In Silas Marner one can readily conceive the moral histories of Silas and Godfrey Cass separately, without violence to the actual plot. In typical form, the two actions are about as follows: A, a young rural aristocrat, contracts a degrading, clandestine marriage of passion. His wife dies, leaving a young child in the hands of people of the laboring class. A is too cowardly to take her himself, mainly on account of a woman of his own class, whom he loves and soon after marries. Later, when the child has developed into a young woman, he desires to adopt her, but she has become attached to her humble friends, and refuses to leave them. This, combined with the fact of their childlessness, is received by A and his wife as a just though painful punishment for his early folly and cowardice. This statement preserves the main outline of the story of Godfrey Cass, and leaves Silas Marner without even numerical identity. B, a sensitive laborer, suffers an injustice which isolates him from his own past and from his fellow-men. After years of loneliness, chance brings him a little waif child, and their mutual love softens his nature, reconciles him to his own life, and unites it again to that of his fellows, and to God. In this outline statement, Godfrey Cass, in his turn, becomes a dramatis persona merely implied. Of course this is not the actual plot of Silas Marner, but it is the two stories we might have had, and it throws light on the unifying process in the real plot. The history of Eppie cannot be well stated as an independent interest; she is necessary to both actions, and so becomes what Professor Moulton calls a "link personage." In Pride and Prejudice, it is impossible to make independent actions of the histories of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, without such violation of the actual plot as obscures rather than illuminates it. Theory as to the number of single actions in the typi cal plot is not altogether lacking. Professor MacClintock 1 affirms that there is distinct tendency to fuse three actions together; and practical analysis will show that this triple resolution is often satisfactory, though further resolution is always possible in a complex plot. As over-analysis results in more obscurity than no analysis at all, it seems best to avoid subtlety in the search for single actions. 1 Unpublished manuscript. Single actions may be named or described according to their nature and structural value as tragic, comic; adventure actions, love actions, supernatural actions, etc.; episodic, persistent, thematic, main (principal), sub-actions, enveloping, motivating, etc. EXAMPLES OF ANALYSIS INTO SINGLE ACTIONS Pride and Prejudice. Enveloping Actions. 1. Social life in England, in the upper middle classes. 2. History of the Bennet family and their relatives. Main Actions. 3. Love story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. (Principal action.) 4. Love story of Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley. 5. Relations of Wickham to the Bennets and the Darcys. Sub-actions. 6. Professional and domestic history of Mr. Collins. 7. Relations of Colonel Fitzwilliam to Elizabeth Bennet. (Distinctly episodic.) Last of the Mohicans. 1. Enveloping Action. Relations of the French, English, Americans, and Indians. 2. Main Action. Relations and experiences of Chingachgook, Hawkeye, Uncas, and Heyward. (The relation of the first two characters is an episodic action in reference to the Leather-Stocking series.) Sub-actions. 3. Relations of Magua to the other Indians and the whites. 5. Love story of Heyward and the Munro sisters. Quo Vadis. Enveloping Actions. 1. Struggle of early Christianity with Paganism (Greek, Roman, barbarian). 2. International relations of the Roman Empire. 3. Events of the reign of Nero. Main Actions. 4. Love story of Vinicius and Lygia. (Principal action.) Sub-actions. 6. Story of Chilo. 7. Attachment of Ursus to Lygia. 8. Rivalry of Petronius and Tigellinus. 49. Sequence of Simple Narratives. The divergence between action and narration is clearly seen whenever the continuity of the former is interrupted in the latter, as almost invariably happens in any plot at all complicated. The modern novelist generally omits the old-fashioned formulas, "we must now leave A and B for a time and follow the fortunes of C and D," etc., but the breaks are still in evidence. Simplicity or complexity of plot-structure depends partly on the mere number of single actions, but more distinctly on their relations in the narrative, of which sequence is an important phase. Certain theoretical forms of sequence may be distinguished. While these are commonly combined in actual plot, one or another may be clearly predominant. Of these, the episodic is the simplest, but results in a looseness of plot, usually avoided in part by the persistence of some one simple enveloping or main action. The third method is somewhat confusing, as it compels one to imagine two or more place and time settings and groups of dramatis personæ at one time. In double form it is found in all cases of intercalated narrative; interesting examples of triple form occur in Euphues and Frankenstein. At one point in the latter romance, the primary place setting is a ship in the northern seas; the secondary, a remote island of Scotland; the tertiary, the fair lakes of Switzerland. The typical plot-structure of an artistic novel is based on a combination of the second and fourth formulas. Interweaving is most imperative at climax and catastrophe, especially the latter. In a well-constructed novel, the chapter is generally a satisfactory unit for examining the sequence of narratives. SEQUENCE OF SIMPLE NARRATIVES IN JANET'S REPENTANCE CHAPTER 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 I 2 3 1, Spiritual history of Janet Dempster; 2, spiritual history of Edgar Tryan; 3, ecclesiastical relations of Milby to the rest of England. SEQUENCE OF SIMPLE NARRATIVES IN SILAS MARNER CHAPTER 1 2 34 5 6 7 8 9 IO II 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 CON. I 2 3 1, History of Silas Marner; 2, history of Godfrey Cass; 3, social life of Lantern Yard and Raveloe. 50. The Dramatic Line. The dramatic line is a name for the design of the whole plot-movement as determined by points of special importance called "turning-points." In a more strict sense it applies only to a movement having a definite climax about halfway between the initial point and the catastrophe. The term "climax" in this technical sense must be distinguished from its general rhetorical use, and specially from a common usage which identifies it with the catastrophe. The movement from the initial point to the climax is called the "rise"; from the climax to catastrophe, the "fall." The dramatic line, while more characteristic of the drama than the novel, is very easily traced in many novels. Several other points, besides the three mentioned, have been discovered and named by critics of plot-"tragic force," "final suspense," "further resolution," etc.; and some of these are often perfectly distinct in a well-constructed novel. The climax and catastrophe are the most significant points, determining, for example, the tragic or comic nature of the plot as a whole. DRAMATIC LINE OF SILAS MARNER 3 1. Initial point: the stolen knife, Chapter I.-2. Climax: the coming of Eppie, Chapter XII.-3. Catastrophe: Eppie's resolve to remain with Silas, Chapter XIX. 1. Initial point: the arrival of Bingley, Chapter I.—2. Climax : Darcy's proposal, Chapter XXXIV.-3. Tragic force: Darcy's letter, Chapter XXXV.-4. Final suspense: Lady de Bourgh's interference, Chapter LVI.-5. Catastrophe: Elizabeth's engage ment, Chapter LVIII. |