Tucked in the back of Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow, is a short, eight-page story that despite its topic, is relatable to everyone, somehow or another. It’s a story much like any other, with a prominent obstacle that threatens the happiness of the protagonist, only this time, the protagonist starts and ends in the same spot. The story arch, hidden behind the narrative, is itself symbolic. This week for story symbolism is an examination of “Heat” by Steve Ransnic Tem. It is a representation of how disasters can result in destructive obsessions and broken minds.
In the story, Sandra is thrown into a life full of violent thoughts when her ex-husband and son pass away unexpectedly in a fiery plane accident. Her obsession with fire is clear, with her rambling thoughts about fire and fact spouting. Despite seeing a therapist, she can barely keep herself together. Her life is only a mere speck of what it once had been. Incapable of leading a normal social life, she goes to work with a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings of fire-related incidents, her family’s accident included. In fact, the only thing that helps Sandra is getting close to a fire at the end of the story, getting burned, and being saved by a fireman, who she then tells that she is in love with him.
Clearly, there is a lot of symbolism in the story. However short, “Heat,” is an elaborate representation for something much deeper than fire: it’s a representation of self-destruction. To better understand this, let’s take a look at the symbolic elements in the story:
- When speaking to her therapist, and telling him the varying degrees at which items burn, the therapist explains “sometimes knowing the facts and figures makes what we fear seem more comprehensible” (383). In this manner, we discover that Sandra fears fire, and yet, is drawn to it like a moth to the flame. She understands the danger better than anyone, but she may also be trying to grasp any shred of closure available, so as to come to terms with the accident that changed her life.
- At one point, Sandra looks out the window and wonders if fire has an entity (383). In this manner, it becomes clear that she has placed a persona to the element, a “face” to the murderer, so to speak.
- As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that she really does see things that aren’t there, such as people engulfed in flames. She refuses to tell the therapist about it because of the questions he’d ask (385). She knows it’s wrong, she knows it isn’t real at all, but she can’t stop it, and perhaps, she doesn’t want to.
- After seeing a little boy burn his bare feet on the hot asphalt, she thinks of how she’d throw herself on the ground and burn herself all over (385). Clearly, despite her terror, she wants to be burned. Her guilt over being alive, while her family is dead, has left her empty.
- By the time Sandra gets to work, she can’t function. She’s put on makeup and ripped pantyhose in the blistering heat (feels covered up, like she can hide the insanity beneath the layers), but she gets caught with the scrapbook. This incident displays how little she can do normally, and how fire has consumed her life and mind, even if it hasn’t touched her body (389).
- In the end, Sandra drives to an incident nearby, and gets too close to the fire. She’s burned, and rescued by a firefighter, to which she declares love to (391). It’s not a matter of being in love with the fireman, she’s simply declaring love for him for saving her from death. She’s been burned and punished for being alive, she’s felt what her ex-husband and son must have felt, and she’s gotten the closure she needed. The fireman was the first welcome sight in a while, years, really.
Tragic events can break a person, whether it be through physical pain and suffering, or the inability to understand and accept it. In Sandra’s case, she welcomed the physical pain, because then she could get closure for something that happened years ago. Unable to move on, her life was a reflection of the aftermath of the accident that left her alone in the world. While the story may be dark, Sandra got exactly what she wanted, and perhaps, in a deranged way, what she needed.
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