I've been thinking on why Hsun chose to use a frame instead of incorporating the details in the meat of the story - surely we could have 'seen' him unimpressed by the affairs of the state and misanthropic. Perhaps the reason he chose this narrative summary was because it was more efficient? Which begs the question, what is this particula…
I've been thinking on why Hsun chose to use a frame instead of incorporating the details in the meat of the story - surely we could have 'seen' him unimpressed by the affairs of the state and misanthropic. Perhaps the reason he chose this narrative summary was because it was more efficient? Which begs the question, what is this particular efficiency driving? How is the story served by telling us these things, rather than showing them in a more organic way?
These questions have tumbled around in my head for the past few days without any real answer or epiphany, and then this morning my brain recalled another framing story that I loved as a child (and still do) - the Princess Bride. Which led me to discover that a number of my favourite movies as a kid (and this goes out to all the Gen X story clubbers) were also (to various extents) framing stories: The Neverending Story, and (probably to a lesser extent the Goonies). They all have this secondary (but ultimately more important) story that is connected by the smallest thread to the prominent story - that if you removed it, would still leave the prominent story (of action and drama) intact - take out Kevin Arnold and Columbo (jks - I mean, the grandson (played by Fred Savage) and grandfather (Peter Faulk)) and you still have a fun caper fantasy; take out Bastian and his breakfast conversation about unicorns with his dad, and him riding a massive luck dragon at the end, and you still have a great adventure fantasy (you could even take his character out altogether and have a great fantasy, albeit a tragedy); and take out the threat of the local country club taking buying up Astoria homes, and there's still a great caper fantasy.
These stories and 'An Incident' use the same kind of framing structure - there's a prologue and epilogue based in this 'other' story, and a moment (or two) in the prominent story that calls back to this other story - in Hsun, it's the 'Suddenly, I had a strange feeling' (the moment of introspection, where we see how the events of the prominent story have affected him), in Princess Bride, it's that moment where we cut to Kevin and Columbo "Do you want me to stop. You look a little scared." "I'm not scared, maybe a little concerned, but that's not the same thing" (or something along those lines, it's been a while...) - where again we see how the main characters of the 'other' story are being affected by the events of the prominent story, in the Neverending Story there's a few but my fave is where Sebastian saves the rest of his sandwich like Atreyu; and in the Goonies, it's that moment where Troy turns up at the wishing well.
And I think the reason why they are all framed (and successful because of their framing), is because a) the real impact is the one that happens outside the events of the story, and b) the framing removes the distance between the story and the reader, whereby even if we can't relate to the events of the prominent story, we can relate to the 'other' story and their protagonists. It makes the fantasy of the fiction more tangible, and helps us to experience it more intimately (rather than at the kind of distance we'd be faced with if we didn't have these story interlocutors). I wonder if, in the same vein, we can call Gatsby a framing story? Where the story is framed by Nick's observation/engagement in the key story at a distance, which provides the moral lesson and a more relatable character for the reader to hitch a ride with...
Anyway, after this long digression, I think that while Hsun could have left out the prologue (or incorporated its points more organically in the story), the epilogue is needed to show the future/ongoing impact on the narrator long after the events of that day. And the prologue, then, is needed to balance that epilogue and give a sense of symmetry. (ie He needed to have an open bracket at the beginning in order to use the close bracket at the end).
There's also something wonderful about how dang short "An Incident" is. It's a real tour de force, in my view. A lesser writer might have put in a scene of him at work, etc. But...why?
Exactly! I think putting more in about the narrator, would cheapen the story and turn the focus to him, instead of turning the focus to ourselves. The true genius of this story is that it presents the narrator in broad strokes, which helps us to occupy his nebulous form without resistance as we read the story...
So interesting to link back to these stories from childhood and the experience of reading/being told a story in those formative years. Maryanne Wolfe in her Proust and the Squid (on science of reading and learning to read) talks about how for some the very first experience of reading is of sitting with a parent or grandparent to sing/read along together. She says (if I remember correctly) that such an experience which connects the act of reading with feelings of love, safety and warmth is not something that can be provided by schooling. Not everyone is lucky.
I wonder, after reflecting on your ideas about these early stories with frames, whether there is something deep about the act of reading which is a frame in itself: this time is important to me, it is nourishing, this chair I sit in and this lamp's familiar light are echoes of that grandmother and her musical voice, framing what it is to be a story worth hearing.
Do, then, written frames such as the prologue/epilogue in An Incident draw on these same responses? Perhaps, for me, they do, though I will need to think further on this. Perhaps also there is an implicit frame in every act of reading or choices made in sending out a piece of writing.
I suppose what I wonder is can I stop thinking about framing as a device that is either present or not present, but rather as something that is always present and either spoken or unspoken?
This is such an interesting train of thought. I like the idea that all stories are externally framed. It rings true - we come to them all with a mood or emotion in us (sometime we have that Princess Bride/memories of childhood warmth, sometimes the frame is less nostalgic and more current (bad day/i'm tired/i've just binged three hours of horror, etc) - which colour the text and the juxtapositions and the symbolism (at least in the beginning, until we get our bearings, depending on how much the text echoes our mood or pulls us out of it). So, perhaps, Lu Hsun's framing is a way to manipulate that mood before we begin - he's positioning us in that old armchair in preparation of the story to come.
It kind of reminds me how eating food in a fancy restaurant changes the taste of the food in the way that if I ate the same food presented differently on cheap plates sitting on plastic chairs in a fluorescent-lit and crowded diner, it would 'taste' different. Which makes sense, because taste isn't an objective experience - it's a translation of all (some dominant, some subtle) stimuli by the brain. And maybe reading is the same - it's not just the words on the page that affect our reading experience (although the more immersive a text is, the more we can shut out external stimuli and get drawn into the story (despite the lingering internal stimuli of memories and mood)).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in this sense, framing is a very useful device for manipulating the reader to be in a certain mood or frame of mind (ha! (terrible pun)) before they approach the meat of the story and its transformative elements.
