It is known to us that horror is a sense of feeling that all people would like to get themselves rid of and they would like that they do not experience such kind of feeling in their daily life. Different people have different definitions toward horror and those different definitions can all be appropriate as long as they can make sense. Horror is identified as occurring at the point where there is a breakdown of the human structures that give the world a semblance of order and familiarity. If horror is defined in that way, it is obvious that horror is present everywhere in The Policemen’s Ball, including giving the familiar an unfamiliar sense; the irrelevance of subsequent sentences; the collapse of one’s thoughts; self-negation and thrilling self-imagination.
Firstly, this book gives the familiar an unfamiliar sense so as to bring a horror sense to the audience. For example, when Margot was in the cab to Horace’s place, the thought of the cabdriver that “A nice-looking piece. I could love her” is rather strange (Donald Bartheleme. 1981). It can be understood in this way that it is quite familiar and normal for us to imagine that one girl is calling a cab to the destination she would like to go, but it is really unfamiliar for us to imagine that the cabdriver would have the sense of loving Margot who is simply a passenger. In this circumstance, we may be afraid as for what this cabdriver would do to Margot then.
Moreover, the horror of this book can as well be embodied via the irrelevance of subsequent sentences. Or maybe it can be put in another way that the sentence order in this book is hard for the audience to grasp so that it may give the audience a sense of horror. In the beginning of this book, the former sentence is talking about the Game Hens are frozen solid while the following sentence is talking about that Horace is wearing his blue uniform pants. In this example, the audience may be quite confused by the irrelevance of the sentences and they may have no idea about the author’s intention. And then the author again returns to talk about the Game Hens while the expression about Horace’s dressing as well follows afterwards that “Horace shined his black dress shoes” (Donald Bartheleme. 1981). The examples of irrelevance of sentences in this book are actually too numerous to enumerate, indicating that the degree of horror sense of the audience may be quite strong. The more the audience reads it, the more confused they may become. The arrangement order of sentences are out of the expectation of the audience and the sense of horror may appear because they are unfamiliar with it.
Thirdly, the collapse of one’s thoughts in this book is also effective to arouse a sense of horror. Before the Policemen’s Ball, both Horace and Margot had thought much about the coming ball, which can mainly be divided into the below few ones: “The Game Hens are frozen solid, Horace thought.”, “Tonight is the night of the Policemen’s Ball, Horace thought. We will dance the night away”, “Police colonels and generals will be there, she thought.” (Donald Bartheleme. 1981). But what is a pity to say is that their thoughts were not the reality and the dancing was actually serious. The thought of the horrors that “Not even policemen and their ladies are safe, the horrors thought” (Donald Bartheleme. 1981) is where the horror sense is quite obvious. And the laughter “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” at the end of this book, the repeated use of ten “ha”, is the most horrible throughout this book.
Last but not the least, the self-negation and thrilling self-imagination as well accounts for a large part of the horror sense in this book. Detailed speaking, when Horace is wondering about whether Margot will put out that night, he saw the necks of the birds which had been torn asunder by the pliers if she did not appear. There is no doubt that this imagination is somewhat horrible and it may lead us to wonder what terrific behavior Horace would do to Margot if she did not appear that night. It could be enough to make the audience have the horror sense. But what’s worse, the book just sets that Horace negates his own imagination, which can be considered as a form of the breakdown of one’s own imagination. Besides, Horace also thought that “Because if they can’t trust us…the blue men…” (Donald Bartheleme. 1981) , which contains the ellipsis. The involvement of the ellipsis here undoubtedly has made the audience easily guess that the consequence will be quite serious if the public do not trust the policemen in the due time.
To sum up, a reasonable conclusion can be drawn that horror is present everywhere in The Policemen’s Ball if the below few aspects are considered: giving the familiar an unfamiliar sense; the irrelevance of subsequent sentences; the collapse of one’s thoughts; self-negation and thrilling self-imagination. Maybe there are many other aspects can be used to explain horror in this book as have not been mentioned in the above, which calls for future efforts.