Dissecting 'Dance of the Dead' by Richard Matheson

To flesh insensate!

For those who were able to read the tale, did you enjoy the ride? I’ve always loved this short story, but it wasn’t until I read it over and over again, diving into the tricks the author employed, before I realised just how much I adore this piece.

It's a lyrical feast with themes of pleasure, lust, consent, and a society that’s becoming more and more numb due to worldly events (sound familiar?).

If you want to read this before I dive into my analysis, check it out here. Thar be spoilers ahead!

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Here at Short Story Club, we take our time, dissecting the classics. Reading deeply is the most helpful thing I’ve done as a reader and a writer. It’s brought the joy back to reading and has elevated my own short stories to the point where I’ve had more success when submitting them.

A drive through the tale

The way this tale starts sets it up perfectly. We get a paragraph of a song, which prepares us for some of the more lyrical aspects of the story. And then we get a dictionary definition of the word ‘struggle’, which has evolved since WWIII.

So, straight away as readers, we are transported, ready for whatever post-war world we may encounter. The lyrics themselves also set us up as they talk about ‘promiscuous loveplay’. I also like how the first word we get defined for us in this way talks to the themes of the whole piece. The main character, Peggy, is struggling with loneliness, and lust, and other related things.

We are introduced to Peggy who is conflicted by the situation she finds herself in. Her parents’ monologues go through her mind about always being careful, never drinking, etc. We really feel Peggy being hemmed in by this, and she is very nervous and skittery throughout the whole ordeal (as she should be).

But when no one spoke to you for two whole months? When you were lonely and wanted to talk and laugh and be alive? And someone spoke to you finally and asked you to go out with them?

We feel Peggy has lived a rather sheltered life with overprotective parents. And so, this foray is something of a rebellion and something to stave off the crushing loneliness she has felt before this tale begins.

We speed towards St Louis (more on the masterful countdown later…). As readers, we’re left in a state of wondering. We know Peggy is afraid of the advances of Bud who we have the creeps for, while Len and Barbara are getting it on in the backseat.

Remember, darling, there are terrible things in the world today. Things you must avoid.

There are other, more mysterious things that are built up whilst we get closer to St Louis. What precisely is a loopy? Why do they have to wear masks? How poisonous and ruined is this post-war world?

Matheson ends the first scene perfectly:

ST. LOUIS.

The black car sped into the ruins.

We have arrived… Tension is built.

Then we rejoin the story inside a club with pounding, lustful music that gives us more of a flavour of the kind of world that, women especially, have to deal with. We feel the behaviour from Bud and Len and the other clubgoers is ‘normal’.

Please abuse me every NIGHT!

LOVER, LOVER, LOVER, be a beast-to-me!

We get random hands touching her. We get eyes disrobing her. All round creeps in a very smoky, dark atmosphere. We get Peggy jerking away from Bud’s advance and his rather ominous “I fights to the finish” comment as he recites more Popeye related lines and tries to get Peggy to be his Olive Oyl. As readers, we want her away from all this, and we guess at how it’ll get worse.

Mother, take me home.

And then, the Loopy’s dance happens. We’re held in a state of tension through the tale until now as we’ve no real idea what it is they’re waiting to see. The thing that was a nameless victim of the plague starts jerking and moving on the stage in its bondage. And the crowd loses it. Peggy is in a state of almost fainting, she’s so tense, and we feel this too. And then, the Loopy crashes her table and grabs her, and she blacks out.

And so, we get to our third and final scene. Peggy comes back to consciousness, slowly and languidly. We feel a change, like she’s drugged or something. She’s outside, sitting with her three best buds, taking in the sights of the city they can see sprawled below them. It’s a rather nice scene, and somewhat of a surprise given what’s just happened.

They sing songs together and we piece together that Peggy has changed. She’s not afraid anymore. She’s rather enjoying herself. She has become numb.

A young girl sighed.

“Isn’t it romantic?” said Olive Oyl.

Has she given up and seen that there’s nothing to fear? Is she one of them now, a thrill chaser, innocence lost? Has she capitulated and become Olive Oyl like this masterful last line suggests?

“Star light, star bright

Let there be another night.”

Or… Is she becoming a zombie? Her brain has been altered, something like a memory is screaming at her, but she shrugs it off. She has some kind of wound on her shoulder. Is this the dawning of a zombie infection? Will there be ‘another night’?

We’re left in a state of wondering which gives the tale extra resonance.

All in all, it’s a pretty simple story. Frightened girl ventures out with boys on a form of rebellion from overprotective parents. They go see some zombie thing dance. Said zombie thing may or may not have bitten her. Then we end on the mystery of a character who has changed for worse or worser.

