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Description

Torch song is a sentimental love song in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, where one party is either oblivious to the existence of the other, or where one party has moved on.

One example of this is can be found in the really creepy John Cheever story called "Torch Song", that features a far more horrifying monster than anything cooked up by Stephen King, Wes Craven or George Romero.

The story details the life of Joan Harris as seen through the eyes of Jack Lorey. They both hail from the same town in Ohio, and both move to New York City in the Mid-Thirties. While Jack tries to take the straight and narrow path, building up a career and marrying (several times), only to have it crashing down due to numerous alimony payments, WWII, and a nearly fatal illness. Joan, on the other hand, goes through men like wet tissue paper. These men are either all alcoholic, sick, abusive or all three. During these ordeals, Joan always maintain her cool even when her married life is ultimately destroyed. Nothing is ever her fault, even in her pathetic complaints, she is passive aggressive. As always, she dresses in widow black.

Throughout the whole story, the lives of Jack and Joan intersect several more times; always he tries to lend a hand to this seemingly poor unfortunate. Eventually, his realization for what she really is comes when she unexpectedly visits the sick Jack in his hotel room and offers him alcohol. He rants at her:

"What kind of an obscenity are you that you can smell sickness and death the way you do?"

and

"Does it make you feel young to watch the dying?...Is that the lewdness that keeps you young? Is that why you dress like a crow? Oh I know there's nothing I can say that will hurt you. I know there's nothing filthy or corrupt or depraved or brutish or base that the others haven't tried, but this time you're wrong. I'm not ready. My life isn't ending. My life's beginning. There are wonderful years ahead of me. There are, there are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful years ahead of me, and when they're over, when it's time, then I'll call you. Then, as an old friend, I'll call you and give you whatever dirty pleasure you take in watching the dying, but until then, you and your ugly and misshapen forms will leave me alone."

The story ends with him leaving before "that lewd and searching shape of death came there to find him in the evening."

"Torch Song" (C) Copyrighted to John Cheever

Interpretation of Joan Harris (C) Copyrighted to mmpratt99. Jul. 10 2009. Done in PhotoSuite4.

I give permission to
~plague-doctors-DA: to display this work.

Description

Torch song is a sentimental love song in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, where one party is either oblivious to the existence of the other, or where one party has moved on.

One example of this is can be found in the really creepy John Cheever story called "Torch Song", that features a far more horrifying monster than anything cooked up by Stephen King, Wes Craven or George Romero.

The story details the life of Joan Harris as seen through the eyes of Jack Lorey. They both hail from the same town in Ohio, and both move to New York City in the Mid-Thirties. While Jack tries to take the straight and narrow path, building up a career and marrying (several times), only to have it crashing down due to numerous alimony payments, WWII, and a nearly fatal illness. Joan, on the other hand, goes through men like wet tissue paper. These men are either all alcoholic, sick, abusive or all three. During these ordeals, Joan always maintain her cool even when her married life is ultimately destroyed. Nothing is ever her fault, even in her pathetic complaints, she is passive aggressive. As always, she dresses in widow black.

Throughout the whole story, the lives of Jack and Joan intersect several more times; always he tries to lend a hand to this seemingly poor unfortunate. Eventually, his realization for what she really is comes when she unexpectedly visits the sick Jack in his hotel room and offers him alcohol. He rants at her:

"What kind of an obscenity are you that you can smell sickness and death the way you do?"

and

"Does it make you feel young to watch the dying?...Is that the lewdness that keeps you young? Is that why you dress like a crow? Oh I know there's nothing I can say that will hurt you. I know there's nothing filthy or corrupt or depraved or brutish or base that the others haven't tried, but this time you're wrong. I'm not ready. My life isn't ending. My life's beginning. There are wonderful years ahead of me. There are, there are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful years ahead of me, and when they're over, when it's time, then I'll call you. Then, as an old friend, I'll call you and give you whatever dirty pleasure you take in watching the dying, but until then, you and your ugly and misshapen forms will leave me alone."

The story ends with him leaving before "that lewd and searching shape of death came there to find him in the evening."

"Torch Song" (C) Copyrighted to John Cheever

Interpretation of Joan Harris (C) Copyrighted to mmpratt99. Jul. 10 2009. Done in PhotoSuite4.

I give permission to
~plague-doctors-DA: to display this work.