When I was in college I had to write an essay on Moby Dick and I described certain scenes in the book as “vignettes” as I was trying to sound sophisticated and I figured a vignette and a scene had to be precisely the same. My professor (who was thin, tall, fierce, and wickedly intelligent) told me that a vignette was a short narrative with a rhetorical shape—not a scene at all. “God Almighty,” I thought. “Is this what being an English major is all about? Who gives a shit?” Outside the tall window of the professor’s office one could see the maple leaves turning red and down on the “quad” there was a protest shaping up about the “secret war” in Cambodia. “Who gives a shit?”
A scene is something sharp. Its a unit in a story wherein you see a character or characters, or maybe even a landscape “behaving”. The reader is able to spy and draw her or his own conclusions.
A vignette is linked to a pony that wants you to see things the narrator’s way.
Cruel people who disguise themselves as sentimentalists, outright liars, and politicians sui generis love vignettes. Bring us another baby to kiss.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 