An Unfinished Lecture on Closure

8/8/2019 An Unfinished Lecture on Closure

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An Unfinished Lecture on Closure

By

Roy Bearden-White

Masereel’s Mein Stundenbuch (Passionate

Journey) Thomas Mann wrote that the protagonist

“is the artist, unrestricted by class, untouched by

social prejudice, who lives after his own heart.”

In this well-known illustration from Masereel’s

woodcut novel, if we were told that the worker is

grieving because he has no right foot, we would

immediately consider the statement as ridiculous.

This is odd considering we have no evidence one

way or another. We can only see his left foot,

though wee would simply respond by saying that

it is “more likely” that the worker has both feet.

It’s what we expect. In essence, this is closure,

the logical conclusion of an idea. To find out positively that the worker has both feet would

meet our normal expectations. To find out the opposite, that the foot has been amputated and

replaced by a prosthetic, a wooden foot, would disrupt those expectations. While acknowledging

such a disruption may be perceived as politically incorrect, that what we are really doing is

Figure 1 - From: Franz Masereel's Passionate Journey:

A Novel in 165 Woodcuts (1919). San Fransico: City

Lights, 2001.



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othering someone who is handicapped, expectations are based upon social norms. In a culture

wherein amputees are not uncommon, the inherint tension between expectations and closure in

this case would be much less. For the individual who happens to live in a culture that rarely has

amputees, but has a differing experience, whether through first-hand interaction with another

culture or through other means, the impact of a disruption will be different. The ability, then, of

a disruption to evoke a strong response is based first upon social norms and secondly upon

individual experience.

Some people will claim that they love order, while others will argue that order is boring

and that the unexpected, disruptions of logical expectations, is exciting. In fact, this is a

proportional consideration. Disruptions occur with various intensities. Consider the worker—

what if we found out that he was wearing a blood-red high heel shoe? What if we discovered

that instead of a foot he had a pumpkin attached to the end of his leg? Too much can be too

much, while not enough is not enough. There is a full spectrum of emotional responses. Our

reactions change depending upon the intensity of the disruption. Surprise, shock, amusement,

anger, repulsion, confusion are just a few of the emotions that can be evoked through the

negotiation of closure. With this single static image much of the possible disruption occurs

dependent upon either the presence or the absence of certain items within the image. Although

we cannot see empirical evidence of his right foot, we can discuss other matters that play into

this closure, such as his position on the stairs as though he was moving upwards; the height of

the stairs and lack or handrail or walls for security which imply danger; the arm thrown over the

eyes blinding the figure to a possible tragic fall when he takes one more step; the stripes on his

shirt which connotate a prison uniform; the pick ax held by his side as though the weight is great;

the awkward grip upon the pickax which contradicts a natural link between tool and man; the



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abundance of empty windows in the surrounding buildings as if all the city was aware of this

public figure climbing the steps to his doom, but unwilling to intervene; the zeppelin,

reminiscent of a bullet, in the background which is pointed menacingly towards his head, as if to

push him over the edge; and so on. Through this reading, which attempts to find closure, we

begin to find much fault with Thomas Mann’s quote. The figure on the stairs has lost a great

deal more than his foot; he has indeed lost his soul. The futility of his actions in bonding with a

working tool and his inability determine his own path up the stairs has determined his inevitable

tragic fate. A

complicated

reading, yes, but

one in which

closure is found by

contrasting what is

visible with what is

not..

Put this

image in motion

and we can see how it plays out in comics, through a study of how the story is narrated overall as

well as through

individual images. A well-known example of this comes from Scott McCloud’s Understanding

Comics. McCloud focuses upon what is not stated in this two panel progression. In the gap

between the two panels, he claims, quite convincingly, that a murder occurs even though the

reader does not actually observe the action. McCloud argues that each panel, when viewed

Figure 2 - From Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993). New

York: Harper Collins, 1993.



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independently, does not convey this information and that meaning is created through the

juxtaposition of the two images. In essence, MeCloud claims that comic narratives depend as

musch upon what is not said as what is said through images. While this is exactly true for the

given example, it does not explain why virtually all readers close the gap in the same way—that

they interpret the juxtaposed images similarly.

Consider this progression of numbers as a simplistic represention of a sequence:

1, 2, 3.

The next in line, we would guess, is 4. This is for no other reason than to say it is the most

logical; it is the expected. This expectation, though, is based upon a shared culture. If we were

members of a particular aborigine tribe in Australia, the expected answer would be different. In

the kuuk thaayorre system of counting, the numbers only goes to three...thana, kuthir, pinalam,

mong, mong, mong, etc. The word mong is best translated as "many" since it can mean any

number between 4 and 9 or 10 after which yuur mong (many figures) would be more

appropriate. Our cultural normative practices, however, imbue in us an instinctive answer of 4 to

the 1, 2, 3 progression. It is what is expected.

The man in Masereel’s image, of course, has a foot because is part of our cultural norm

and our tendency is to avoid disruptions. Our minds, most of the time, desire order. Granted that

this is a subjective statement, but it holds as a cultural guide. We would typically agree that too

much of anything is simply too much and we would consider it tedious if we were presented with

those strings of numbers well past the point wherein we have assured ourselves of the pattern. If

we are presented with a string of 43 consecutive numbers, the closure, which was intuited fairly

early, is overly obvious. Such a string would be considered boring. This contrast between a

need for orderly expectations with a desire for the new and different is an intrinsic part of our





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A – Two people meet on a train;

B – They talk and enjoy each other’s company;

C – They leave the train together;

D – A young woman sits at a barstool drinking whiskey while she cries.

E – She holds up a picture of the man from the train, at the bottom is written

‘forever’;

F – She slowly opens her purse to see a glimpse of the handgun inside.

Our mind’s desire for closure moves ahead and starts to calculate the most probable and

interesting ending. We do so even at the risk of making assumptions. Suppose in this second

sequence that the man is a model and the picture is the one that came with the frame when it was

bought from the store. The question constantly posed to both the storyteller in the midst of

creation and the reader in the midst of the story is the intensity of these disruptions.

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An Unfinished Lecture on Closure