[PREV - KYOKO_SUE]    [TOP]

BITER_BIT

                                             December 25, 2012

The "biter bit" story
(in which the biter is
later bit) was a                When I first read this phrase,
prominent, popular,             I thought it was "bitter bit".
story form, perhaps
a sub-genre.

As an example, take this episode of
the radio show "The Inner Sanctum",              http://archive.org/details/Inner_Sanctum_otr
from 1948: "Murder by Prophecy".                 http://archive.org/download/Inner_Sanctum_otr/Inner_Sanctum_-_480927_Murder_By_Prophecy.mp3
                                                 http://archive.org/download/Inner_Sanctum_otr/Inner_Sanctum_-_480927_Murder_By_Prophecy.ogg
A "lost heir" arrives to find his
inheritence is valueless, and yet there's
a possibility he may be able to trace an
ancestor's hidden treasure.  This ancestor
has left behind some amazingly prophetic
verses, one of which seems to describe the
viewpoint character, and it provides a
path he can follow to the treasure: it
requires murdering several people in
succession, which he immediately sets
about doing.  Then, following the last
clue of the prophecy, he does find the
treasure...  and ends up entombed with it:
he will die with the gold at his feet.

    As "stories" go, this isn't much of
    a story: it has no hero.  The main       Possibly, the "hero" is the
    character is foul, and his prophetic     nature of the universe:
    ancestor was if anything worse.          "Crime never pays", right?
    The main character is not even an
    "anti-hero", he does not have our
    sympathy in any way.


    There's an echo of the usual "problem
    and resolution" form, but only an
    echo: the main character figures out
    the clues, and makes the moves, but
    his "victory" is pointless.  It isn't      And there's very little
    actually a "tragic ending", either,        about the clues embedded in
    we feel no sense of loss because the       the verse that is at all
    main character loses, in fact we feel      clever: a "stone of great
    that this is justice triumphant.           price" turns out to be a
                                               woman named "Ruby", the
    But there's nothing enobling about         "four keys" turns out to be
    this conclusion: it's a pretty grim        a reference to a tomb for a
    business.  The biter is bit, the           family named Keys.
    killer is killed, the shit is
    shat upon.  We watch the inevitable
    play out to it's expected finish.



          The thing that's remarkable about this
          relatively pointless narrative is that
          it is not, for example, some sort of
          experimental, avant-garde work by a
          radical socialist intent on demonizing
          greed.

          This is an entry in a popular genre--
          stories like this were once rather
          common.
                                                     Inner Sanctum
              We are expected to enjoy               Suspense
              watching someone even
              nastier than ourselves come               E.C. Comics
              to a nasty end.  We're
              expected to appreciate the                The Warren magazines:
              ironic justice: the man                   "Tales from the Crypt"
              willing to kill for gold                  "Eerie"
              obtains it, but is killed
              doing it.
                                             NEO-IRONY

              And if it wasn't clear what
              we're supposed to think, with                 Could it be that
              "The Inner Sanctum", we have                  I'm obscuring the
              the thoroughly witless narrator               appeal of this form
              acting as jeer-leader.                        by choosing a minor
                                                            example?

                                                            H.G. Wells' "The
                                                            War of the Worlds"
                                                            has a similar
                                                            structure.




--------
[NEXT - BITING_BEYOND]