smoke ghost

8/20/2019 Smoke Ghost

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SMOKE GHOST 1

"Smoke Ghost" by Fritz Leiber, Jr.

In an office in some American metropolis, a woman called Miss Millick is taking dictation from a man called Mr

Wran. But he seems distracted, and asks her if she’s ever seen a ghost. He is clear what he means:

I don’t mean that traditional kind of ghost. I mean a ghost from the world today. With the soot (DUST, DIRT,

POWDR! of the fa"tories in its fa"e and the #o$nding of ma"hinery in its so$l. The kind that wo$ld ha$nt "oal

yards and sli# aro$nd at night thro$gh deserted offi"e %$ildings like this one. & real ghost. 'ot something o$t of

%ooks.

As the stor continues, it !ecomes clear that Wran is haunted by a ghost like this " and indeed, his imagination

ma have called it into !eing. He sees, for instance, a ‘‘shapeless black sack #large !ag$ ling on a roof and

becomes con!inced that this is the creature% he goes to a psychiatrist% he ultimatel comes to a conclusion

about the nature o the creature. Although a kind of e&uili!rium is reached, its clear that the creature is not

going a#ay. 'rom the start, then, Leibers !ision #as an urban one. It’s also one that ver deli!eratel puts the

reader in Wran’s place, and allows us to overinterpret the same hints he does. And who, after all, hasn’t seen an

ine(plica!le flicker #!rief wavering light, electricit, lights: go on and off$ of movement in some ur!an setting)

*e+read now, -moke host’’ isn’t without its flaws. It’s one of those stories that ver directly tells you #hat

meaning youre supposed to take rom it. /he passage I &uoted a!ove is prett representative. /here’s a lot o

didactic material in the story !ecause its goal is that you accept both the Smoke Ghost and #hat it means.

-o rather than an -' stor’s infodumps of science #the world is as it is and cannot !e otherwise’’$, here we get

infodumps of interpretation $‘‘this story is as it is and cannot be other#ise$. But it’s still deservedl a classic, for

its am!ition, for its deadl conciseness, and for its newness.

0a reaction against the ghost as a haunter of li!raries, cloisters and college rooms. Modern times re&uire modernghosts% Wran makes this plain as he e(pands on his theme.

Have you ever thought what a ghost of our times would look like, Miss Millick? Just picture it. A smoky

composite face with the hungry anxiety of the unemployed, the neurotic restlessness of the person without

purpose, the high-pressure metropolitan worker, the uneasy resentment of the striker, the callous

opportunism of the sca, the aggressive whine of the panhandler, the inhiited terror of the omed

civilian, and a thousand other twisted emotional patterns. !ach one overlying and yet lending with the

other, like a pile of semi-transparent masks.

All Wran can see is varieties of pain, anger and #orry, a composite face% individualit, however crudel

e(pressed, has !een lost. 1eople have !ecome occupations and emotional patterns, their individualit somehow

o!scured !ut not entirel erased, and it’s perhaps that incomplete erasure that worries Wran so much. %is ello#

passengers on the ele!ated rail#ay, however, are the usual reassuringl #ooden&aced people e!eryone rides

home #ith, not sho#ing their emotions at all. Indeed, it is Wran who commits the solecism of unconsciousl

uttering a muffled cr when he is startled ! something !eond the carriage window: However, the source o

Wrans an'iety : At first sight, his modern ghosts appear to be #orking&class ghosts, blue&collar ghosts,

ghosts #ith dirty hands, #ho (ueue up to punch their cards, #ho #orry about losing their.

2ates! Wran is not himself part of that world. Instead, he is an ad!ertising e'ecuti!e, high enough up the ladder

to ha!e an oice to himsel, a secretary to take dictation . 1erhaps that high+pressure metropolitan worker’

inserted into that list is Wran, nervousl clinging to his fragile middle+class status.

%eight too is important. /his is most clearl stated in the role of the elevated train in the stor. Wran irst sees

the mysterious igure rom the #indo# o the ele!ated train, and sees it again and again, !ut think too of the



SMOKE GHOST 2

elevator in his office !lock, and how so much centres around its rise and fall. %eight represents status and

security, on the one hand, !ut #ith height comes an undeined sense o threat. Worry about losing their.

It had all !egun on the elevated. /here was a particular little sea of roofs he had grown into the ha!it of glancing at

3ust as the packed car carring him homeward lurched around a turn. A ding, melanchol little world of tar+paper,tarred gravel and smok !rick. *ust tin chimnes with odd conical hats suggested a!andoned listening posts.

