eventual stag-
nation" (1967: 65). I would, however, argue that the challenge of the puzzle alone is
not sufficient to boost the reader's emotional response; and it would be much less so
if the reader is bent on outsmarting the author: the kind of affective engagement I
described above would just not take place. Furthermore, this kind of suspenseful ten-
sion may not be strong enough unless it is intensified by the co-occurrence of what
I would call ideological commitment.

2.4. Ideological c o m m i t m e n t

The kind of tension caused by the readers' construction of hypotheses is often

linked with their commitment with specific ideological values, drawn from their
notions of what should and should not happen. In his analysis of viewers' response
to narrative film, Tan (1996) alludes to the "deep-rooted desire of the subject for
closure" which "forces the spectator to call up ideologically determined knowledge"
(1996: 21). According to Carroll (1996), this kind of knowledge emerges in the
shape of a specific system of moral qualifications (see also Smith, 1995); I person-
ally prefer a less restrictive category. The adjective 'ideological' seems to me to be
more appropriate. It should, however, be interpreted as referring to the general sys-
tem of values by which we conform our ideas and our behaviour; in its definition, I
find myself close to the one provided by cognitivists and their view of ideology as a
coherent cluster of schemata through which we interact with reality (see, e.g., Arbib
and Hess, 1986:131). Inasmuch as they are values, they conform an evaluative sys-
tem; but moral values are only a subsystem within this larger one.
The term 'moral' also seems to point out to the existence of a pre-existing evalu-
ative system, held by the readers in their dealings with every-day matters. But a

5 In my article of 1996, I try to explain the terms upon which 'more significant' should be based. A
higher degree of coherence is essential. The author's resolution should also be more exciting or more
surprising than we expected. But its main quality is that it should improve our comprehensionof what
the text is about and, if possible, of the author's representationof the world (see Culler, 1975; Brewer,
1980).
 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113 105

peculiarity of the kind of commitment undertaken by the readers during the process
of reading is that current, real-world values may have no bearing on our decisions
regarding what should and should not occur in the outcome of narrative situations.
While immersed in the process of reading, we may adopt ideological perspectives
which are determined not so much by our own value system, but by the one provided
in the text by its prevailing voice (the narrator, one of the characters), which in turn
is assumed to be a transposition of the author's. The same phenomenon has been
described by Murray Smith in his study of viewer's reponse to film characters, to
explain how viewers can sympathise with characters whom we would find morally
repugnant in real life: "We may find the idea of an 'innocent' reader or spectator,
taken literally, implausible. But something like a suspension of values must occur"
(1995: 189).
This suspension of values is, in principle, temporary; it lasts only for as long as
we watch a film or read a novel. According to Iser (1974: 293), it is also only a case
of partial, not of total, suspension. In the more conventional kinds of narrative, the
whole process of ideological suspension is, so to say, safeguarded by the belief that
the author resorts to values that either he already shares with his readers or do not
alter susbtantially the values held by them. Even if they do not share these values, it
is assumed that, after they finish reading, they can reactivate their own value system
and evaluate what has happened; then they may reject the ideological premises
offered in the text, if they do not want to make them part of their own. But, while
this may be the case in more conventional kinds of narrative, it is also true that films
are "continuously allocating to the viewer not only a physical view of the scene but
also an ideological position with respect to the reality being portrayed" (Tan, 1996:
21). Somehow, readers also expect to be persuaded by the author of a narrative text
into adopting the author's point of view after they finish reading; the expression of
one's view of reality is, after all, the essence of communication, and reading is
another means by which readers gather new experiences about reality (Iser, 1974:
29O).
In the fulfilment of this expectation, suspense can play an important role. Along-
side with their answers to how the resolution of a suspenseful situation may be
effected, readers produce answers to why this should or should not be so. They may
resort to their personal system of values to produce this answer; but most often they
are provided by the textually-determined values which they apply during their con-
struction of hypotheses. These values are so deeply embedded in their hypotheses,
that they may eventually be appropriated or be accepted as if they were part of their
own value system. Whatever the case, the pleasure that resulted from the encounter
with the familiar at the affective level can be triggered also by this ideological coin-
cidence, as the reader's appropriation of the text's ideological code reinforces "the
realization that one is part of a community rooted in one and the same worldview"
(McGuire, 1974: 189; see also Tan, 1996: 23; for a psychological perspective of the
gratification drawn by these activities, see McGuire, 1974).
In the process of reading, then, we develop criteria which allow us to discern
between what should and should not happen according to a specific value system.
This distinction is essential in order to make us care about what is going on in a sus-
 106 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113

