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individual character, the supernatural or superhuman,

chance, fate, providence, etc., — and, in a sense, the decree of the novelist himself. As in real life, thorough understanding of events may imply some separate notice of proximate and remote causes.

Defoe, for example, characteristically combines practical, commonplace causes with the more ultimate influence of Providence. In The Plague Year he accepts the view that the pestilence was “a stroke from heaven -a messenger of [God's] vengeance"; but adds, "When I am speaking of the Plague as a distemper arising from natural causes, we must consider it as if it was really propagated by natural means," etc.; distinguishing the relation of the two causes at some length.

Naturalism, in the full sense of the word, traces all causes back to the one primary cause - Nature. Character is determined by heredity, animal instinct, natural environment, etc.; external events-war, pestilence, individual birth and death, rise and decline of racial supremacy are links in a continuous causal series governed by Nature. In the novel of manners and allied types of fiction, society is the chief motivating force; in the psychological novel, the conscious and unconscious forces of the individual predominate; in the religious novel and many types of romance, the supernatural influences are prominent. Mrs. Radcliffe's special method was to introduce apparently supernatural causes, and afterwards explain them as natural, though unusual.

When a single character of the novel is a primary influence in shaping the events, he is called technically a "motivating character"; in the traditional phrase, a deus ex machina. If his influence is for the good, he becomes a "dramatic providence"; if for the evil, he corresponds more or less closely to the typical "villain." The

power given to such characters is often so large that the imagination refuses to accept the illusion of reality. Often the novelist himself appears as a striking deus-or diabolus ex machina. Reserve, sincerity, dramatic imagination, or their opposites, are as distinctly marked in motivation as in any function of the novelist. Arbitrary optimism or pessimism gives a one-sided ethical interpretation of the government of human destiny; pronounced realism often traces all results to such petty causes that the beauty, if not the verisimilitude, of the plot is destroyed; exaggerated romanticism is satisfied only with grand, remote causes which do not correspond with those observed in our own experience. Any one who has written a single short story realizes the persistent and difficult problem of artistic motivation. It is a matter that requires great natural gift or long practise in order that art may conceal art.

EXAMPLES OF MOTIVATION

The Plague Year. Another example of the mingling of human with providential causes occurs in explaining why the narrator remained in the plague-stricken city - his business demands it; his servant has abandoned him; but there is, also, specific supernatural guidance by means of the Biblical passage. The cessation of the plague is traced entirely to Providence : Nothing but the immediate finger of God, nothing but Omnipotent Power, could have done it!"

Pride and Prejudice. While the general motivation is largely social, it is distinctly psychological in Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy. They shape their own destinies, and have much influence over others. There is rational, psychological motivation for their love, in contrast with love at first sight in Rosalind and Orlando, Romeo and Juliet, and the unexplained development of love in Eppie and Aaron. Wickham approaches the structural function of a villain. Relatively accidental or trivial causes bring Mr. Bingley to Netherfield House and Elizabeth

to Pemberley Park. Nature has comparatively small place in the motivation of Jane Austen. The rain-storm of Chapter VII is of some importance, and is naturally introduced.

Silas Marner. The novel is predominantly psychological, and self-motivation has large place in Silas and Godfrey, especially the latter. In both it is distinctly ethical. The novelist approaches the villain in William Dane and Dunstan Cass. Social motivation is specially prominent in the casting of lots and in the influence of public opinion in Raveloe. A striking substitution of moral, human motivation for natural is found in the character of Eppie. Her development into a sweet, frank nature could hardly be explained by inheritance— perhaps is a violation of the scientific law of heredity—but is traced to the human environment, the loving interest of Silas and the community. Above all human causes is the dim First Cause; mysterious, but bringing just punishment for sin, and salvation for the righteous soul that has suffered man's inhumanity to man.

55. The Narrator. His Point of View. It is clear that there can be no narration without a central narrator who is the real plot-maker. In the novel he may be very much in evidence or remain behind the scenes, but it is never strictly true that "the characters tell their own story." In Pamela, Richardson arranges the letters, not imagined as even collected by any one else, and determines the plot-movement as truly as does Smollett in Roderick Random. The primary narrator is always the author, in propria persona, as a writer, though he may assume to be merely editor or listener, or in other ways introduce secondary (dramatic) narrators between himself and the reader. Even when he enters the action as an important dramatis persona, he is perfectly distinct from all the other characters, in his narrative function. Except in fiction of the I-form, the author is the only one acquainted with all the incidents of the plot.

The narrator takes some general point of view for the entire action, and specific points of view for every part of

it, in reference to time, place, characters, social and ethical philosophy, etc. The unity of a passage or a plot depends largely on the clearness and stability of his position. The novelistic narrator, however, is given great freedom in this respect, which one has only to examine to discover how different the novel is from life. He may hold himself aloof from his characters and action, observing them as a mere spectator or student of life, with miraculous power to move at will through time, space, and the thoughts and feelings of men; or partially identify himself with his own creation, as an imminent divinity, or alternate between the two positions. Taking "the reader's point of view" is often attempted, but is in a strict sense impossible.

56. Temporal Point of View. When is the narration recorded in reference to the time of action? The modern third-person novel may avoid the appearance of being a document at all, entirely subordinating the reality of the narrative to the illusion of the action. It is curious to note Jane Austen lapsing for a moment from her famous dramatic objectivity in Pride and Prejudice: "It is not the object of this work to give descriptions of Derbyshire," etc. (Chapter XLII.) In autobiographical fiction (for example, Robinson Crusoe), or in other forms of imaginary manuscript (for example, The Castle of Otranto), the fictitious time of writing may be treated artistically as part of the illusion. Autobiographical fiction often has a peculiar warmth of the present, because of the influence of vivifying memory.

Ordinarily, when we notice the necessary inferences, we see that the narration could not have been begun until the action was complete. All direct anticipation (see Section 40) interrupts the illusion of an immediate present action. The journal form, and sometimes the epistolary,

as noted by Richardson in reference to his own works, are technically distinguished as narratives immediately following or accompanying the action. The action supposed to occur in the future, as in some Utopian fictions, belongs to the impossibilities of romance, and serious effort at illusion of futurity is rarely maintained. It is not uncommon to bring the narrative to a present tense coincidence with the action at the catastrophe, perhaps with a peep into the possible future. The historical present is an aid to illusion in brief passages, but if employed too much would be intolerably artificial, and destructive of verisimilitude.

The events of the stage drama are given in chronological order, though the dramatist freely condenses or omits portions of the action; but in the novel inversion of chronological order, and a narrative sequence for synchronous actions, are constantly found. An example of such inversion is found at the opening of Silas Marner- the in medias res formula; and of the narrative sequence in the same novel, Chapters XI and XII.

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A special form of temporal point of view is occasionally found in τειχοσκοπία, in which the narrator usually episodic-reports action while it is occurring. This device is more characteristic of the drama than the novel, and of romance than realism. It is found in Sudermann's Magda, Ibsen's Pretenders, Hedda Gabler, Tennyson's Harold, etc. A noted example in the romance is Rebecca's report of the fight before the castle of Front-de-Bœuf.

EXAMPLES OF COMPLEX TEMPORAL POINT OF VIEW

At the opening of Chapter XVI of Silas Marner, the time point of view is threefold: (1) The novelist is in general considering a period some forty years before her narration, and contrasts the two times by the phrase, "of that time"; (2) she uses the present tense to increase the illusion of immediacy—“is not much changed;" (3) she recalls the action of sixteen years before, by narrative reminiscence. (There is no sign that the characters are in a mood of memory at this point, or ever fully realize all the changes the author points out.)

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