tions show how the author endeavors to cope with his problem:

Leaving the Saxon chiefs to return to their banquet as soon as their ungratified curiosity should permit them to attend to the calls of their half-satiated appetite, we have to look in upon the yet more severe imprisonment of Isaac of York.

While the scenes we have described were passing in other parts of the castle, the Jewess Rebecca awaited her fate in a distant and sequestered turret.

What reader is not familiar with such types of phraseology as the following, all indicating the writer's consciousness that he must unify the reader's grasp of the various threads entering into the plot structure?

While the events recorded in the preceding chapter were passing, the Marshal Almagro was engaged in his memorable expedition to Chili. Prescott: Conquest of Peru.

The commander-in-chief, meanwhile, lay at Xuaxa, where he was greatly disturbed by the rumors which reached him of the state of the country.

Id.

It is now time to relate the events which, since the battle of La Hogue, had taken place at Saint Germains. - Macaulay: History of England.

While Wentworth was thus working out his system of "Thorough" on one side of St. George's Channel, it was being carried out on the other by a mind inferior, indeed, to his own in genius, but almost equal to it in courage and tenacity. Green: Short History of the English People.

The difficulty lies in the fact that, if the individuality of the various narrative threads is greater than that of the main action in its totality, unity of effect is lost.

Of course plot structure is not usually dependent upon mere parallelism among the narrative threads. Complication could hardly result from such ordering. The strands constantly converge and diverge, now meeting, now parting. The points at which two or more narrative lines meet in a common action are known as “knots," and on their frequency depends the degree of plot complexity. Again to refer to the story of Naaman for illustration: we have a convergence of threads when the little maid tells her mistress of the wonderful healing power possessed by the Israelitish prophet. The threads of Elisha and Naaman meet when, as a result of the girl's words, the Syrian captain stands before the prophet's door and is directed to bathe in Jordan. There is a knot in the Naaman and Gehazi threads when the avaricious servant runs after the Syrian and asks of him gifts for the prophets of Ephraim. The outline of the story, with its successive principal strands and knot-complications, may be roughly represented thus:

In narratives of complicated plot structure the usual method of development presents the successive entangling of several knots followed by the "unknotting," or dénouement, as it is technically called,—in which the various mysteries and situations are resolved. In the type of narrative known as the "detective story" the procedure is modified to this extent: the story begins with plot complication already complete, and the dénouement constitutes practically the entire narrative. We have here indications

of what are really two radically different processes of construction. One may be called inductive, and the other deductive. By the inductive process the writer weaves his plot pattern, thread by thread and knot by knot, as he proceeds, ultimately producing the finished work. This is the method of the historian, the biographer, the chronicler. By the deductive process the writer places before the reader a completed pattern at the very outset, and then by a sort of analytic process shows how it was put together. This device is effective in that it arrests the attention to begin with, and then by successive complications endeavors to hold it through the dénouement process. Thackeray's Henry Esmond presents an interesting example of the two methods in combination. The story begins at Castlewood with a scene in which plot threads are already considerably complicated, and the 'reader's curiosity is speedily piqued as to young Esmond's relations to his surroundings. From this opening the plot advances for an entire chapter, then suddenly reverts several years and proceeds to build up the various complications that made possible the opening scene. When this has been accomplished, and it takes some five or six chapters, the narrative progresses along its regular course to the close. The method is attended by danger to plot unity unless the convergence of plot threads and the successive knot complications seem inevitable and become parts of a single well-defined pattern. The difficulty that has confronted many readers of Esmond is ultimately one of failure to grasp the unity of the plot scheme. If once the mutual relations of the various strands become evident, the course of the narrative proceeds smoothly enough, and interest does not flag. In fact, the secret of unity in structure lies in the ability of the writer so to organize the constituent parts

of the complex plan that they shall seem not complex at all but essentially one.

(c) Point of View in Plot Structure

In the consideration of unity as an element in plot structure point of view plays no small part. The attitude of the writer has already been discussed in its relation to characterization; it is no less important as an element in plot ordering. Character portrayal, we have seen, gains in consistency and completeness when its exposition is presented from a single definite angle, or, it may be, from a series of definite angles. So with the details that constitute action: the angle from which they are observed will have important bearing upon the totality of the final effect. The movements of the players in a football game produce wholly different impressions upon the spectator who knows little of the game and upon the coach who has trained one of the teams. To the one, the rapid movements that follow the kicking or the snapping of the ball are utter confusion: a mere welter of flying legs, violent concussions, and prostrate forms. To the other, this same confusion resolves itself into a thoroughly systematized tactical manoeuvre each player is sustaining his part in a preconcerted piece of strategy; instead of chaos there is order; unity and system characterize every movement. So it is with the organization of plot in narrative writing. The attitude of the writer to his facts has a far-reaching effect upon the ultimate unity of his plan.

More even than that: as in setting and in characterization, so in plot, variety in point of view-provided that it still be definite-will contribute largely to unity of effect. One is seldom content with viewing a cathe

an

dral from the west front only; he must consider it at close range, now from one angle, now from another. He studies it perhaps from some more distant vantage-point. as well, and from the various points of view in common he forms his complete conception of the great building,— nave, transepts, towers, all unite in one satisfying whole. In the same way, the historian and the novelist approach their narrative from changing - but ever definite gles. A part of the adventures attending the rescue of the good ship Hispaniola will be given by Jim Hawkins, and still others by Doctor Livesey. We learn some of the details of the siege of the castle by looking through Rebecca's eyes and from the tower, but others by moving in person among the besiegers outside the walls. Yet the complete account will be thoroughly unified.

But unity is not the only characteristic served by maintaining a definite point of view - especially by the shifting point of view just set forth. When we order the details of action from more than one angle of observation, we secure a conception more varied and hence more interesting. The plot, thus, with increased unity, gains in force, or effectiveness, as is evident in the instances cited above, the South Sea adventure and the affair at Torquilstone. In expounding point of view as an element in characterization, it seemed best to approach the subject from (a) the angle of some personage in the narrative, (b) the focus of several angles, (c) the wholly external angle. In studying point of view in plot structure the student will find it sufficient to note simply temporal and spatial angles of approach. In relation to time, the narrator may place himself on some definite temporal vantageground and weave his plot threads and complications as