penseful situation, i.e. to make us take a position as regards what is going to happen
in a story. As has been pointed out by Carroll (1984, 1996), suspense occurs when
the outcome of a specific situation involves a likely and yet undesirable alternative
but we hope for an unlikely and yet desirable resolution. 6 If our commitment with
what is desirable is weak, or if we have no clear desirable option, suspense will be
weak as well and we will probably lose interest in what we are being offered in the
narrative. It is therefore essential that the author of a text motivates the readers to
feel committed to a specific corpus of ideas and to reject others which stand either
as potential alternatives or as clear opposites to this corpus.
I am aware that the terms 'desirable' and 'undesirable' have been used here as vir-
tual synonyms of 'what should be' and 'what should not be'. I must confess I am not
confident with either these or any other possible lexical choices (e.g., Gerrig's
'hopes and preferences', 1993: 69-76, 1996), in that what I wish to define is a qual-
ity of values that readers apply subjectively and at times even irrationally or illogi-
cally. So, for example, in our response to the suspense situation prior to a tragic
drnouement (e.g., in Hamlet's fight with Laertes), we know that the protagonist will
die, also that he m u s t die, in application of the principles both of tragic resolution
and poetic justice, as he has committed at least one crime for which he must pay
with his life. We are probably familiar with these principles, and yet we do not want
him to die. Suspense is held as long as we can build up hypotheses which feature
him succeeding against the final obstacles - as long, therefore, as the author keeps
placing obstacles for him to overcome and postponing the fatal moment.
My definition of what should be and what should not be is based not so much on
logic, whether textually or extratextually dictated, but on the application of subjec-
tive preferences based on ideological values held by the reader and most probably
shared (at any rate promoted) by the author. It should be noted, incidentally, that the
essential element in this process is the value system itself. In narrative texts, these
values are embodied by the characters who participate in the situations in which
these values are put to the test of the readers' evaluation. Characters may well be
"the most integral factor in establishing the moral perspective of the action" (Car-
roll, 1984: 76); but they are merely the means used in narrative to foreground these
values: strictly speaking, we 'identify' - o r , on the contrary, we reject 'identifica-
tion' - not with the characters (i.e. not with the characters as persons) but with the
values they represent. 7 So, for example, we would not like to see the protagonist die

6 The odds between the desirable and the undesirable option have also been the subject of discussion.
Whereas Carroll (1990, 1996) and Brewer (1980) assert that the undesirable option must seem to be the
more probable one in order to trigger the readers' fears, Zillmann (1996) believes that the odds must be
equally shared by the two basic alternatives. According to the description of suspense offered here, the
discussion loses much of its relevance. What really matters is the extent of certainty in the readers' antic-
ipatory hypotheses.
7 The topic of identification has also been the object of much discussion (for a revision of the topic, see
Smith, 1995), at times has been qualified as well as a paradox (Yanal, 1994; Carroll, 1990: 8). It is also
a topic which is beyond the scope of this paper; but I believe that my description of the ideological
attachment produced during the reading process might help to explain how and why identification
occurs.
 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113 107

because he embodies a set of desirable values which we do not want to see defeated
by alternative, non-desirable values (often embodied by the villain or antagonist);
and we do not want to see them defeated because at some time during the reading
process we have either adopted them or have renewed our allegiance to them, and
consequently wish to see them upheld throughout the narrative.
The reader's attachment to (or detachment from) these values can be so intense,
that the emotional effects provoked by the outcome of suspense can continue even
after the reading process has concluded. We may be thrilled if a suspense situation is
resolved according to desirable criteria; but we may feel scared for a relati~cely long
time if the resolution does not coincide with what we thought should have happened.
If, for example, the monster of a horror film (the shark of Jaws, Dracula, the mon-
ster in the Alien tetralogy) is not destroyed at the end of the story, we may feel that
the undesirable values projected in that monster are, so to say, alive and threatening
us in the real world, as they had threatened the characters in the narrative (see Ger-
rig, 1993; Carroll, 1990; Smith, 1995). Fear, and the urge to look for means to antic-
ipate means to override the conditions (situational and ideological) that produce it,
are also important causes of the tension that readers feel in their relationship with
suspenseful texts.

