The season should have been early summer except, near The Falls, the air was agitated and damp, abrasive as ﬁne steel ﬁlings in the lungs.

So early! The hour should have been dawn except that shifting walls of fog, mist, and spray rising in continuous billowing clouds out of the 180-foot Niagara Gorge obscured the sun. But looking back, yes I should have known. He would be the ﬁrst pedestrian of the day. T the time unknown, unnamed, the individual who was to throw himself into the Horseshoe Falls appeared to the gatekeeper of the Goat Island Suspension Bridge at approximately 6:15 a.m. Other Ecco/HarperCollins Books by Joyce Carol OatesĬredits Cover Copyright About the Publisher And After The Underworldīaltic The Woman in Black Pilgrims Hostages Our Lady of The Falls The VoicesĮpilo gue In Memoriam: Dirk Burnaby 21 September 1978 The Gatekeeper’s Testimony: 12 June 1950 The Bride The Fossil-Seeker The Widow-Bride of The Falls: The Search The Widow-Bride of The Falls: The Vigil The Proposal 7 July 1950 part i1 Especially, resemblances to actual persons living or dead are coincidental. Though there are numerous elements of historical and geographical accuracy in this portrait of Niagara Falls, New York, it should be stressed that the city and its environs are ﬁnally mythological. Moses Blaine, A Niagara Falls Physician’s Log 1879‒1905.īy 1900 Niagara Falls had come to be known, to the dismay of local citizens and promoters of the prosperous tourist trade, as “Suicide’s Paradise.” A Brief History of Niagara Falls, 1969 Silently the victim vows to The Falls-“Yes, you have killed thousands of men and women but you can’t kill me. A new birth, not unlike the Christian promise of the Resurrection of the Body, may be the cruellest hope. We may speculate: Under the spell of The Falls the hapless individual both ceases to exist and yet wills to become immortal.

There may be a mysterious biological attraction to the thunderous force of nature represented by the The Falls, romantically misinterpreted as “magniﬁcent”-“grand”-“Godly”-and so the unfortunate victim throws himself to his doom if he is not prevented. The eyes of the enthralled victim are ﬁxed and dilated. Touch him, or attempt to restrain him, he may throw off your hand angrily. Speak to him in the most forcible tone, he will not hear you. Such a one, drawn to the turbulent rapids above The Falls, may stand for long minutes staring as if paralyzed. This morbid condition has been known to render even the will of the active, robust man in the prime of life temporarily invalid, as if under the spell of a malevolent hypnotist. The Falls at Niagara, comprising the American, the Bridal Veil and the enormous Horseshoe falls, exert upon a proportion of the human population, perhaps as many as forty percent (of adults), an uncanny effect called the hydracropsychic.

The cruel beauty of The Falls That calls to you- Surrender! M.

The falls by joyce carol oates