Argonaut stories — Context and Discussion

Diction and the Unreliable Narrator

In “Moon-Face,” London’s narrator admits his hatred is “so elusive, so intangible, as to defy clear, definite analysis in words.” The diction here—cumbered, superstitious, offense—creates a tone of obsessive rationalization. The narrator’s self-awareness does not make him reliable; instead, it deepens the unease. Hart’s selection privileges such psychological ambiguity over straightforward villainy. The story’s conflict is internal, not external, and the language mirrors that inward turn.

Dialogue as Dramatic Irony

McGeehan’s “Leaves on the River Pasig” uses dialogue to build tension through what is left unsaid. The Filipino woman Simplicia tells the American soldier, “I do not care for him. On my soul, I do not!”—but her protestation is undercut by her earlier shudder at the river’s leaves. The soldier’s response, “I would not bring you any trouble,” is hollow; his laughter at the situation reveals a “devil in his blood.” The dialogue here does not advance plot so much as it exposes character and foreboding.

Description and Setting as Symbol

Both excerpts use physical description to encode meaning. London’s moon-faced man is a study in symmetry: “cheek-bones wide apart, chin and forehead melting into the cheeks.” The narrator’s hatred is tied to this geometry, as if the face itself is an offense. In McGeehan, the Pasig River is not just a setting but a symbol of drift and loss, echoed in the song’s refrain about leaves “helpless they drift on its swift running surface.” The river’s description—sliminess foul, waters eternal—mirrors the story’s moral murkiness.

Structural Choices in the Anthology

Hart opens the collection with London’s psychological horror and closes with Kathleen Thompson’s “The Colonel and ‘The Lady’,” a story presumably set in the West. The table of contents shows a mix of known authors (Frank Norris, Stewart Edward White) and lesser-known ones (Buckey O’Neill, Neil Gillespie). This arrangement suggests an editorial aim to showcase variety in voice and setting—from the Philippines to San Francisco to the frontier—while maintaining a consistent interest in compressed, character-driven narratives.

Readers approaching Argonaut Stories should attend to how each story establishes its world in the first paragraph. Hart’s authors rarely waste words on setting; instead, they embed conflict in a single image or line of dialogue. The anthology rewards attention to these small authorial choices—the turn of phrase, the withheld detail—that together define a distinctive early twentieth-century short story aesthetic.

Reading the old Argonaut excerpts, I noticed how carefully the editors chose each word for its sound, almost like listening to someone speak across a room. It made me think of The best stories of Sarah Orne Jewett, Volume 1 (of 2) — Text and Context, where the quiet coastal voices feel just as deliberate, just as unhurried. Both collections seem to hold their breaths, waiting for the right moment to exhale.