3. Suspense and re-reading

We come, finally, to the question of the paradox which some critics find in re-
reading or re-viewing of suspense situations. Carroll attempts to solve it by assert-
ing that "[the] audience may not believe that the relevant outcome [of a suspense
situation] is uncertain or improbable but, nevertheless, the audience may entertain
the thought that the relevant outcome is uncertain or improbable" (1996: 87, my
italics). This is possible because "when confronting fictions, audiences are induced
into a special sort of psychological state that might be described in terms of self-
deception, denial or disavowal" (Carroll, 1996: 89). Carroll's explanation is only
punctually distinct from the view expressed by Walton in Mimesis as Make-Believe
(1990), where he asserts that what we experience in the reading of fiction are in fact
quasi-emotions caused by our make-belief that what we read is true. Carroll (1990:
68-86; 1996) discards this view of quasi-emotions, as he believes that they are real;
but he seems to agree, at least implicitly, on the issue concerning the nature of our
beliefs.
Yanal, on the other hand, chooses the seemingly more sensible yet more risky
option of denying the possibility of recidivist suspense. Both common sense and
empirical tests (Brewer, 1996; Brewer and Liechtenstein, 1981) show that there is
a strong reduction in suspense after first readings. It is tempting to agree with
Yanal on this point; and yet we must assume, at least, that Carroll is not lying
when he asserts that he could still "feel the irresistible tug of suspense" when he
watched King Kong for the fiftieth time (1996:71). We should try to find out what
kind of tug people like Carroll feel when they re-read or re-view suspenseful nar-
rative texts.
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3.1. Re-reading and emotions

I am bound to agree with Yanal that "the first-timer's experience [of suspense] is
likely to be different from the repeater's" (1996: 153); but I do not believe that "our
encounters and re-encounters with narratives are often emotionally different"
(Yanal, 1996: 153). I have tried to show that the experience of suspense entails a
number of activities with their corresponding emotional responses: we feel anxiety
regarding the uncertainty of the outcome; and we can also feel tension regarding,
firstly, our commitment with hypotheses regarding that outcome, and, secondly, our
commitment with ideological stances. And all these responses are combined with our
expectations of relief, when and after the outcome is provided. It is not clear to
which of them Carroll may be referring (there is a certain lack of precision in his use
of the word 'emotion' throughout his article). Carroll's emotions may be those asso-
ciated to the anticipation of relief of the outcome rather than to the anxiety or tension
that precede it: our re-encounter with that with which we are familiar (situations,
characters and, above all, values) may produce such a thrill that we can at times find
ourselves eagerly and even anxiously waiting for it to occur. However, this does not
mean that this is the only possible emotional response to recidivist suspense. I
merely believe it is the kind of response that would occur with higher frequency; at
least, it is the kind of response that re-experiencing suspense would normally pro-
voke in me - and I consider myself an ordinary reader of suspense (albeit somewhat
conditioned by my experiences as an academic). It would be possible to assume that
some, if not all of them, can recur in reexperiencing suspense. In trying to ascertain
the kind of emotional response (or responses) that recidivist suspense produces
before the outcome is provided, I would like to consider the stages I described
throughout section 2 above, alongside with the activities undertaken by the readers.
First, when readers come across a suspenseful situation, they engage in a series of
questions regarding its outcome. I said that we do not normally restrain our questions
to wondering whether or not the undesirable outcome will occur but, rather, we
focus them on the means by which the desirable outcome should be brought about.
It should be inferred from this that either no suspense or very little suspense would
come from the basic yes/no question, especially if we are repeaters or are in some
other way familiar with the story. 8 Where there is no uncertainty, there should be no
anxiety.
The situation may differ considerably as regards how-questions. The details which
would allow us to anticipate the answer as to how the outcome may occur are often
presented as clues or signs, hence not explicitly, and are relatively easy to forget. As
Yanal observes, "any bits missing from the reader's or viewer's memory are uncer-

