1. Possession by A.S Byatt
In this simple phrasing, there is an uncomfortable reminder that the narrator's commentary is a gift to the reader, not a requirement-commentary is a literary luxury, not a realistic requisite. Hawthorne's choice, then, chillingly reflects actual experience, which is also devoid of the luxury of explanation-instead, it is defined by a basic flurry of action that we, as we blunder onwards, must try to synthesize into sense.
In addition to a subtle stylistic undermining of certainty, Hawthorne also challenges certainty blatantly in his descriptions of suspenseful scenes by using intentionally vague language. Late one night, Phoebe hears "the murmur of an unknown voice" which is "strangely indistinct" and resembles "unshaped sound" (95). Her inability to define the voice and attach a form to it is frustrating, as this description, for all its many words, tells us nothing about the voice in the end other than that it is unclear. Indeed, when the voice is described a final time two pages later, it remains "a strange, vague murmur, which might be likened to an indistinct shadow of human utterance" (97)-the descriptions from before recycled to exacerbate our frustration and keep us in darkness; we never do discern the source of the voice or its words throughout the course of the novel. Furthermore, Phoebe hears this at an "uncertain" time of night as if "through a thin veil of a dream" (96). The concept of a thin veil recalls the Biblical account of the Israelites' temple, where a thin veil would separate the people in the temple from God's presence so they could not interact with His presence directly; much like the ancient Israelites, we are forbidden access to knowledge of the true nature of the subject at hand. By presenting all observable evidence as obscured, Hawthorne forces us to face a deep-seated desire for clarity in the world.