/here was a washed+out advertisement of some ancient patent medicine on the nearest wall. -uperficiall it was

like ten thousand other dra! cit roofs. )ut he al#ays sa# it around dusk, either in the smok half+light, or tinged

with red ! the flat ras of a dirt sunset, or covered ! ghostl wind+!lown white sheets of rain+splash, or patched

with !lackish snow% and it seemed unusuall !leak and suggestive, almost !eautifull ugl, though in no sense

pictures&ue% drear !ut meaningful.

Wran it represents certain disagreeaible aspects o the rustrated, rightened century in #hich he li!ed, the

3angled century o hate and hea!y industry and total #ars #456$. 7et, there is more to it than that. /he phrases

sea of roofs’ and little world’ suggest that it is somehow cut off from the life of the streets altogether et it is also, in

that nightl glance, the receptacle of Wran’s concerns and has somehow given them a life of some sort. %eight

represents status and security, on the one hand, !ut #ith height comes an undeined sense o threat. Worry

about losing their.

It’s the nature of that life that is perhaps the most distur!ing part of the stor. First, there is the endless

contaminati!e drit o the soot that seems to per!ade Wrans oice, followed ! a shapeless black sack that

gradually ac(uires a ‘misshapen head, turns into a ‘sodden, distorted ace o sacking and coal dust and

becomes by turns ‘a *egro, when he seeks to clarif what his doctor sees through the window, and then,

according to his doctor’s account, a white man in !lackface. 7ou see, the colour didn’t seem to have an !rown in

it. It was dead+!lack’ #458$ !efore, finall, emerging in his son’s cries of !lack man, !lack man’ #459$. We might

!egin to wonder again a!out those workers whom Wran catalogues and transforms into a composite ghostl face,smok and masked, and a!out what aspects of the twentieth centur do frighten Wran.

What’s also fascinating a!out this stor is the wa in which Wran sets a!out dealing with his e(perience, attempting

to e(plain it awa through pscholog, drawing on his childhood e(periences as what he calls a sensor prodig’

and his mother’s attempts to transform him into a medium. If we notice a sense of disconnection and confusion in

Wran’s e(periences as an adult, the childhood discrepanc is even stronger, at least if we are to !elieve Wran’s

own account. His matter+of+fact statement that he can see people through walls contrasts sharpl with his

description of his mother’s agonising attempts to persuade him to see dead people, dismissing his actual a!ilit,

supposing we accept it as !eing real, tring instead to find something that is not there. r rather, given the timing,

one might wonder if his mother understood that spiritualism thrives in time of war and that Wran’s skills, properl

channelled, might provide her with solace or, more prosaicall, with reflected glor. It’s a comple( emotional ne(us,

not least with the involvement of the researchers and Wran’s failure to deliver to order.

Again, in his final encounter with the spirit of the cit, em!odied in Miss Millick, herself representative of so man

cit workers, one has the sense that Wran is caught somewhere !etween scientific modernit and something older,

!uried deep in the human imagination, that !een carried into the cit and is now seeking to find a wa to e(press

itself with the tools at hand. I hesitate to use the word primeval’ !ut it’s tempting to look !ack to Blackwood’s /he

Willows’.

And indeed, for all this talk of modernit, what strikes me a!out ;ei!er’s stor is how much it draws on the past as

well, wearing its <amesian influences ver clearl: in particular /he Me==otint’ and h Whistle and I’ll 2ome to7ou, M ;ad’ come to mind. At the same time, ;ei!er ver deftl captures that particular e(perience of riding home

at night along su!ur!an train lines, looking out over the roofs and seeing a peculiar high+rise world that is invisi!le

from street level.



SMOKE GHOST 3

And possi!l, in the end, it is all a!out imagination. Wran’s focus on that cluster of roofs ever evening has

somehow !rought something into !eing !ut when he acknowledges its power, su!mits to it even, something vital is

lost. ne wonders then what !argains the other wooden+faced’ passengers have made.

+escribing the city

+irt

4 a$ smudges, smears, stains% !$ ink% c$ swa! off% d$ rag% e$ murk

8 > murk% 4 stain% 8 smudge% 9 ink

*er!ous reactions

9 a$ tittered% !$ shiver?twitch% c$ s&uirmed% d$ !lushed?all at sea% e$ 3ump?on edge% f$ gasping% g$ stammered% h$

twitch?shiver% i$ worked up

ain themes- /he nature of a modern, ur!an ghost

he irst hal o the /0th century

@nemploment, povert, industrial pollution, ur!an violence, racism, the threat of war%

It creates a general fear. War had started in urope and other parts of the world. /o man people it was inevita!le

that it would affect the @-A sooner or later%

1nderstanding the story

Section 2

Miss Millick is Mr Wran’s secretar.

He is nervous and asks strange &uestions.-he feels uncomforta!le and em!arrassed.

He needs to talk to someone a!out what’s happening to him.

Miss Millick uses it to tr and lighten the mood #make someone happier$ and change the su!3ect. Mr Wran stiffens

#!ecome phsicall tense$, stops talking a!out ghosts and gets !ack to work.