8 The extent of readers' familiarity with stories has often been left aside in studies of suspense in con-
temporary narrative, whether in film or in written fiction. In studies of classic drama and epic it has nor-
mally been a matter of consideration, since readers and audiences were offered stories they already knew
about: see, e.g., the studies by Ohlander (1989) and Pratt (1939) on suspense in plays by Euripides and
Seneca; by Flint (1922) on the use of myth to create suspense; and Duckworth's (1933) very influential
analysis on foreshadowing in Homer and other epic poets. It is my belief that readers' foreknowledge of
narrative events should be the object of careful consideration in the analysis of suspense.
 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113 109

tainties capable of generating suspense" (1996: 156). The whole process of elabora-
tion of hypotheses and activation of value systems would proceed as usual, intensi-
fying the reader's or viewer's emotional output, at least until they begin to remem-
ber the details.
Yanal discards true repeaters, that is, readers who clearly remember all the events
in the narrative, from the list of readers who can feel suspense regarding how-ques-
tions. They could not possibly experience suspense, at least not any emotion that
requires uncertainty (Yanal, 1996: 157). He argues that if true repeaters experience
any kind of emotional response to suspenseful situation, their emotions must be of
another kind:

"When Janet Leigh's Marion enters that shower in Psycho, the true repeater might report that he is in
suspense over what happens, though we must take this as a prima facie misidentification of something
else: his apprehension for Marion's fate. When the true repeater once again views Sleepless in Seattle,
he might say he is in suspense over whether Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) will keep her rendezvous at the top
of the Empire State Building with Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks), though the truth is that our true repeater
is in a state of anticipation: he looks forward to the romantic satisfaction afforded by a scene he enjoys."
(Yanal, 1996: 157)

I believe that Yanal may be wrong in defining these or other responses as non-sus-
penseful. They correspond to modes of response which are intrinsic to reading nar-
rative, therefore they are not exclusive of suspenseful situations. Yet I would like to
contend that the key to Yanal's misinterpretation (indeed, to many other restrictive
descriptions of suspense) lies in viewing suspense as a circumstantial phenomenon
in the processes of response to narrative, when suspense is consubstantial to narra-
tive itself: in Sternberg's words, as temporal delay is an essential part of the narra-
tive presentation of events, so suspense (and curiosity) constitute "perhaps the most
propulsive forces a storyteller can rely on" (1978: 49). I would contend as well that
not only the kind of response associated to uncertainty, but all the kinds of response
I have described in this paper, belong to - or at least participate in - the phenome-
non of suspense. The anxiety of uncertainty should be considered only as the trig-
gering or activating device in the production of the rest of emotional and ideological
responses. Therefore, it would still be possible to feel the emotions attached to our
ideological engagement with either the progress of the events or the values repre-
sented by a character. All threats to the corpus of ideas we find desirable and conse-
quently want to see upheld are bound to elicit an amount of tension, even when we
know or anticipate that these threats will not be fulfilled. In this type of situations,
repetition is not significantly different from our first encounter: we will still want
Hamlet not to die, regardless of the times we may have seen or read the play.

3.2. Expectation o f uniqueness

Hamlet's fate serves as a good illustration of yet another - the final - option,
which Yanal discards as well but has been supported by Gerrig both empirically and
theoretically. Gerrig rejects the notion of a paradox of suspense; rather, he believes
there are cases of 'anomalous suspense', when fiction can be reexperienced due to
110 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113

the activation of what he calls 'expectation of uniqueness' (1989a,b). "Anomalous

