A Stingy, Mean, Hard, Rotten Town
Mary Richards (not the one played by Mary Tyler Moore, but the bank cashier’s wife) knows the truth about Hadleyburg. She is not alone, but as the saying goes in certain circles in the United States Senate “if I don’t look at it, it never existed.” Most other Hadleyburglarians don’t look it, much less talk about it out loud. But don’t for a minute think Mary is alone here:
“I do believe that if ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards.”
Murky Depths of Gossip
Rev. Burgess has a past. Like so much else about the past in the story, it is murky and ambiguous, but that is the point, of course. Gossip hangs around longer in murky depths than clear shallows. Metaphor is applied to the Reverend’s past as a means of not speaking bad about others (Hadleyburg is honest, after all) and keeping the past forever in the present:
“The whole of his unpopularity had its foundation in that one thing—the thing that made so much noise.”
Hadleyburg Gets a Sack of…Gold
The presence of the stranger is felt all over town. A great big sack of gold given to the town to reward one of its citizens for kindness to a stranger tends to have that effect. One night only two people in the world know of the existence of the gold and the next day:
“Hadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated—astonished—happy—vain. Vain beyond imagination.”
Just a Stranger in Disguise
The stranger is a rather strange character. Maybe just a man; maybe something more demonic. Ambiguous to be sure and consumed with vengeance, but his plans for revenge seem needlessly complicated. And then there is his choice of disguise when he shows up unannounced to observe the central proceedings of the narrative:
“Meantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur detective gotten up as an impossible English earl, had been watching the evening’s proceedings with manifest interest, and with a contented expression in his face; and he had been privately commenting to himself.”
The Big Reveal
The moment of truth comes for the people of Hadleyburg and it isn’t quite everything that everyone was hoping for. Expecting? Oh, almost certainly, but not hoping for. The tension pulled to the breaking point, there can be only one response so the question becomes exactly what kind of metaphorical image will be engaged to express the moments which immediately follow:
“A ghastly silence followed. First an angry cloud began to settle darkly upon the faces of the citizenship; after a pause the cloud began to rise, and a tickled expression tried to take its place; tried so hard that it was only kept under with great and painful difficulty”