When Miss Millick leaves the room.

When he thinks a!out the elevated railwa. &n eleated railway (also known in $ro#e as oerhead railway! is a

ra#id transit railway with the tra"ks a%oe street leel on a iad$"t or other steel, "on"rete)

/he stor 3umps !ack to e(plain the origins of Mr Wran’s fears and o!sessions.

He travelled past them on the elevated railwa ever evening on the wa home from work. He didn’t notice it on the

wa in the morning !ecause he was reading the newspaper.

/he times he was living in.

A shapeless !lack sack.

Because it seemed to have moved nearer each time he saw it.

Cirt, and in particular, soot.

Because the image of the sack was starting to frighten him.

/hat he was e(periencing a case of nerves and that ma!e he should get his ees checked% he was hoping for a

normal, rational e(planation for what he was e(periencing.

Section /

• Because the pschiatrist asked him to, and !ecause he had mentioned that there was something a!out

his childhood that might !e affecting him now.

• He was a clairvoant, he could do things like see through walls, and read people’s thoughts. He could see

things that other people couldn’t.



SMOKE GHOST 4

• -he tried to make him communicate with the spirits of the dead.

• At first the tests seemed to show that he was a clairvoant , !ut when the pschologists tried to

demonstrate his powers in pu!lic, 2ates !ecame nervous and the demonstration was a failure.

• He feels happier and more confident.

• Because he sees a !lack face staring in at he window.• /he doctor is nervous and scared.

• -mudges of soot.

• He had confirmed that the !lack figure reall e(isted.

Section 3

• Because he doesn’t want the !lack figure to follow him home.

• Because he doesn’t want the thing that’s following him to know he’s in the office.

• His conversation with Miss Millick.

• 1hilosophical thoughts a!out how the world functions.

• Because his oung son had seen a !lack face at the window of their home.

• Because he’s worried a!out his famil.

Section 4

• /he face of the thing. /he !lack figure.

• He’s terrified.

• He thinks the thing is coming to attack him.

• Der relieved.

• Her shoes are leaving !lack prints on the floor. -he !ends !ack the metal with supernatural strength.

• Because he has seen the !lackness creeping into Miss Millick’s !od and taking over. When she moves

towards him, he runs awa.

• 2alm and determined.

• /hat the thing will come !ack.• Ma!e Miss Millick was in love with 2ates!.

• /he pschiatrist looked like a good man.

• He seemed to !e scared ! the face in the window.

• 1erhaps the ghost would leave him alone now.

• /he rooftops looked normal and didn’t frighten him anmore.

Literary analysis 5lot

• 2ates! sees a strange o!3ect on a rooftop.

• 2ates! visits a pschiatrist.

• 2ates! is visited ! a team of universit pschologists.• /he pschiatrist sees a prowler. #s!E who sneaks around$ merodeador, merodeadora

• 2ates!’s son is frightened ! a face at his window

• 2ates!’s secretar faints on the rooftop of their office !uilding.

• Wh is the order different):

• /he smudges #dirt spot mancha$ of dirt. /he pschiatrist and 2ates!’s son.

6haracter

6atesby is in his thirties. He is married with a son. He works in advertising. He had special pschic powers as a

child.

iss illick is a secretar. -he is single. We get the impression that she is not as well educated as 2ates!. /heopening section of the stor is told from her point of view. -he tells us that 2ates! is acting in a wa that is strange

for him.

he ghost is !lack. It has a face. It can move &uickl. We don’t know if it’s real or not. Fot ever!od can see it.



SMOKE GHOST 5

Miss Millick. -o that we see 2ates! from a different angle. -he is an ordinar person, introducing us to this

e(traordinar stor.

When Miss Millick leaves the room. /he ghost appears to him, or is in his head. /he internal action in 2ates!’s

head is far more interesting that the e(ternal facts that Miss Millick sees and e(periences.When he was a oung !o and he was thought to have pschic powers%

When he first saw the !lack figure of the ghost. /he flash!acks place the past events in the conte(t of the present

events and shows how the are connected.

Ma!e 2ates! can see the ghost !ecause of his special powers%

We see how the sightings of the ghost !uilt up and have created 2ates!’s present state of mind.

Atmosphere

Style

Ad3ectives: /he are all negative. Cark, dirt, depressing.

Metaphors:

What the rooftop and the ghost represent: ad3ectives " frustrated, frightened, 3angled. #-uggested answer$Half darkness is significant !ecause 2ates! ma !e imagining what he sees " he is tired and the light is fading.

5ro#ler noun G2E @ ?ˈpraʊ.lər?

someone who moves around &uietl in a place, tring not to !e seen, often !efore committing a crim

smoke ghost

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