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“Sound Textures in a Gothic Christmas Novel: «Markheim» by Robert Louis Stevenson”

1. INTRODUCTION

The short Christmas story “Markheim” by Robert Louis Stevenson may not have achieved the

notoriety of other of his works, such as the famous The Treasure Island or The Strange Case of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hide. Nevertheless, Markheim's plot condenses into a remarkably small space - either in

terms of text length or Narrative Time - a profound human drama in which the dilemmas of

conscience, greed, or nostalgic childhood memories intersect beneath a mysterious and supernatural

veil. In the aforementioned aspects, Markheim also reveals strong parallels with A Christmas Carol by

Charles Dickens. I would like to remark that in both literary works, the Christmas season brings with

it the possibility of remembrance, introspection, and ultimately redemption [Stevenson, 1900; Saposnik,

1966].1 Other authors have pointed out insightful parallels between Stevenson's story and

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment [Knowlton, 1916] 2

or even with Shakespeare's Macbeth [Gossman,

1962]. 3
I here use the term "Gothic" not in the more restricted sense, but only considering its most

general aspects, namely the story’s mood.

Markheim was first published in 1886 in The Broken Shaft: Tales in Mid-Ocean (as a part of Unwin's

Christmas Annual) [Norman, 1886] 4

and republished two years later, in 1887, in Robert Louis

Stevenson's anthology entitled The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables [Stevenson, 1887]. 5

There are numerous adaptations of this short story in the domains of opera, theatre, radio, cinema,

and television. In fact, by itself, the narrative has an almost cinematic structure, with several memory

flashbacks and varying focal points that shift from one scene to the next.

1
STEVENSON, Robert Louis, A Christmas Sermon, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, The Merrymount Press, 1900; SAPOSNIK, Irving S., “Stevenson's
«Markheim»: A Fictional «Christmas Sermon»”, in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 21, No. 3, University of California Press, 1966, pp. 277-282.
2
KNOWLTON, Edgar C., “A Russian Influence on Stevenson”, Modern Philology, Dec. 1916, Vol. 14, No. 8, The University of Chicago Press, pp. 449-454.
3
GOSSMAN, Ann, “On the Knocking at the Gate in «Markheim»”, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Jun., 1962, Vol. 17, No. 1, University of California Press, pp. 73-
76.
4
STEVENSON, R. Louis, “Markheim” in The Broken Shaft: Tales in Mid-Ocean (Unwin's Christmas Annual), Henry Norman (ed.), London, D. Appleton and
Company by T. Fisher Unwin, 1886.
5
STEVENSON, R. Louis, “Markheim” in The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables, London, Chatto & Windus, 1905.
1
2. THE NARRATIVE

Briefly, Markheim novel takes place on Christmas Day, in the brief span of the afternoon. The main

character Markheim enters an antique shop, whose owner he already knows from previous

transactions, to buy a present for his fiancée. However, his true intentions are quickly revealed when

he slays the shop dealer, intending to rob him. The middle portion of the story is an account of how

Markheim is assailed by fears, doubts, and memories.

In the final section of the novel, the killer is visited by a supernatural entity – maybe the Devil, or most

probably Markheim's superego - who warns him of the maid's imminent arrival and who suggests he

also murder her to escape unpunished and finally be able to consummate his robbery. Additionally,

this last character acts as a sort of psychologist toward Markheim. 6

Faced with the decision to commit yet another homicide, he chooses to surrender to a guaranteed

death sentence for his crime, which, at last, will bring him release from a criminal life.

3. MARKHEIM’S SOUNDSCAPE

One of Markheim's most striking features, in addition to the writing's undeniable richness and the

text's extraordinary sensory descriptions, is the novel’s abundance of sound cues. The semantic-

acoustic descriptores in this literary work are, of course, open to just suggestions. However, no reader

who approaches this brief text is likely to remain untouched by the richness of textures and sound

gestures that run through it and how they support the narrative's moods and unfolding, establish the

drama's temporality and rhythm, draw the psychological profile of its protagonists and reveal their

nostalgic memories, yearnings, and fears.

It is due to the strong cultural conditioning to which we are all subject, due to a lifetime of exposure to

audiovisual stimuli, that for human beings, most sounds embody causality [Smalley, 1997].7 In other

words, the emergence of a sound relates to its material origin, which is motivated by some action,

6
It is not obvious whether this character is the devil, a guardian angel, or Markheim's own conscience. For more information on this question, please see ZABEL,
Morton Dauwen, “Introduction,” in Robert Louis Stevenson: The Two Major Novels, New York, 1960, p. xvii, and MICHEL, Alfred, Robert Louis Stevenson: Zein
Verhaltnis Zum Bosen, 1949, Bern, p. 116.
7
SMALLEY, Denis, “Spectromorphology: explaining sound-shapes”, in Organised Sound (Vol. 2, Issue 2), 1997., Cambridge University Press, pp. 107-126.
2
whether in human, natural, or other domains. It is true that words spoken aloud or even internally in

the reader's mind may not always correspond to the semantic description of a sound. I mean, the real

sound of rain is an acoustic experience entirely different from hearing the word "rain," whether

internally or audibly.

