Student Zone

In the story “The Man in the Black Suit” a man desperately writes with a shaky hand in a diary given to him by a granddaughter whose name that he can’t quite remember a tale that he can’t quite ever forget. The tale is of him, as a nine year old boy in 1914, going fishing by himself and meeting what appears to be the devil.

From the start the story foreshadows that something bad is to come: his parents are constantly worrying, making him promise not to go “beyond where it (the woods) splits.” Also, the way his mother says goodbye to him and how he remembers it as if she looked like “a photograph of someone who later became unhappy or suddenly died.” These both seem to initiate the idea in the reader’s mind that the boy is about to step deep into a forest of trouble.

The boy, Gary , is napping by the river, having caught the biggest fish he had ever caught when he wakes up with a bee on his nose. This is especially significant because the boy had lost his brother Dan when he had an allergic reaction to the bee sting. The bee falls off the boy’s nose, dead, just as the boy notices a dark figure hovering over him. He immediately wets himself when he sees a man in a “fine black suit” who smelled like “burned matches” or “sulfur.” The man has orange gleaming eyes and yellow clawed nails, and the boy says to himself that this is the devil. The man laughs and tells him that his mother is dead, stung by a bee just like his brother and says he is hungry and wants to eat the boy.

The man in the black suit eats the fish the boy caught and chases him with red tears flowing down his cheeks and real tears flowing down Gary’s cheeks, chasing him all the way out of the woods until Gary falls into the arms of his father. It turns out the mother is fine which makes the story seem like something the boy just dreamt until him and his father return to the woods and find the grass yellow and dead where the man in the black suit had been.

One interesting thing about this story, in relation to puritan times and modern times, is the fact that the mother seems to be the target in this story. She had stopped attending church when she got in a fight with Mama Sweet about Dan’s real cause of death. She was so mad that she thought if she ever saw the woman again she would rip her eyes out. Her stopping attending church seems like, in a small town like theirs, something that could be quite controversial and rebellious and foreboding of the future of America and the change in the American belief system.

Perhaps this is why the “devil” targeted the mother and said she was dead. And that is why, after the incident, the father insisted a few months later that the family return to church.

Question: was there some sort of significance when about the dog licking up the mother’s tears? I thought there might be something more to that….

The narrator of Stephen King’s “The Man in the Black Suit” (Gary) is in his nineties and he is recalling a memory from when he was nine years old. He is a columnist and found that writing was his ‘freedom.’ He wants to tell this story because it is almost human nature to pass on the advice of life and death and tell another person. As humans, we instinctively have to pass it along. Which can be parallel in comparison of a person reading someone’s diary. He feels that if he couldn’t write his thoughts down it would slowly fade into oblivion. After a brief description of his hometown, continue on to the story of the day that changed his life. As Gary gets older, the memory of the incident keeps glowing brighter, leaving behind this crystal clear recollection. He decides to go fishing a couple of miles away from his house. He slowly dozed off and woke up to encounter this menacing figure in black garb.
He realizes that this is no other than the Devil himself because of the stench of sulfur and that terrorizing claw. The Devil proposes that his mother had also died due an allergic reaction to a bee sting, which was also the fate that ended his brother, Dan’s life. Gary believes that the Devil is lying. The Devil threatens to eat Gary because he had this hunger; Gary grabs a fish that he had caught earlier out of his creel and tossed it to the Devil. Gary seizes this opportunity to flee towards home. He finds that his mother is still alive and returns to the stream with his father. Gary sees evidence of the burned grass and his father suggests that they leave the premises. They return home and kept whatever they had encounter to themselves.
I took English 243 at UIC, which is “The Beginnings of American Literature to the 19th Century.” Professor Holland lectured us on the Puritans. The Puritans were very strict about their religion. They believed in Pre-Destination which means that a soul could be saved by their faith to God and that some are elected (determined to be saved) and some are reprobate (condemned). The Puritans have a desire to be in communion with God. They also believe that they are soldiers against Satan. Some of this resonates the “puritanistic” perspective King uses in the story. Gary went face to face with the Devil and called him a ‘lying bastard.” On page 51, Gary states that his church schooling has taught his not to believe the Devil because he is the ‘father of lies.’ One other example is when the Devil says, “Murdered souls always go to heaven” that connotes these religious views and their education. By the end of the story Gary has found his faith in God when he persuaded his mom to go church that summer.
People have a fear of the unknown. The unknown can be characterized as the darkness. The feeling of not knowing what could happen can be unnerving. The fact that evil is lurking everywhere and one does not know when it will strike can make one think twice about their options. Like the ending of the story, the evil came for Gary before and he managed to escape, now it is inescapable because he old and has very limited mobility. He fears that the dark will be able to catch up with him.