suspense does not rely on an accidental retrieval failure", he asserts in a reply to
Yanal: "[we] do not normally experience literal repetitions of outcomes, therefore
our memory processes are not prepared to automatically search for repetitions"
(1997: 172), and we consequently expect a unique outcome regardless of the cir-
cumstances in which we find ourselves in respect to the narrative events.
The expectation of uniqueness is a somewhat puzzling phenomenon. Gerrig
(1993: 174; 1996: 103) believes that it ought to be the default in the re-experience
of suspense; but it is obvious that it is not, to the extent that its occurrence is
described as anomalous. In Experiencing narrative worlds (1993), Gerrig had tried
to solve the puzzle by referring to experiments on auditory stimuli; and in a more
recent article (1996) he has tried to explain it on the basis of "the readers' attention
being riveted to the unfolding of the story on a moment-to-moment basis" (1996:
103). In his reply to Yanal he chooses a simpler and more attractive explanation.
This cognitive mechanism would be activated above all when we have expectations
of pleasurable relief: "What remains anomalous about suspense is the steadfastness
with which our memory processes do nothing to ruin our fun", he concludes (Ger-
rig, 1997: 173). It might be possible to assume, then, that the expectation of unique-
ness lies dormant by default, but activates when the prospect of pleasurable gratifi-
cation is particularly intense. The essential condition for this rather paradoxical
situation is that a narrative must have been enjoyed so much, that the reader
'decides' to forget that he has read it (or rather, to forget what happened while read-
ing) in order to enjoy it again. The reader's prior knowledge of the narrative is auto-
matically restricted to such an extent that all anticipation of whatever possible sus-
penseful outcomes is 'erased' as well; the level of the simple questions described by
Carroll in his analysis of suspense would then be accessed by the reader's mind. But
I believe this would occur only under very exceptional circumstances; otherwise we
might have to picture the image of a reader who chooses to deactivate all cognitive
activities connected to ordinary reading processes for the sake of a boost in the emo-
tional responses.

3.3. Expectation of variation

Hamlet's fate and Gerrig's concept of anomalous suspense can provide the theo-
retical and illustrative basis for a hypothesis that may complement Gerrig's theory. I
would suggest that suspense occurs even when we see the play for the umpteenth
time because we activate our expectation of variation. Whether this expectation is
another facet of Gerrig's expectation of uniqueness, or another kind, I would not
dare to say; it is a concept that I offer tentatively, and it must be submitted to thor-
ough testing before it is sufficiently outlined. However, the expectation of variation
seems to be particularly apt to explain our response to literary narratives, especially
to plays and to whatever kind of adaptation of a known story readers may be offered.
When we confront Hamlet's fate during the performance of a play, we know what is
going to happen, out of our own experience of what happens in tragedies and our
previous acquaintances with performances of the play; what we do not know is
 J.A. Prieto-Pablos / Poetics 26 (1998) 99-113 111

whether a minute but sufficiently significant variation will be introduced which

would change the ideological schemata in which we had located the story. Because
those variations are not likely to occur, we value their occurrence especially; and our
experience of the performance is s o m e h o w conditioned by the expectation o f such an
occurrence. This situation would also apply to other tested cases of recidivist sus-
pense, such as the children's response to well-known stories (Walton, 1990). For
children, the potential of variation is particularly intense, perhaps because they are
still not used to dissociate what they desire from the propositional contents o f the
stories. But, and here lies the ultimate paradox, the expectation is also activated,
albeit to a much more limited extent, in re-reading written suspense and re-viewing
films, where no variation is possible. I should assume that this would happen when-
ever the force o f our commitment with desirable values overcomes our awareness o f
the events, but so far I can only present this as a very personal (and untested)
hypothesis.

4. Conclusion

To conclude, I have tried to describe the various kinds of emotional response that
can be ascertained in the experience of narrative suspense, from the most basic anx-
iety o f uncertainty to the more subtle kinds o f tension provoked by the readers' ide-
ological involvement. They can all co-occur while reading suspended situations;
indeed, it ought to be assumed that they need to co-occur if we need to explain the
most intense kinds o f response. But it is also possible to assume that, as experiences
differ, so do some of these emotional responses vary in kind and intensity. The para-
dox o f suspense, though not solved, can be explained if we take into consideration
this potential variability.

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Juan A. Prieto Pablos is Senior Lecturer at the Department of English, University of Seville, Spain,
where he teaches courses on Renaissance Literature and Discourse Analysis. He is co-editor of Stylistica,
a journal of cultural stylistics, and co-author of The ways of the word, a handbook on reading and the
anlysis of literary texts. He is currently engaged in research on audience response in Renaissance drama.