However, since the perception of a sound denotes a cause, cannot its semantic description also imbue

the reader with a sense of causality, enabling him to almost feel, visualize the activities that gave rise

to its emergence? If one follows this line of reasoning and admits that sounds are proprioceptive, that

is, that in their causality they refer to an action that implies the tension-relaxation binomial, will not

the semantic description of sounds transform, in the reader's mind, into an imagined audio-visual

experience of great richness?

4. VOICES

The most common sound semantic descriptors in Markheim are related to the use of voice in its

various forms (sighs, cries, and several types of spoken voice). These predominate in the dialogues

between the antique shop dealer and the main personage Markheim, as well as between this later and

his superego, in the story's final section. Exclamation points and question marks, which naturally

suggest specific sorts of sound attacks, intonation, and timbre, have not been taken into consideration

for the current study (this might be a rather distinct kind of approach). So, I have only considered the

interactions associated with semantic sound descriptors.

I have identified thirteen (13) distinct vocal inflection categories in a total of twenty-six (26)

utterances, all of which are at the dialogue level. The character with the greatest and widest range of

interventions, as can be observed in the chart, is Markheim, prevailing the cried voice. The type and

frequency of vocal inflections suggest a character with a deep emotional profile. Conversely, the

semantic category that is most frequently associated with the dealer is "chuckling," which can be

understood more as an "iterative sound" than as a vocal gesture [Schaeffer, 1966]. 8. The fact that the

8
SCHAEFFER, Pierre, Traité des Objets Musicaux : Essai Interdiscipline, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1966.
3
dealer speech interventions are described as "businesslike," "biting," "dry," or "sharp" suggests a

dramatis personae that exhibits some coldness and contempt towards his interlocutor Markheim.

Markheim's superego appears to be the psychologically flattest figure - solely from the perspective of

sound labeling - with only two cried utterances that are limited to informing Markheim of the

impending maid's arrival.

5. CLOCKS

Besides the dialogue, Stevenson also mentions other kinds of voices. But, instead of actual human

voices, the reader is presented with the metaphorical "voices" of the many clocks in the store – some

fast, others slow, loud, soft, etc. -, which create in the reader's mind a unified, moving, and continuous

texture, and whose interior is formed by the accumulation of dozens of smaller sounds with distinct

timbre, dynamics, pitch, and attack, in a kind of granulated texture. This closed sound texture is only

broken up or weakened by the presence of other stronger sounds that have a masking effect on the

texture of the clocks, such as the rain outside or the heavy steps on the pavement [Bregman, 1994].9

[…] first one, and then another, with every variety of pace and voice, one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret,

another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz, the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the

afternoon. The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered him.

In another passage, Stevenson writes, and I quote:

Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and slow as was becoming to their great age, others

garrulous and hurried. All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then the passage of a lad's

feet, heavily running on the pavement, broke in upon these smaller voices […].

6. SOUNDS FROM MEMORY

9
BREGMAN, Albert S., Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound, Cambridge, MIT Press, Bradford Book, 1994.
4
At several different points in this story, Markheim is exposed to sounds and sights that cause him to

recall distant childhood memories. The sight of the whitish, bloodied face of the corpse awakens in

Markheim the distant memory of a fair day when he was just a child. Along with the festive sounds of

boisterous street music, Markheim recalls the revolting imagery of posters hanging in the street,

representing terrible atrocities that occurred in England back then. 10

The face was robbed of all expression; but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly smeared with blood about one

temple. […] It carried him back, upon the instant, to a certain fair-day in a fishers’ village: a gray day, a piping

wind, a crowd upon the street, the blare of brasses, the booming of drums, the nasal voice of a ballad singer; and a

boy going to and fro, […] beheld a booth and a great screen with pictures, dismally designed, garishly coloured:

Brownrigg with her apprentice; the Mannings with their murdered guest; Weare in the death-grip of Thurtell; and

a score besides of famous crimes. […] he was once again that little boy; he was looking once again, and with the

same sense of physical revolt, at these vile pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the drums. A bar of

that day’s music returned upon his memory; and at that, for the first time, a qualm came over him, a breath of

nausea, a sudden weakness of the joints […]

But as the story progresses, Markheim begins to recall nostalgic and enjoyable recollections. From the

other side of the street, Markheim can hear a piano playing along with children's voices singing a

hymn over the solace of rain falling on the street. Summer afternoons spent in the country, the

calming sounds of the church organ, and the priest's high, gentle voice, are some of the childhood

memories that the beautiful melody and the young, fresh voices, bring back to Markheim.

