Since nothingness cannot be described in itself, let alone shown dramatically, something or someone must always be shown doing something, and if the action is to be grasped at all by the reader, it must somehow be fitted into a scheme of values that is intelligible to him [. . .]. If, for example, we show a character caught in a predicament that has no meaningful solution, the very terms of our literary success require the assumption that to be caught in a meaningless predicament is a bad thing, in which case there is meaning, however rudimentary. [. . .] For the complete nihilist, suicide, not the creation of significant forms, is the only consistent gesture. (297-8)