One of Hers by Christopher Ward
Claude Wheeler wakes to another dreary morning on his father's farm, fixated on having only one collar-button while other men, including his own father, have two. He descends by a ladder his father installed in place of a staircase after Claude slid down the banisters in a fit of self-effacing gloom, a change that has left Mrs. Wheeler, who considers it improper to use a ladder when men are about, largely stranded on the second floor. Claude's mother, lost in religious meditation and wandering the upstairs passage, offers him a piece of an old can-opener to replace his missing collar-button, which he declines in favor of a shingle nail. In the kitchen he washes and studies his own reflection in Mahailey's cracked mirror, resentful of his red hair and unable to wear a stiff derby. Mahailey, who always keeps her apron over her face before everyone but Claude, approaches, and he flees to the barn, where he embraces Molly, a three-legged cow who lost a leg in the Civil War, and broods on the emptiness and futility of a farmer's life measured out in cheap, perishable goods. The narrative then reveals this entire opening as Claude's own self-conscious performance of a role in a novel he is composing in his head, titled The Young Hamlet of the Prairies, which he hopes will run to four hundred and fifty-nine pages. The scene shifts abruptly to Claude as a lieutenant commanding B Company in the Boar's Head trench, awaiting a German dawn attack, where a field telephone call connects him not to a military contact but to "Miss Willa," his novelist, who is pressuring him to climb onto the parapet and be shot during the attack to give her book a tragic ending. Claude, speaking in his farm vernacular, resists at length, arguing he has too much living left to do, defending his treatment of his wife Enid, who has left for China, and mentioning Gladys and his postwar hopes including a stint in the movies. Despite his objections, he ultimately submits since he is contractually bound to the author. When the German assault begins, a figure resembling Claude appears heroically exposed on the parapet, is struck and falls, and Sergeant Hicks discovers the "body" is a decoy, a stuffed figure whose foot comes off in his hand, while the real Claude, in his underclothes, emerges to help drag it in before the Missourians arrive with machine guns, explaining the ruse was staged for readers of serious novels.
By Christopher Ward · Genre: Satire, Metafiction, Dark Comedy · 2 chapters · 2,686 words
First lines
Claude Wheeler opened his eyes, just as he had done often before. The dreary monotony of his day thus monotonously began. He turned on one elbow and gazed at his shirt hanging on the chair beside his bed. It was the same shirt which he had worn yesterday, would wear to-morrow. But it was not the monotony of the shirt that deluged him with self-pity. It was the fact that he had only one collar-button. Other people, the Erlich boys in Lincoln, his own father, had two. Claude had but one, which fastened his shirt in front. When he wore a collar he had to fasten it at the back with an old piece of string, which Mahailey had given him.
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Genres
- Satire — The work is fundamentally a satirical critique of serious literary fiction, with Claude repeatedly complaining about his scripted role and the author (Willa Cather) manipulating events for narrative purposes.
- Metafiction — The narrative explicitly breaks the fourth wall when Claude speaks directly with his author about the book's construction, discussing how he must stay in character and fulfill the tragic arc needed for literary success.
- Dark Comedy — The absurdist humor permeates the text, from the single collar-button complaint to Claude's sardonic dialogue with Cather and his sardonic observations about farm life and war.
- Literary Fiction — Despite its satirical nature, the work engages with literary conventions, character development, and thematic concerns typical of serious literary fiction.
Tags
metafiction · experimental-fiction · literary-satire · dark-comedy · absurdism · authorial-control · character-agency · midwest-setting · rural-america · farm-life · world-war-one · trench-warfare
What this Textopian page supports
One of Hers is listed on Textopian as a short story by Christopher Ward, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Short story
- Author: Christopher Ward
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Satire, Metafiction, Dark Comedy, Literary Fiction, Philosophical Fiction
- Length: 2,686 words
- Structure: 2 chapters, 56 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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