Stephen King's "The Man In The Black Suit" is set in 1914, in an small town where life was simple and isolated. The story is actually being told from the present time by a man name Gary who was looking back on an incident that happened when he was nine years old. He hadn't told anyone what had happened on that day until now. Gary lived with his family; his mother, father, their dog, and before last summer his brother Danny who died of a bee sting. The family is tight-knit and pretty religous. Gary went off fishing one day a few miles away from home. After a while Gary started to doze off next to the stream, and when he woke up he saw a big bee on his nose. He didn't physically panic, but inside he was freaking out. Then he heard a big clap and the bee fell dead. When he looked behind him he saw a tall, skinny, pale man with eyes like fire in a three piece black suit. Almost immediatley Gary knew he was the devil. Too Afraid to run Gary was approached by the man and he told Gary that his mother was dead. He then told Gary that he was really hungry and that he was going to eat him, so Gary threw one of his fish at him and began to run off for miles untill he finally reached his father. Gary told his dad about the man but not that he was the devil, Gary didnt think his dad would believe him. His father told Gary that his mother was alright. Gary had left his fishing stuff by the river so him and his father went back and when they got there Gary's father could feel something evil in the area and they had a somewhat unspoken understanding.

COMMENTARY:

This story was well written, it gave you a clear understanding of the setting and then began to dig you in. King did a fabulous job of describing the man in the black suit, he didnt miss anything. By the time the story was over I knew exactly what the man in the black suit looked, sounded and felt like. It was also one of those stories that actually made you feel emotions toward the characters. I hated/feared the man in the black suit, and I sympathised with Gary. I enjoyed reading this piece of writing.

A little boy sees the Devil, who turns out to be a man in a smart black suit with glowing orange eyes. This Devil tells him his mother is dead. Strangely enough (or not strangely at all), this is the boy's worst fear. Mr. Devil kills a bee off of the boy's nose, eats the boy's fish by opening his mouth like a shark, does everything in his power to freak the hell out of this poor kid.

When he finally runs away, the fisherboy runs into his father who tells him that his mother is alive. They go home, see her, and realize she is shelling peas, not dead at all. The father and son go back to where the Devil was. All that is left of his appearance is a few burnt spots in the grass (that also smell like sulfur) and a marked absence of any fish in the boy's creel.

I remember reading Hawthorne's story when I was in high school. I also enjoyed this version, though I usually hate King's short stories (since they're not short at all).

Sometimes I wonder about the Puritans who believed this nonsense about the Devil coming down (should that be up?) just to freak a person out for no reason at all.

Then again, Puritans are people who believe you have to be very...pure. They assume God is going to smite you at any time, so you have to be as good of a person as you can. They believe they're right; this believe is so strong that they usually destroy anyone that disagrees. The Native Americans that lived here when the Puritans came on the scene were supposedly those "savage people" that worked with the Devil to come kill the settlers.

So, I think the reason the Puritans thought that America had such evil in it is because this country held a people that were different from them -- not Christian.

For the most part, this story just is a fable that shows how the Christian Devil can strike at any time. King masterfully adapts, as usual, a story that is old into a modern tale -- the Devil in shiny black shoes. Hawthorne's version just shows how scared the Puritans became when confronted with the unknown.

