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Andrea Valušek
Professor: Mr. sc. Irena Grubica
The Short Story Genre
12 December 2018

Connection between the title and the element of surprise in Carys Davies's short story
The Quiet

The quiet is one of the short stories in Carys Davies’s collection The Redemption of

Galen Pike and it is perhaps one of the most interesting ones as it brings up a lot of important

questions. The story is set in the Australian outback in late 19th century and the main

protagonist is a young woman named Susan who is afraid of her seedy neighbour Henry.

Right from the beginning the title connects to the quietness of the Australian outback. At the

very end when we learn about the abuse the title can be read in a whole different way. This

essay will explore how the title connects with the story, the themes, the characters and the

surprise at the end.

The title is connected to all of the things that make this story; the setting, the surprise

and the characters, and the quietness in every element of it makes it all that more mysterious

to the reader. This short story sheds light on an important theme- domestic abuse, that of a

man toward the woman but also of a man being abused by his wife. Firstly, the connection to

the setting of the story can be noticed immediately. The Australian outback is an area which

stretches in the interior of the country and it is a vast and remote place. There are almost no

people living there, only animals, and people who do live there usually live miles apart just

like our characters. …but he was their neighbour and he had come six miles across the valley

(Davies 2). All this evidence shows that the outback is a very quiet place where nothing much

is going on and in that way is connected to the title. Because it is so remote and quiet and the
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two characters are alone the atmosphere is very tense and unpleasant, the reader fears for

Susan and expects the worst will happen to her and fears there will be no one to help her. This

brings up the second connection to the title. The story itself, the way it is written is also

connected to the title. For the most of the story the narrator is the omniscient third person

narrator, he is heterodiegetic because he does not take part in the plot, and the story is a

combination of various Susan’s memories and thoughts and the situation in which she is right

now . Because the narrator is all-knowing it is expected that he knows from the beginning

what is really going on, but he does not tell everything at the beginning which emphasizes the

readers’ suspense. It is the same when at the end story is told from Henry’s perspective where

we see his thoughts and his side of the story. There is very little conversation between them

only a few lines. Henry does not even say he was abused he only shows his scars and says:

‘My wife,’ said Henry Fowler, the words finally coming to his rescue, ‘was bigger than

me.’(Davies 8). The fact that they mostly do not speak only proves how the title is really

embedded in every aspect of the story and emphasizes that tense mysterious atmosphere. The

last connection to the title will be discussed in the next paragraph as from my point of view it

is the real meaning behind the title.

The connection to the surprise at the end is unexpected because through the story the

readers mainly think it is called The Quiet because of the setting when in reality it is a symbol

of invisible suffering. When everything is revealed , in the end, another connection to the title

becomes visible. It is the silence in which these two people were living, the mutual

understanding they have for each other without having to say a word. The title is connected to

characters and the setting but what the author really wanted to point out is the quietness of the

abuse and how we can almost never know what someone is going through if they are not

speaking out. Both Susan and Henry suffered the same abuse, but the author cleverly mislead

the reader to think that Henry would be an abuser. To Susan Henry seemed like a suspicious
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neighbor, because of the way he looked at her, but in reality he was probably watching her

carefully because, having gone through the abuse himself, he saw the quiet, subtle signs of the

abuse and wanted to help her. Moreover, the title is actually representing the silence in which

the victims of the abuse live in because they do not think they have a way out. Because the

story is set in the 19th where women had an inferior position to men and had to keep quiet and

obey their husbands, Susan thinks she has no way out that she is trapped in her much

concealed quiet suffering. The silence also represents some relief for the characters after

Henry’s reveal because they can now connect without talking to each other. It is also

important to mention that the whole plot is driven not by dialogue but by the descriptions, and

characters thoughts and this proves how quietness in a story can add to the suspense the

reader is feeling. After Henry’s reveal they connected immediately. Susan definitely felt a

little safer, she could finally take her facade off, stop pretending and got an idea how to

escape this situation. Their agreement on killing her husband is not even confirmed verbally

we see it from the third person perspective but we sense it is there. She took his small brown

hand and lifted it to her cheek and closed her eyes like someone who hadn’t known till now

how tired they were, and then she asked him, would he help her, please, to dig the hole

(Davies 10). The ending is somewhat ambiguous, we do not know for certain if they are going

to kill her husband and this really is a characteristic of short stories where the twist end really

surprises the reader and can also be interpret in multiple ways. The story also shows us how

sometimes the signs of abuse can be recognized, even if the victim is quiet. Henry must have

noticed something was not right and decided to act upon it. Usually the title plays an

important role when we first start to read something, it gives us a preview of what will

happen, but here it has an even more important role and that is to make us aware of the

quietness of the abuse.

In conclusion it is safe to say that the title can be connected to many things in the

story, it helps us to understand what we are reading. The connections to the setting and the

characters might be and might not be accidental but the connection to the abuse is clearly

intentional. Even if at first we do not see that connection it all starts to make sense in the end.

The characters, the setting, the atmosphere it all enhances the message of the story that can

easily be overlooked. That said there are many truly poignant moments. Davies deals with

subjects like domestic abuse, prejudice, sexuality, good and bad and much more throughout.

Often there can be a moral in some of the tales….yet never does Carys bash you over the head

or seem to say ‘you should think this’, she simply writes the story and leaves it to the reader

whether they want to see the slightly hidden points that may be lying just under the surface

(Savidge Simon, The Redemption of Galen Pike – Carys Davies, wordpress.com). That is a

clever way of writing stories that enables the reader to interpret the symbolism and the hidden

meanings in their own way.

Works cited

 Davies, Carys. The Quiet. The Redemption of Galen Pike, Salt, 2014, pp. 1-10.
 Savidge, Simon. “The Redemption of Galen Pike.” Wordpress,
www.savidgereads.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/the-redemption-of-galen-pike-
carys-davies/. Accessed 12 December 2018.