25 pages • 50 minutes read
55 Miles to the Gas Pump
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Literary Devices
Stream of Consciousness
The story’s first two paragraphs employ a stream-of-consciousness narrative style. Philosopher William James coined this term in 1893 in The Principles of Psychology to convey the idea of consciousness as a flowing stream or river. The concept has proved extremely appealing to writers invested in exploring human psychology. Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf are among those who have famously employed stream of consciousness in their novels. Stream of consciousness enables writers to focus on the complexities of the human mind and its workings, employing features like sentence fragments, run-ons, and non sequiturs to evoke the way thoughts pass through the mind.
Stream-of-consciousness narration typically illuminates the inner world of a character, but in Proulx’s story, it is unclear to what extent the narrator’s perspective merges with either of the characters’. Nevertheless, the rapid flow of details and images creates a stream-of-consciousness-like effect that contrasts sharply with the pithy final sentence and therefore amplifies its shock value. After tripping over themselves to unload all the action and description of the first two paragraphs, the narrator draws a lesson notable for both its brevity and its amorality.
Free Indirect Discourse
Free indirect discourse is a literary style whereby the narrator takes on the perspective of the character(s) being described. With free indirect discourse, word choice, tone, syntax, thoughts, etc. are assumed to be those of a character without such narratorial signals as “she said” or “he thought”: The narrator’s voice blends seamlessly into the character’s.
For this reason, free indirect discourse often creates ambiguity regarding where the narrator ends and the characters begin. In “55 Miles,” the first paragraph seems to unfold from the narrator’s perspective; the repeated use of “that” to denote Rancher Croom (“that cattleman,” “that warm-handed, quick-foot dancer,” etc.) suggests distance, and there is little indication of what Croom is thinking or feeling before he steps off the cliff. In the second paragraph, however, the narrator’s perspective merges with Mrs. Croom’s by the time she reflects that her discovery is “just as she thought: the corpses of Mr. Croom’s paramours.” What is less clear is how much of the surrounding text reflects Mrs. Croom’s perspective—e.g., whether the cold observation of the bodies or even the blasé final sentence belongs to Mrs. Croom or the narrator. This stylistic choice echoes Proulx’s indictment of “you”: The lines between Mrs. Croom, the narrator, and the reader blur because they are all taking part in the same voyeuristic activity.
Irony
Irony is a literary device that involves a mismatch between expectations or appearances, and reality. In “55 Miles to the Gas Pump,” irony arises retroactively in the mystical language and imagery describing Croom’s suicide—an unexpectedly positive depiction of a serial killer’s death. Also ironic is the fact that one of the victims’ bodies has been “wrapped in newspaper from nipple to knee” (Paragraph 2). That the murder victim’s body may be covered with the very newspaper carrying her photo adds a gruesome touch to the scene. The final irony resides in the story’s last sentence, which delivers a twofold shock, first by assessing the serial murder of women as “fun,” and second by shifting from third- to second-person narration, deeming all of humanity no better than the Crooms in their susceptibility to depravity.
Gothic Tropes
Gothic literature, which first developed in the 18th century, is characterized by elements of mystery, suspense, and the macabre, along with a pervasive sense of foreboding. Gothic tropes include old castles harboring secrets, ghosts flitting about, disturbing crimes, and “madness.” Common gothic themes are Death and Mortality, isolation—e.g., the wind-swept moors of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, or the decaying mansions in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe—imprisonment, and women in danger and distress.
Gothic tropes in Proulx’s story include the remote, isolated setting, Croom’s suicide, and the padlocked attic that arouses Mrs. Croom’s curiosity and “desire.” Also gothic are the attic’s glut of dead female bodies and the vivid, gory descriptions of them. In addition, the body “wrapped in newspaper nipple to knee” suggests sexual assault or necrophilia (Paragraph 2), the latter of which might be called an extreme gothic trope, further indicating the depths of Croom’s corruption.
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By Annie Proulx