The rain falling in the street sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the notes of a piano were

wakened to the music of a hymn, and the voices of many children took up the air and words. How stately, how

comfortable was the melody! How fresh the youthful voices! […] and his mind was thronged with answerable ideas

and images; church-going children and the pealing of the high organ […] and then, at another cadence of the

hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays, and the high genteel voice of the parson […].

10
(Radlet murder, 1823) (Manning couple murder (Bermondsey Horror, 1849) Elizabeth Brownrigg (1720–1765), cujas torturas sobre os criados ainda
eram falados 60 anos apó s o enforcamento de Brownrigg).
5
In the corresponding fragment of text, Stevenson offers the reader three different layers of sound

semantics, a kind of polyphony of sound textures, or rather a polytextural sound ambiance: the closer

sound texture of rain outside on the street, the slightly more distant choral and piano music, and the

far-away memory from the sounds of youth. This simultaneously evokes spatial and temporal

distances.

VI. RAIN

Despite the sparse mention of rain, this element is a fundamental sound reference in the context of the

narrative, sometimes merging with, sometimes drowning out the supposedly continuous sound

texture of the clocks. It should be noted that the interaction of the rain with surfaces (the street, the

roof, the cupola) and even the merging of its sound with other sounds – namely its own echo, which

reinforces it - creates unreal and unexpected sounds that stimulate the inner ear and the auditory

imagination of Markheim. The sounds heard or imagined by Markheim, in this case, are not based on

the causality of the sound, or, in other words, on the materialization of its sound indexes, or the

material nature of its source. One could then refer to a "figurative listening", in which the fundamental

question would be "What do these sounds represent?" rather than "what are these sounds?” [Chion,

2010/2016] 11

A passage from the text illustrates this point:

So loud was the beating of the rain through all the house that, in Markheim's ears, it began to be distinguished

into many different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the tread of regiments marching in the distance, the chink of

money in the counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar, appeared to mingle with the patter of the

drops upon the cupola and the gushing of the water in the pipes.

Like the texture associated with clocks, the one linked with falling rain also suggests a temporal

continuity, a permanent presence from a certain moment in the narrative. Although the sound texture

11
CHION, Michel, Sound: An Acoulogical Treatise, London, Duke University Press, 2016, translated from the original (Le son. Traité d’acoulogie,
Armand Colin, 2nd edition, 2010) by James A. Steintrager, 2016.
6
of the rain also has a granular character – similar to that connected with clocks - it contrasts strongly

with the more even, isorhythmic texture of the clocks, and has a more evolutionary, changing

character that reflects the distinct degrees of “rain” dynamics. In other words, the semantic

descriptions of the sounds that are produced by the rain naturally depict how hard it’s raining.

VII. FINAL REMARKS

The sound aspects occupy a subtancial part of Markheim’s narrative, so it seems adequate to

emphasize their relevance within the scope of this brief story. Its various acoustic cues, in the form of

gestures, textures, or speech qualifications, are largely responsible for providing the reader with

essential clues about the protagonists and their interrelationships, or about the physical and

psychological spaces present in this short story.

It is also due to the sound references that Stevenson provides us with the essential elements for

defining four main spaces: the outer space (the street, the surroundings), the interior space of the

antique shop, and the spaces of auditory imagination and memory.

Thus, the outer space is defined by the more punctual sound gestures (the faint rush of cabs passing in

the street, the hurried steps, the rain, or the hymn sung by the children), while the inner space of the

store is filled by continuous and granular textures, that sometimes turn into frightening sounds (the

sound of clocks, and the several sounds associated with rain). Those provide the idea of a closed and

obsessive space. In general, sound textures that are characterized by a great deal of internal detail –

intensively granular, as is the case – transmit to the listener a sensation of temporal freezing, of

ecstaticism, of closure.12

In addition to the aforementioned, there are also sounds from outside that somehow invades the

interior space, such as the sound textures linked to the rain or the individual knocking violently on the

door of the antique shop. However, the main character states that "through the brick walls and

12
Op. cit, SMALLEY
7
shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate." And all these sounds, or rather their semantic

descriptions, might be strong enough to enter the reader's mind.

And then there are the real sounds that Markheim hears and that stir up memories, some unpleasant,

but also nostalgic memories of happier times from his childhood and youth. (***)

In this brief communication, I approached the Markheim tale from the almost exclusive prism of

sound semantic descriptions. This is not to say that this story doesn't have other aspects that could be

worth analyzing separately.

However, it becomes too obvious that the sound dimension stands out as a fundamental element,

allowing the discussion of concepts such as causality, sound location, time, texture, figurative

listening, masking effect, etc... It is true that each one of these aspects would deserve an isolated study

in itself. My aim, however, was to present a brief overview of the main sonic aspects of this short

novel.

In the end, it seems evident that in “Markheim”, alongside the extraordinary psychological drama,

Stevenson presents the reader with a remarkable “sonic imaginary landscape”.