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say unto him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.""

And he arose, and came to his father.

III. The Return

But while he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

And the son said unto him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son.”

But the father said to his servants, "Bring forth quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and make merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."

And they began to be merry.

IV. The Enmity of the Elder Brother

Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called to him one of the servants, and inquired what these things might be.

And he said unto him, "Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound."

But he was angry, and would not go in: and his father came out, and intreated him.

But he answered and said to his father, "Lo, these many years do I serve thee, and I never transgressed a commandment of thine: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but when this thy son came, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou killedst for him the fatted calf."

And he said unto him, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all

that is mine is thine. But it was meet to make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."

In the story as thus arranged we find four principal narrative units, constituting the occurrence. Each of these, in turn, consists of well differentiated sub-groups, indicated by the paragraph division: for example, in the second main section we have (a) the departure of the young man; (b) the loss of his fortune; (c) his repentance and resolve; and (d) his setting out for home. Each of these sub-groups also is capable of final analysis into the narrative elements of the simplest form, the sentence and clause units as already shown in the other instances. But when we compare these four main divisions or their respective subdivisions with the various items enumerated on page 22, we find a rather noteworthy difference: chapter 1 of the parable, for example, is incomplete without chapters II and III and IV, and each of these in turn is valuable only when, taken in conjunction with the others, it forms part of the parable as a whole. So, again, with the sub-divisions (a), (b), (c), etc., each one, while in a sense complete, is but a step in the development of a larger whole, the chapter to which it belongs. It is here that we find the essential character of episodic narration: an episode is a complete entity, indeed, but in its completeness it forms an essential part of some greater unit, which may or may not be ultimate and final.

In extended narrative literature, the principal episodic unit is generally the basis of the chapter division, or sometimes of so-called "books" such as are found in Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, where the story is narrated under the three heads: I. Recalled to Life;

II. The Golden Thread; and III. The Track of a Storm. I contains six chapters, each a complete stage; II contains twenty-four; and III fifteen.

Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is another case in point. This story the author has divided into seven main stages, which he calls "phases," the episodic character of each appearing from its respective title:

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Each of these "phases" is again subdivided into chapters, in this case without titles, but truly episodic, as is clear if one looks into their content. The first five, for example, in Phase the first, might perhaps be represented by some such topics as these:

I. Seed by the Wayside.

II. The Club Revel.

III. The Close of the Day.

IV. Rolliver's.

V. An Early Morning Tragedy.

This principle of episodic division and subdivision characterizes other forms of narrative writing as well as the novel-history, biography, etc., as will be apparent from a glance at the table of contents often prefixed to the various chapters.

For mechanical purposes, in analyzing examples of episodic composition into their constituent parts, the student will find it convenient to classify the main

groups as "primary," or episodes of the first order; their respective subdivisions as "secondary," or episodes of the second order; and so on, until he reaches the final elements. According to this classification the analysis of the Prodigal Son as arranged on pages 24-26 would show four episodes of the first order (indicated I, II, III, and IV); in II four episodes of the second order (indicated by a, b, c, and d); and in d of these subgroups two ultimate details of the third order.

CHAPTER III

GENERAL RHETORICAL CHARACTERISTICS

OF NARRATIVE FORMS

A. THE NARRATIVE ITEM

THE rhetorical qualities of unity, emphasis, and coherence will vary somewhat in their application to the item type and the episodic type of narrative discourse. This difference arises from the fact that, sufficient to itself and not a part of a greater whole, the item does not possess what may be called the "external relations" that characterize the episode. Hence rhetorical principles become simpler in their application, identical with those of what has been called the "isolated paragraph" in distinction from the “related paragraph" of connected discourse, and modified only by such considerations as arise from the very nature of narration as shown by the definition of that form of discourse.

(1) Unity

The general character of the unity that characterizes the isolated narrative item has already been briefly discussed on pages 4-5. The corporate nature of the event, of the transaction, must be carefully maintained; the contributive bearing of the constituent parts on the entire topic must be made evident. If the reader's mind is allowed to dwell upon the individual character of these constituent details, the impression of one-ness is lost, and either the narrative becomes increasingly episodic,

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