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matters wholly of the past. In such cases he usually adopts the historian's impersonality toward the events chronicled. Of course he may modify this, as in the autobiographic method, the events still being treated as belonging to the past, the writer still participating in them to greater or less degree. These two attitudes are illustrated respectively in Nicholas Nickleby and David Copperfield: in the one the writer's position is objective; in the other, subjective. In cases of the latter sort we have increased vividness, and the reader feels as if he were in the very centre of the action. The effect is often highly dramatic; the sense of definite time is forgotten; the past merges insensibly into the present.

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The spatial point of view is closely allied to the matter of setting, but the student of plot structure must not neglect it. The narrator views his arena as a spectator gifted with power to see every detail visible or invisible, or he is himself an actor — perhaps the protagonist himself-with the limited vision of actual life. Owing to the close relations that in fiction exist between action and character, the angle of omniscience is more likely to prevail in this type of narration. In the chronicling of historical events the author's attitude is a modification of the omniscient to the extent that it is the attitude of an authority whose pronouncements as to motives, causes, and results we may accept or reject at our pleasure. We may question, for instance, the narrator who tells us that the history of the English Church has been conditioned largely by certain Tudor characteristics in Henry VIII; but in Esther we do not question the sufficiency of the statement that "Haman thought in his heart 'To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself?"" In this case, as well as in the case of the historian, we have the objective

point of view of one who stands apart and knows; but on the one hand we are in the realm of the intellectual; in the other, of the emotional.

An interesting study in point of view as an element in plot structure is presented by Balzac's story La Grande Bretêche. The narrative is, in the broad, an example of the first-person type of approach already noted on page 158, but this passes through many successive phases. At first it is largely a matter of setting. La Grande Bretêche is described as visible to the beholder as yet quite impersonal from the top of the neighboring mountain, from which he can look down upon the enclosure and observe the estate at large. Then the point of view changes to a closer inspection on the street side, through one of the numerous holes made in the old gate by the children of the neighborhood. Almost immediately, however, vagueness and impersonality are cast aside, and, in his own person, Monsieur Horace, the narrator, takes the stage, and by night, "defying scratches, makes his way into the ownerless garden" and contemplates it at leisure, straying about the grounds and indulging in orgies of imaginary adventure. But he is soon visited at the inn by the notary, Monsieur Regnault, who forbids further trespass on the deserted premises. At this juncture, although the story is still related in the words of the original narrator, the point of view becomes that of the notary, who garrulously recounts his experiences in the château at the death-bed of the late owner, the Countess de Merret. With this change, the attitude of approach shifts over from one of setting, and interest centres in action. But Regnault's horizon, while narrower in extent than what has preceded, is but general, after all, and the narrator speedily seeks to supplement the notary's story by that of some one to whom more details are known. Such in

formation he readily finds in his landlady, Mother Lepas, a peasant woman, who, from her own experiences, adds materially to the revelations of the notary regarding the mystery of the château. Thus, with her narrative, the point of view again changes, and again becomes more concentrated in scope. Finally, convinced that he can yet penetrate the secret of the whole mystery of La Grande Bretêche by means of Rosalie, the servant at the inn and formerly in the employ of the Countess, Monsieur Horace gains the girl's confidence, and she ultimately tells him of the gruesome scene in which she personally was an actor. Thus the point of view changes for the sixth time, and is now concentrated on the very core of the story, the discovery by Monsieur de Merret of his wife's lover and the consequent adventure.

A further detail of structure characterizes Rosalie's story. While the account of the final details is hers, yet Monsieur Horace maintains the autobiographical attitude, giving her story in his own words and assuming the rôle of omniscience. For example, speaking of Monsieur de Merret, he says, "During dinner he [Monsieur] remarked that Madame de Merret was very coquettishly dressed; he said to himself, as he walked home from the club, that his wife was no longer ill, that her convalescence had improved her." Later on, "At the instant that he turned the knob of his wife's door, he heard the closet that I have mentioned close," etc. Again, when his wife replies that there is no one in the closet, "That 'no' tore Monsieur de Merret's heart, for he did not believe it,” etc. And so on throughout the scene: we have details that Rosalie could not possibly have supplied, and that we can explain only on the omniscient basis, unless, perhaps, we assume that Monsieur Horace, while narrating Rosalie's experiences in propria persona, enlarged upon her ac

count by supplying what seemed natural inferences from the data given by the girl.

The whole matter of plot unity, including point of view, complication, and all kindred questions, resolves itself, in the end, to a single process, in which selection and elimination are the main factors: namely, simplification. Simplification demands of narrative that it present but a section of life, not life in its entirety. No narrative, whether it concern itself with the life of an individual, as in Carlyle's John Sterling, or with the history of a nation, as in Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, can do more than approximate completeness in a very restricted degree.

Writers of imaginative narrative, particularly of the short-story, are forced to realize that the process of simplification is fundamental. Sometimes their method is even suggestive of the old unities of place and time, which limited the dramatist to the events of a single day and to the walls of a single city. Curious instances may occasionally be found in which the writer attempts to chronicle events as occurring approximately within the very time limitations required for reading the narrative itself, - but with dubious success. An instance of this oddity may be found in a story entitled Forty Seconds, by George R. Chester.1 This is a breezy account of how a coasting party barely escape serious accident in the course of a winter's evening, the entire action falling between the time when they leave the top of the hill and suddenly arrive at the bottom after narrowly avoiding a steep declivity at the side. During the few seconds involved, characters are sharply revealed and vital relations affected. Such radical simplification as this is

1 Munsey's: December, 1907.

attended by intensity and nervous force, it is true, but, after all, the method is at best a tour de force, and an extreme attempt to confine the narrative within artificial limits. Simplification of this extreme variety, or even of the sort that is characteristic of the short-story, is, of course, restricted largely to narrative of the non-historical order, for the restricted field of action is in great degree but a device to intensify the emotional appeal. At the same time historical narrative is not free from the restrictions of simplification; it is merely a matter of degree.

It follows that the problem of the episode is of no little importance to the narrative writer who would secure unity of plot structure. His single query must be: Will the inclusion or the exclusion of an episode contribute to the ultimate purpose of the composition, whether it be to serve an intellectual or an emotional end? In no case must the elaboration of the parts detract from the completeness of the whole.

Coherence

Although generally synonymous, as indicating the consistent ordering of details, in the strictest sense sequence and coherence are not interchangeable terms as used in connection with narration. Sequence lays stress upon the mere succession of occurrences as they follow one another in chronological order. But coherence, with its implication of "sticking together," goes a step farther and connotes the additional idea of a logical relation between the narrative elements, a relation that in the matter of climax to be taken up later - plays no inconsiderable part.

A distinctive peculiarity of narrative plot is the fact that it must progress definitely toward a goal. Note again

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