Julia Armfield is a master at threading subtle tension all throughout her story “Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax.” I think that this tension starts with the ingenious title — not only because it alludes to the sirens, but by how it turns the music in the story into a monstrous call for (and by) the girls who follow the band. The images and the diction used to describe the fans continually draw similarities between them and monsters, such as the line, “two-headed girls in plastic macs, chimera-blooms of arms and hands as groups protect bareheaded members from the rain;” and furthermore, there’s a slightly unsettling nature about the lack of men in the crowd and the roadcrew. (80) I think there’s also a level of craziness that a reader would expect from any fervid fans, (especially teen girls, who are often mocked for their obsessions with bands) but the mixing of these qualities into the text helps foreshadow the fans’ actions both later and at the end of the story. This tension about what this will look like or how far they’ll go rests in moments in the story when it’s implied that a fan has murdered someone or when the speaker is watching them in the queues. For example, the death of the first venue manager, and then at Carlisle, when the speaker describes, ” a tall girl in purple tights waving her arms in a gesture which mimics a conductor but more closely resembles the wielding of something blunt,” (87) both clue the reader into the viciousness that’s occurring within the fans.
The elusiveness of these crimes, which are usually heard about through rumors or on the news the next day, also give rise to a suspense that feels like a held breath. This is similar to how the actual band members never appear fully in the story. They are constantly alluded to but never fully described, giving them the mysteriousness that attracts the fans to them and pulls the reader physically into the story. I found the line, “and the music had changed to something else, channel changing unbidden to something vampish and inciting — coaxing fingers creeping out from the radio,” to explain the pull of the band members almost perfectly, and it’s like they are also reaching through the pages of the book. (98) One issue that Armfield must have had to face while writing the story is how to explain the music of the band through text — it’s like she’s having to convert one medium to another. I think she does this through creating a speaker who operates as part of the film crew; she’s able to move through visuals in a sense that feels extremely real and doesn’t break the fourth wall, and it also lends to some of the fragmented sentences that feel like flashes of images you might see in a video. However, Armfield is so masterful that this is complicated by what the speaker refuses to see. I think that by having these two techniques play off of each other, the eeriness of what the reader “sees” is amplified and the things that we aren’t allowed to see become even more monstrous and terrifying.
Lastly, this tension is not a held note but more like a song itself. Armfield knows how to let it rise and fall depending on what the story demands, and I think that the large paragraph on page 86 is a perfect way to understand how she’s doing it in a smaller context. Armfield starts by planting the thing causing the tension: the car-carrier. The image seems pretty peaceful as the wind rocks the cars, and I think the reader can identify something wrong at that point, but it’s hard to pinpoint, especially as Mona’s view wanders over the parking lot and considers the “gentle groan of coastal weather.” As she’s distracted by humming with Ava, the view is again set on the carrier as it’s rocked a bit harder by the wind. The rest of the paragraph feels like watching a train crash: I think the reader knows what’s going to happen by now, it’s just a matter of how the words are ordered on the page. The way the last sentence is structured increases this tension even further until the full punch comes, as the car “rolls gently off the platform, directly onto the Audi behind.” Afterwards, Armfield doesn’t release that tension. Mona turns away from the Audi, and we don’t know what happens to the people inside. This move also mirrors the ending. The girls seem to embody the tension of the story as they pour out onto the street, not in the sense that they’ve been freed, but more like a lingering bad vibe. As they turn further into monsters, the reader can understand that there’s a reckoning about to be had, but like Mona, the camera turns away again, and we’re held in the suspense of that last note.