Commentary on The Shout Essay

Unvisible things make us think

The aim of this essay is to analyse the short story The Shout by Robert Graves. I am going to interpret this story by the understanding of my own, pay attention to esoterical aspect, and compare it with other similar stories. In the same way this essay is going to deal with the question of self-identity.

First, reading The Shout, it is important to not to lost in ones thoughts because the message this story brings is quite complicated and thinking about else would just make the sense of the whole story abstruse. Although, the content is really abstruse being absorbed in the story helps to understand it a bit better. The point I am trying to understand the most is wheather Charles (one of the protagonists who knows the magic shout which took him eighteen years to perfect it and yet I have used it, in all, no more than five times) really knew the couple (Rachel and Richard) and the story in his mind was about them or he just used them as replacements of his own identities and the whole story was only about Charles. Here comes into view the question of self-identity. I believe Charles was really a man of unusual force, even perhaps, of occult powers as that kind of version appears at the beginning of the story. And, as he was also a patient in asylum, the second version of mine (that the story he is telling is all about himself) seems to be more valid. At the end of The Shout Rachel tells that they (she and Richard) knew Charles only as the Australian Illusionist, so things happening in the story could not be true in the real life with these real people; in such case Rachel and Richard would have known Charles better than just illusionist, and one particularly striking aspect of it is that Charles was telling that he had dinner at them and he even pass the night at them.

If we look at the question of Charles is telling story about himself more closely, we can notice one mistake: he tells He (Richard) felt very weak and sick. [..] He began to think about shoe-making. [..] Then he saw Charles on a sand hill a hundred yards away.. If the story was true, Charles could never know HOW Richard was feeling and WHAT he was thinking because they never spoke about it and he was far away from Richard, so he could not even guess what was on his mind. This makes me testify that Charles really had problem of self-identity (and that is why he was in asylum). On the other hand, before starting telling his story, Crossley said that he sometimes vary the climax and even recast the characters to keep the story fresh and therefore true. What if the story is really true and this time he just used as actors Rachel and Richard from Lampton? As it is a story, he makes something up to the facts that maybe are real. But again, when Richard was looking for a stone of his soul (what a simile stones are souls. [..] but there may be more sense in a stone, more sensibility, more sensitivity, more sentiment, more sensibleness, than in many men and women. And no less sensuality.) he found it near Charles and, instead of knocking the Charles soul, he cracked his owns and it split in four pieces. Meanwhile, one of the Charles delusion was that his soul is split in pieces. To my mind of thinking, this shows there should be no doubts anymore that Richard is Charles himself and he was the one who had cracked his own soul. As I mentioned before, everything leads to verity that Charles had really some problems with self-identity. He believed that his story is true for sure. It is true. It is true as Rachel and Richard is Charles himself; as Charles is the one who shouts at himself, who breaks his soul in pieces, who cries when he realises that he does not love himself anymore (interpreted by situation where Charles replaces Richard near Rachel), and he starts to hate himself (which is expressed by Rachels hate to Richard).

There is, however, another vital element in the discussion about The Shout and it is the esoteric element. The author, Robert Graves, with this story has touched the occult horror style. He has achieved an impression by describing the terrible shout as a shout of pure evil. [..] It is pure terror. where reader finds his or her heart beating a bit faster, adrenaline level increasing. The fear that Richard is feeling makes the reader fear to. Author deals with an element that cannot be seen (except, the face Charles takes when he is about to shout Charles leaned forward oddly, his chin thrust out, his teeth bared. [..] Charles face, that was usually soft and changing, uncertain as a cloud, now hardened to a rough stone mask, dead white at first, and then flushing outwards from the cheek bones red and redder, and at last as black as if he were about to choke. and that is usually the most frightening to fear from the unknown.

In this connection, it reminds me of other similar works. For example, The Double Shadow by Clark Ashton Smith where incomprehensible shadow follows the disciple and he feels freezing fear. Another example that flashed into my mind is the film called Blair Witch Project. In this film youth are into wood and they are ineffably scared from the unknown that hides in the dark farther away from their fireplace. It is like with The Shout. Richard knew it was something scaring and his breath came in gasps, his heart beat violently and he nearly vomited before he even had heard the shout.

If we return for a moment to the subject of esoteric element, in my opinion, the most mysterious is the end. Ok, Charles could notice that thunderstorm is coming and when he spoke to God (Oh dear God, hell shout at me again. Crossley will. Hell freeze my marrow.) he could manage the effect by connecting it with the coming thunder, but how come that lightning flashed exactly when Charles started to shout? Concurrence? If so, then why doctor, who was together with Charles, had his hands to his ears? Nobody could understand this because death had been instantaneous, and the doctor was not a man to stop his ears against thunder. It is a mystery. And I am afraid that all of my explanations of that would not be successful.

To sum up, maybe there are things we should not try to explain or maybe we are not just ready to explain them. There are a lot of people whose consciousnesses are not opened to mysteries. But that does not mean that mysteries are not opened to us. There are a lot of things we cannot see; there are a lot of people with powers we cannot see; there is a whole world we cannot see. How can I know that we cannot see, not do not see? Because something tells me our world is not as simple as physicists try to make it. There always will be things of not understanding. To make us think. To make us try to find out.