I’ve seen a hundred such tales trying to land the same level of intrigue and commentary on a society that is becoming more and more numb.

What makes this tale so damned effective?

The dance of the language

From the outset, and particularly through the first scene, we’re introduced to a sing-song of a story which uses precise word structure and word choices to create a certain impact. We literally get songs throughout, too, which aids this beautifully. The short lyrics cram so much intrigue and mood into the tale that no full paragraph ever could.

Matheson clips his language quite a lot, which creates a sense of immediacy, draws us closer to the characters and the tension. I want to draw out two specific examples. The first:

Needle quivering at 130, two 5-mph notches from gauge’s end.

It’s a simple trick with a big effect. Matheson has simply erased the word ‘the’. If I were a purist and into correcting peoples’ grammar (which I aren’t), I’d say the sentence should read – The needle quivered at 130, two 5-mph notches away from the gauge’s end.

See the difference? The second attempt is slower, doesn’t draw you as close, and doesn’t paint as quick a picture. (Also, note the change in tense, which I’ll get to below).

She tried to push away instructions etched in brain.

If I were to butcher this with ‘proper editing’ techniques, you might end up with something like – She tried to push away the instructions that were etched in her brain.

That’s a lot of additional words for what amounts to be less impact. Sometimes less really is more (depending on your precise aims and ability).

These alterations also create a thin dance between the tense used as the main narration of the tale, which is third person past tense, and a more immediate sensation when Matheson draws us closer in a more lyrical nature, which moves to present tense.

Most editors would tell you not to dance around like this, but this goes to show that you can break rules if you know precisely (and I can’t stress that word too hard here), what you’re doing. There’s a reason masters can break the rules, and that’s by knowing them intricately so they know how they stand, and how they can be amended to suit their own purposes.

But then it stops

One of the lessons I’ve taken from this story is that if you are to create a sing-song / lyrical atmosphere and play with language, do it upfront, create some tension in the tale, but wind back the language once we get to the most tense parts.

The clipping of language and use of lyrical content almost grinds to a complete halt in the second, most action-packed scene. This is done on purpose so there’s nothing to trip the reader up when it matters most.

So, we have a lyrical, fast-paced first scene. A scene that gets to the main tension in the story in the second scene, where we get to more straight forward language. And we return to more songs and lyrical language at the end scene. It’s a nice way to move through a tale and one I’ll certainly try to recreate (and probably butcher!).

Breaking of whole sentences into smaller, more jaggy parts

…fingers searching once more for soft leg. And finding, under the table, soft leg waiting.

Another nice wee trick is how Matheson takes what should, by rites, be a whole sentence and fragments it into two. It creates a nice rhythm. There’s a mirror effect in the first example above, and in the below, we get the repetition of ‘Uncle Buddy’. Both are techniques of the poetic variety.

Uncle Buddy leaning close, vapor of whiskey haloing his head. Uncle Buddy pushing cold glass to shaking young lips.

A countdown to remember

There’s certainly a lot I’ve taken from a writer by diving into this one. Another tension-raising technique Matheson employs is a simple countdown. Peggy eyes the signs on the journey into St Louis and as readers, we feel her mounting panic at what might happen once they get there.

It starts at ST. LOUIS – 10, and is updated in a simple manner as we head into the ruined city, until the first scene ends ‘ST LOUIS’.

It’s a small thing, but done ever so well. A literal countdown is sometimes all you need to add to ratchet up the suspense.

A zombified world

So, what to make of the entire tale? I’ve already mentioned that we get to the end and we’re not shown precisely what the future will be. Will we get a zombie apocalypse because Peggy has been bitten / scratched? Or have we seen the numbing of innocence in a young girl?

Either way, we’ve had a journey through a frightful world. It’s a world where only the most intense of emotions and activities will stop these kids from their numbness. And to have a zombie be the thing on stage that they’re all laughing it is a masterstroke, imo. Are they seeing themselves in that loopy? They’re not far off being devoid of real emotions themselves.

I certainly see a lot of parallels with our world and the way things are going. Social media has brought on a wave of extremity, celebrating it, even. And a personal gripe is the use of language that also numbs people to actual important events (i.e. everything is ‘shocking’, everything is ‘iconic’ even when they are little things, that it takes from the impact of those words).

This tale mirrors so much of what I fear for our own society, which is no doubt why it resonates with me so much.

Anyway, I’ve blethered too much (as ever!). What were your thoughts? Do you agree with what I’ve said? And who are your favourite short story writers?