Here it goes....

Steven King's," The Man in the Black Suit", is set in the early America around 1914 just before the first World War. King tells of a small isolated town that was not uncommon for the time. He goes into great detail to stress the affect that todays ammenities such as planes and telephones can have on society. I would not exactly concider it Puritan but the reminents of religious beliefs still guided daily life. Gary is the main character that narrates the story in a first person narrative point of view from when he was nine years old. He first shares the loss of his older brother and the affect it has on him. Then one day while he is fishing, he dozes off and awakes only to encounter a bee resting on his nose, the same insect that took his brother's life. By some chance there the Devil behind him that kills the bee but then later decides to take his life anyway. The boy manages to escape the Devil only to find out that the stories he was told by the creature were never true. The story ends as Gary lies in bed in a nursing home with the same fears he had as child. The mood throughout the story always feels tense and fearfull. This is even shown by the family dog that refuses to follow Gary to the creek that day.

Comments:

I thought it was very interesting that the character was telling the story at such a late age. It seems that even though he had never told the story before he had retained every detail. I also think that King makes a good reference to the role that religion played in that time. In the early 1900's religion was not a choice but an obligation and part of the teachings were told in stories such as this one that instilled a sense of fear in children. This fear made children feel safe through faith. The boy had an opportunity to go out into the world alone but was scared into running back. This was intersting in that the Devil chased him back eventhough had done no wrong. Gary as the protagonist to me seems like the Devil is i the begining his antagonist, but later in the Devil's absence, the dreams seem to take his place. I loved how the intense details seemed to alow me to share the fear that the boy felt as he ran through the woods. Although this story seems to be cut and dry I question the credibility of the narrator. He admits in the begining that he is not well and is unable to remember the name of his grandchild. We also know that he has had a rough life. His family is very isolated not only geographically because of the time, his mother refuses to attend the church, and when his father cannot fish with Gary he has no friends join him. I think that this leaves a lot to the characters imagination. He also says that on the day he leaves, " In that instant I saw her as a woman, saw her as my father must have seen her". I am not sure that at my age I would be able to say the same and I am sure I could necer have at the age of nine. Also when the Devil is about to eat the boy he tells him that his father will be lonely and look to him for pleasure. The boys dreams and these circumstances make me think that his dreams may have played tricks on him. I am a little confused on why the devil first tries to convince Gary to let him eat him and second, why the Devil never catches him. Also at the very end there is reference to the fact that the his "creel is empty now ". Is this saying that the character feels he has lived his life and has nothing more to offer? Well I was impressed with the story and the suspense that the 10 pages created for me.

Summary:
Stephen King’s “The Man in the Black Suit” is about a young farm boy, Gary, who has an adventure while fishing in the stream, several miles away. It is told from the perspective of Gary as an old man, recalling the bizarre adventure on a summer’s afternoon in 1914. Gary’s older brother, Dan, had died just one year prior of a bee sting, which sets up the narrator’s fear of bees, but going further, probably sets up his fear of anything unknown. That will be discussed more in the commentary.

While fishing, Gary falls asleep on the bank and wakes up when a honeybee lands on his nose. After futile attempts to blow it off, Gary hears a clap behind him and the bee drops dead. Startled, Gary turns around and sees a man in a black suit with slicked hair and fire in his eyes. The man sits down next to Gary, makes fun of him for wetting his pants, and tells him that his mother is dead—which, of course, he believed, as would most people if they were convinced it was as omniscient a creature as Satan, whom Gary was convinced it was.

The man then threatened to kill Gary, “Tear (him) open and eat (his) guts,” at which point Gary decided it would be wise to sidetrack the man and run. So, Gary got away and went home to find out that his mother was actually ok, and he and his dad went down to the stream a couple hours later to find his fishing pole, whom Gary had thrown at the man in his effort to get away. There, they found corroborating evidence to attest to Gary’s belief that it was actually Satan.

