It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…
A friend of mine recently pointed out what otherwise should have been obvious, but was nonetheless something I’d never really thought about before. The popular quotation, “it was a dark and stormy night” is, in itself, a very redundant clause.
The phrase itself originated from novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. The style is, in today’s literary terms, an attempt at dramatic flair.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s opening sentence went as follows:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
The phrase was not well known until Charles Schultz (”Peanuts” comic artist) used it in his comic strips, sometimes with a variation as “He was a dark and stormy Knight.”
If it was night, don’t we already expect it to be dark? And can’t we be more descriptive than “stormy”? Particularly to begin a story, “It was a dark and stormy night” is weak, even standing alone. It has no teeth, no vitality. - Cogito.
This is a very valid point. Why state that it’s dark if we know it’s night? Why not be more descriptive? One could describe the storm, the dark, or even the night. The writer just needs to carefully examine that he’s not restating the obvious.
In general, there isn’t anything wrong with the phrase, aside from it becoming a modern-day cliche. My point isn’t to bash Bulwer-Lytton, but rather to point out the importance of not being redundant. While there are some situations in which redundancy can be beneficial to a writer, in general it should be avoided.
November 21st, 2007 No Comments posted in General Writing
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