She is plumper than when they met at the dance and the world was shot in black and white.
“Knife Party,” by Mark Anthony Jarmon, from the collection Burn Man
Time in narration is fascinating to me, in part because, unlike other art forms, it can be so fluid. One moment, the story is in the present, and the next, we’re in the past, or we leap to the future. The writer Peter Orner once said (I’m paraphrasing), “Linear time is a joke.” It’s a joke because it’s not the way the human mind works. The smell of cinnamon reminds you of your grandmother, and suddenly, in your mind, you’re sitting at her kitchen table, ten years old, swinging your legs in high anticipation, watching her pull cookies out of the oven. Writers can mimic this wild temporal movement on the page.
In this sentence, Jarman begins in the present tense, “She is plumper,” then turns with the word “than” and plunges into the past. In this sentence, “than” is a conjunction and makes a comparison. She is plumper (now) than when they met (past tense verb) at the dance.
Jarman uses a compound/complex sentence to move from the present to the past:
1. She is plumper (independent clause #1)
than=conjunction
2. when they met at the dance (dependent clause)—an action from the past
and=conjunction
3. the world was shot in black and white (independent clause #2)
The other day in class, I was talking about imagery, that every image is both literal and figurative. First, there’s the emotional response from the reader. Here, Jarman introduces the image of meeting at the dance, and that ushers in the excitement of a dance, the celebratory aspect of their meeting. Second, there’s a proliferation of associations: I hear music, I see couples dancing, laughing, an electric charge in the air, and now I’m remembering school dances, the anxiety, the awkwardness, the thrill of being pressed so close to another body, the room heating up. Finally, the image launches the explorative questioning of the writer’s choice of the image. Is Jarman suggesting that the past was better for this couple? Were they more in love?
So, an image has a built-in paradox. It aims the reader’s attention to specificity, and it generates a profusion of implications and associations.
Jarman saves for last the brilliance of the sentence: “and the world was shot in black and white.” He is invoking the past by taking a piece of the past--when film and cameras could only shoot in black and white—and making it stand in for the more abstract idea of the past. This is synecdoche, where the part stands for the whole. (For instance, “daily bread” for “food”).
The beauty of synecdoche is that it invites another image. He could have written, “and this was long ago.” But he’d lose the beautiful image and all that emanates from it.
Your turn
Begin with an independent clause and use a present tense verb.
Now use “than” to launch your comparison between the present and the past.
Add a dependent clause about the past. Include an image so you invoke an emotion about the past.
Add “and” and finish with another independent clause. Use synecdoche. It might help to start with the “whole.” In Jarman’s sentence, his “whole” is the past. Then, take a part or piece of that whole. Make sure it’s an image.
About Me:
I’ve taught “Style in Fiction,” “Word for Word” and “Cultivating Your Prose” at the University of San Francisco and Stanford Continuing Studies since 2007.
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Not sure what's up with my noggin but I would never have gotten that sentence had you not explained it. Of course "shot in black and white" means photography but that's not where I went as a reader. Instead I was thinking "shot in black and white" meant something like "a simpler time," or maybe a time when the narrator was less mature and inclined to see things in 'black and white" rather than getting lost in ambiguity or nuance.
I’m smarter than when I’d kiss Johnny in the lunchroom and red-faced dash for the door.