It always helps to start with a definition.
A romance, according to our dear old anthology, is “a narrative mode that employs exotic adventure and idealized emotion rather than realistic depiction of character and action…people, actions, and events are depicted more as we wish them to be (heroes are very brave, villains are very bad) rather than in the complex ways they usually are.”
Realism, on the other hand, is “an attempt to reproduce faithfully the surface appearance of life, especially that of ordinary people in everyday situations.”
Judging by this definition, it would appear that, when asked the question Is popular writing (romance) always more entertaining than “realistic” short stories? one would answer an emphatic YES, particularly when considering modern society’s growing preference toward sensationalism in film. Who wouldn’t want to read a story of heroism, intrigue, violence, adventure, sensuality and/or all of the above before that of the story of a day in the life of Joe Schmoe?
Well, I beg to differ. As favorably as I look upon a good sex scene I would argue that the literary techniques and the style employed by Ernest Hemingway in his realistic narrative “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” were more appealing than those utilized by Kate Chopin in her romance “The Storm.” Though it pains me to side with a depressive alcoholic before a “pave the way” feminist such as Ms. Chopin.
In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” Hemingway certainly doesn’t sugarcoat what is life’s ultimate realism: death. As is quintessential of realistic narrative the setting is a commonplace café (albeit clean and well-lighted, of course) in Spain circa the 1930s and the main characters are befitting the scene: two waiters (one older, one younger) and an older deaf gent (aka the customer). For the most part Hemingway utilizes a simple, unadorned dialogue between the two waiters to tell the story. The main topic of conversation is the old deaf customer who regularly remains at the café drinking far into the night after all the other customers have gone home to bed. The younger waiter begrudges the fact that the older customer consistently holds up closing: “He’ll stay all night,” the younger waiter says to his colleague. “I never get into bed before three o’clock. He should have killed himself last week” (Hemingway 143). From this statement, readers gain an appreciation of the younger waiter’s impatience and insensitivity, something Hemingway may be suggesting is not atypical of youth and inexperience. The older waiter appears much more aware of the plight of the older customer, identifying with the loneliness, depression and hopelessness that might lead one to attempt suicide. The café represents a sanctuary for both the older customer and the older waiter, a place for them to find solace and comfort, a place to escape feelings of desolation, which are most prevalent in the late night hours; “This is a clean and pleasant café. It is well-lighted. The light is very good…” (Hemingway 144). At home, both aged men would be lying in bed alone, darkly contemplating their own mortality, whereas the younger waiter goes home to sleep soundly next to his equally youthful wife. Clearly Hemingway is emphasizing matters of unavoidable truth, as realism so often does: aging and ultimately death are human conditions that are inevitably faced alone. The absoluteness of this message is evident also in the fact that readers never learn the names of the three main characters; by not giving his characters names Hemingway seems to suggest this theme applies universally. Hemingway offers no idealizations about life, as might be the case in a romantic text. The older customer and the older waiter are forced (symbolically perhaps by the younger waiter) to go home, resigned to their loneliness. “Now without thinking further he [the older waiter] would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it” (Hemingway 145). The emotion in this piece is raw and intense, effectively expressed to the readers through simple dialogue (both externally between the waiters and internally within the thoughts of the older waiter) and through a few instances of short first-person narration—no extravagance or exaggeration required. Though the seemingly ordinary setting, plot and characters in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” may be far from romanticized, its relatable and thought-provoking themes provide, in my mind, an intensely entertaining story.
Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” ends on a much cheerier note, as incongruous as that might seem in a story about an adulterous affair. Alls well that ends well for the straying wife, Calixta, her cuckold of a husband, Bobinot, the debonair neighbor and paramour, Alcee, and his newly (and happily) independent spouse, Clarisse. Even Bibi, Calixta and Bibinot’s four-year-old son, maintains his youthful purity in the end, untainted by adult melodrama. Such is a romance, often written in a charmingly poetic style and filled with exaggerated emotion heedless of practicality. Calixta and Alcee’s affair begins during a torrential storm. Alcee is obliged to seek cover in Calixta’s home while, as fate would have it, her husband and son are kept away, waiting out the pouring rain at the local market. Chopin arranges the ideal scenario for a lovers’ tryst and describes the passionate encounter in overly dramatic and drawn-out detail: “Her firm, elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life of the world…When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life’s mystery” (Chopin 110). Unlike Hemingway’s “less is more” style of writing, Chopin goes on at great length, utilizing seemingly endless amounts of figurative language to say the two had sex. This is in line with romantic writing; it seems to thrust the reader into the unquestionably passionate scene, no doubt far from an ordinary rainy afternoon. Then as the clouds part, so do the lovers, and with the return of the sun their lives are set back on course, albeit a little more blissfully: “Calixta, on the gallery, watched Alcee ride away. He turned and smiled at her with a beaming face; and she lifted her pretty chin in the air and laughed aloud” (Chopin 111). The day ends well for Bobinot, too, for despite his fears, Calixta does not scold him for returning their son, Bibi, home a muddy mess; in fact she joyously greets their return, pleased just to know they emerged unscathed from the storm. The assumption here is that Calixta’s newly forgiving disposition is evidence of her guilt over the affair, but no negative repercussions befall our lovely protagonist; the day ends happily over a scrumptious family dinner. Alcee also finds happily ever after; his wife, Clarisse, who is away with the children in Biloxi, is most agreeable to his suggestion that she extend her holiday. Clarisse is relishing her newly found independence and is in no rush to return home: “Devoted as she was to her husband, their intimate conjugal life was something which she was more then willing to forgo for a while” (Chopin 111). Clearly, this is a perfect ending for all the characters involved, but it is by no means realistic: “So the storm passed and everyone was happy” (Chopin 111). Life rarely works out so seamlessly, but that is what romantic authors such as Chopin mean to offer readers, an escape into an extraordinary and idealized story-book world. Implicit in this literature is the notion that we get enough of the complex in our real lives; why read about the same in fiction? Entertainment is not always about what’s grand, however; more often it’s about what readers (or viewers in the case of film) can identify with most. While Ms. Chopin’s language is elegant and sophisticated, pleasing to the ear, I’d rather read Hemingway’s plainer and more cryptic narrative if in interpreting his text, I am illuminated to truths about myself and about the world around me.
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