Commentary:
Fear, or horror, plays a central role in most of Stephen King’s stories, and it’s the case with this story as well. It’s interesting, though, to distinguish the fear he portrays in the character, versus the fear he invokes in the reader. In this case, an interesting point is made by the question given on the site. This fear does act to symbolize the Puritan worldview in which the promise of newness is contrasted with fear of the unknown. But, this can relate to anything new, really, and is not necessarily a Puritan-only view. The promise of trophy-sized trout, and the freedom of being allowed to go out alone can come with harsh consequences, and that is the point that is being made. I believe that the setting lends itself to thinking in terms of Puritanism, as their fear comes in the form of modernization of the world. The fact that King sets the story in rural Maine in 1914 lends itself to this foundation of Puritan fear perfectly. I also think that the use of Satan as the antagonist is clearly an effort to make the moral a religious one, and thus Puritan. The fear-the-new-world symbolism also jumped out at me from the fact that mom and dad were frightened to see boy go out into the world alone. However, this is still not a Puritan-only fear. It reflects the fear of many modern-day moms and dads. I agree, though, in that the underlying theme is fear of the unknown.

On another (short) note, I was taken aback by how creatively descriptive Stephen King is in this story. Not being a serious King fan, I neglected to realize his talent for language. “I went down out of summer and back into midspring, or so it felt. The cool rose gently off the water, and a green smell like moss.” I never knew Stephen King had such a prosaic style.

Lets break it down.

Setting: The setting for this story is introduced to the reader in an interesting way. It is never described but implied to exist from a general sense of the typical turn of the century rural community. King does not describe what actually exists. He instead (and very cleverly in my opinion) creates an image in negative space. He strips the world he knows his modern reader lives in to simply create the absence of the modern. He writes on page 36, “The town of Motton was a different world in those days – more different than I could ever tell you. That was a world without airplanes overhead, a world almost without cars and trucks, a world where the skies were not cut into lanes and slices by overhead power lines.” So this is acceptable; though it diminishes of what that world he is describing actually consists. It is not quite a puritan world where the devil is lurking everywhere or where like in Youn Goodman Brown superstitions get the better of their superiors. Though superstition is present it is unimportant to the character’s ultimate motivations. It is not modern – because he has taken out all the conveniences of modern life so that things like bee-stings can kill small boys and not a question is raised. Yes, alright, the setting makes the story much better than if it were to be 1980 New Jersey (where apparently the devil is spotted quite frequently) but the purpose for Young Goodman Brown’s setting is to comment on the mindset of superstition and fear that once hindered people’s ability to function with one another. In that sense setting is used more as a feeling documented in history than merely a place and a time.

Character: In the first-person King creates a monologue for a character narrating his story from two different eras. I enjoyed this effect as it gave some depth to a character that otherwise seems to not have matured from the age of nine to the age of ninety. I take into consideration that the ninety year old is actually telling the story and influencing the output of the nine year old’s monologue but still take note of the fact that the main character is more or less flat and unchanging. He is either flabbergasted or terrified. Apart from adding slight bits of wisdom and ruling out the chance that anything like what he saw then had ever happened to him since; and that he was young at the time but knew of certain things that make it possible for a nine year old to function — the character from either time period has no discernable characteristics.

Motif: This gets me onto the bees that King uses to direct the story. At each mention of bees there is importance added to King’s dialogue; his mother stops going to church, his father takes the name of the lord in vain, the devil appears to strike down the mighty brother-killing terror from the nose of the sleeping child. Great, yes, lovely, bees. But what does this mean — these bees. If anyone has any idea please let me know because apart from bees bee-ing slightly scary and nerve wracking in a make-the-hairs-stand-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck kind of way they symbolize nothing in the great scheme of the plot. They are there and they make the plot function, but mean nothing, and other than their function, have no form.

Despite my criticisms I enjoyed reading “The Man in the Black Suit”. It was an easy read and Stephen King is just so great and has so much charisma that he can and does write about utter nonsense and still capture his reader’s attention.