An Example of Great Ironic and Metaphoric Writing

EDWARD F. MURPHY

I have been reading Edward F. Murphy books of late. First, there was an out of print novel from 1947, "Pére Antoine: The 1770-1822 story of the most hated priest in New Orleans who became the best-loved bishop of all Louisiana." I picked this out of the shadows because I was developing a screenplay that begins in New Orleans just before the famous 1778 fire. The irony in Murphy's writing captivated me.

I next found what I thought was another novel of his, "Yankee Priest" which turned out to be his fascinating autobiography. Murphy was a poor missionary Catholic priest to New Orleans in the 1940s. He went there as one of the first professors at Xavier University. Ironically, Murphy, had very close connections to the famous Broadway actor, composer and producer Eddie Dowling, and through Eddie's friendship, had considerable affect on Broadway at the time.

Then, I came across Murphy's best selling novel, "Scarlet Lily," a fictional novel of Mary of Magdala, conceived as the harlot who became a follower of Christ.

Most Bible scholars do not believe Mary was the adulterous woman Jesus forgive, nor was she another harlot, but rather just a rich woman from Magdala whom Jesus cast out seven demons. That she was a harlot was a legend started perhaps in the Middle Ages and evident in some gnostic writings, but not supported by the canonical Scriptures or church tradition. Nonetheless, Murphy makes a good story out of it.

"Scarlet Lily" won a famous novel writing contest sponsored by The Bruce Publishing Company. Before "Scarlet Lily" was released as a novel, famed Hollywood producer David O. Selznick picked up the movie rights as his next big production after Gone with the Wind and attached Ingrid Bergman to play Magdala.  Alas, the movie was never made for a variety of political reasons, one of which that with the end of WWII, biblical epics were suddenly out of vogue. [Yes, I'm wondering, was a screenplay written? I've been looking.]

IRONY and METAPHOR

I've just started reading the "Scarlet Lily" and, as expected, I've been rewarded with great prose, and Murphy's talent for IRONY and METAPHOR.

I've written and lectured before about the importance of irony and metaphors in writing (novels and screenplays), and indeed the first of ten lessons of my on-line Moral Premise workshop is all about the importance of irony. (http://Storycrafttraining.blogspot.com). So, below is a great example from Scarlet Lily.

While Murphy finds it hard to write a paragraph, in anything he writes, without layering on irony, metaphor or similes, this paragraph is the most dense I've read...among many, many writers. So, it is worthy of posting for study and analysis. This is how you should write every line of a screenplay, every scene - - and of course this is what The Moral Premise does—it pits virtue and vice, good consequence against bad, in a single sentence. Just as you've always read that ever scene must have conflict, so every action description should likewise be written, and every doublet of dialogue drip.

SETTING

Setting: Mary of Magdala is a young, beautiful woman, who out of the tyranny of King Herold's murderous temperament, found herself in the ugly situation of being a highly prized harlot wandering the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. It's about 12 A.D. A week or so before this moment in the novel, she has inadvertently witnessed Jesus in the temple at age 12, dialoging with Jewish teachers (Luke 2:39-52). In that scene young Jesus defines for the much older teachers the virtue that hides between fear of God and love of God—reverence of God. Magdala doesn't know who the young boy is, but she's impressed—there's a glow about him.  But her pimp shows up, putting a possessive arm around her and dragging her away from the discussion, and calls on her to employ her charms to entertain a visiting Babylonia prince. After spending days in the prince's employ, the prince beckons her to leave Jerusalem and travel with him to his kingdom. She ponders the offer, telling her servant: "There is nothing in Jerusalem for me. And, for a moment, I had though there might be everything—." (even there, notice the "nothing" and "everything" in the one sentence. That's Murphy's talent.

Here is the longer pondering...every sentence on a pedestal of irony and metaphor.

THE PASSAGE

That Jehovah was great, and that his visitations were as awful as himself, Mary thought she could plainly see. But that he was lovable, notwithstanding that he had permitted a child to be born in Bethlehem over a decade ago, whose coming meant the murder of many little ones, did not appear at all clear. Every gift of his, however fine in one phase, was fearful in another. Life itself, his greatest [gift], was shadowed by death. Youth and beauty were so brief that they amounted to little more than a withering and a decay. Light sombered into darkness. Stars fell. The earth yielded thistles and thorns as well as wheat and roses. The heart, so suited to hold joy, regularly brimmed with sorrow. The jubilee of today was the sackcloth and ashes of tomorrow. What did it profit to have a warm stream of health in one's veins when the chill of certain dissolution blew steadily over it? What was spring's awakening in comparison with winter's terrible sleep? As for the towers of reason, they enthroned the rulership of fools, for kings and high priests had alike committed Israel to suffering and shame. And the bosom of Abraham — hope of the faithful! — had it not been barbaric, even as Herod's own, with a willingness to slay the innocent Isaac? Love, as an inspiration to good, was better than fear, as a prevention of evil; but how could love grow and bloom in a winter-world? Reverence was ideal; but how could it be the soul-expression of a people whose lambs were led to the slaughter and whose God, to whom sacrifices were continually made, had left the land be stripped of dignity and left it to languish under the Roman heel?  [Murphy, Edward (1947). The Scarlet Lily. Milwaukee: Bruce, p. 62.]