My favorite moment of cross-talk between the frames in Neverending Story is when Bastian realizes it's up to him, as the reader, to save the world in the book by naming the Empress. I always assumed he named her after his late mother, and loved imagining what that name might be (I must have rewound the VHS a dozen times during that part to try to figure out what he shouted into the storm). Powerful stuff!
Your comment made me realize that another one of my childhood favorite films is a framed story: Stand By Me. Could easily chop Richard Dreyfuss out of the movie entirely. But really, adult Gordie remembering . . . that last line of text on the screen . . . what a gut punch.
Yes! Trying to figure out the name he shouted was an ongoing source of frustration that kids who have only ever known the powerful convenience of google could never imagine :) (And 'Stand by Me' - another great one! Golden age of cinema :D)
Mikhaeyla: I so love your posts, ideas, and questions. You have led me to think about "The Great Gatsby" because I am teaching it this term. I see the frames there as so important and revealing. There is the story of Jay Gatsby, of course, and there is Nick's story in telling it. In my opinion, we need these frames to see TGG as a story of how to hold oneself up (in American life/life) after seeing all the contradictions in it, and in ourselves. We need the fragments in the opening and closing (monologues, "straight narration," scene work, poetic interludes) to see how a human being tries to make sense of a confusing and even downright cruel modern world. Maybe the ending is really about Nick trying to hold himself together as "a Westerner, after all" given what he has witnessed and experienced in the East. He tries to return/returns (?) in these fragmented frames (particularly the conclusion) to the ideas and dreams of his America and America, even if, like all of us (Americans, if not many in the world), we face its contradictions as "boats against the current." Anyway, now I don't know if my post makes sense, but like a message in a bottle I am throwing it out there. What I know is the frames in TGG are sometimes overlooked or admired, but they are not always considered for how they escalate the plot and advance the narrative. The frames here tell me that a human will struggle in the beauty and nightmare of American dreams, and yet struggle one must (or at least one may choose to do). Maybe the frames in TGG tell other readers other ideas, but I hope they tell readers something, and I hope readers see the meaning in them - just like you do. Thank you for inspiring me, Mikhaelya, and no doubt many others on this thread.
Your bottle has found me as well, and its message makes perfect, wonderful sense.
Mikhaeyla's initial comment on framed films reminded me of how much I loved "Stand By Me" as a child. I was probably 8 or 9, much younger than the boys in the film when I first watched (and rewatched) it, and I doubt that I gave much thought to the adult Gordie/narrator at the time. It was only later, when seeing it again as an adult myself, that the frame's power finally hit me. Here Gordie is, reminiscing about the friendships of his youth, trying to say, "I never felt that way again." I get a little weepy just thinking about it. Now that I am at my own distance from that particular simplicity and innocence of childhood, I too can say, "I never felt that way again."
I have similar feelings about TGG, but like with "Stand By Me," they came to me later. I have a vague recollection of first reading the book in high school and discussing symbolism, the American Dream, etc. I may have just left it at that, if it weren't for an interview I came across many years later with a writer I love and greatly admire (Stuart Dybek, and many of his stories come to mind that handle memory in such beautifully braided/framed ways). His admiration for TGG turned me back to it, and I'm so grateful that I read it again as an adult. The frame! It was probably overlooked in class discussion, or perhaps I just didn't "feel it" as a teenager and so I'd forgotten it. But for me now, it's essential to my understanding of the book. My awareness of Nick colors everything. My uncertainty over whether or not he's being completely honest. The fact that he's "a Westerner, after all" (that passage about the "thrilling returning trains of youth" is probably my favorite in the entire book). You've made me want to revisit it again, and I feel a little twinge of envy for your students!
And the Woolf quote that you've shared is beautiful. A quote of hers has been on my mind these past few days, especially since it speaks to my understanding of "An Incident" and our general discussion here:
“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”
What are the moments we hold on to, and why? What experiences do we revisit to try to make meaning out of? What do they say about the people we are now? Like so many narrators in the stories I love, I feel myself searching for answers to these questions in my own life. If I can't quite express what certain moments mean (like the coins to the narrator in "An Incident"), I find myself returning to them moreso. Every single thing I remember and everything I understand is framed by the person I am now.
Thank you, and again Mikhaeyla, for giving me much to think about today. Hope the bottle I'm pitching out here makes some sense as well :)
I've loved this discussion thread - so many beautiful observations. And you've both made me want to go back and read everything ever written by Virginia Woolf! I really loved your reflection Manami - "What are the moments we hold on to, and why? What experiences do we revisit to try to make meaning out of? What do they say about the people we are now?". What a perfect story seed.
Yes!!! Manami & Mikhaelya, and all: Why these seeds? (Why those moments with x...?) When we did George's exercise with our chronology of people, places, moments, et al over time... What keeps rising or trying to.
I literally just worked with students on "story seeds" - noticing them, listening to them, and making the first steps to put them down on paper, if only in phrases, until they reveal themselves; eventually a butterfly can break out of even the tightest cocoon.
Thanks for such a lovely message, MVM (and throwing out messages in bottles is my kind of style :)). Your line about struggling 'in the beauty and nightmare of American dreams' is beautiful. I think that's what good framing does - it shifts attention from the overt/obvious/surface-level impacts of the story event, and pulls us towards the subtle/intense/complex impacts that come with distance (either physical, like in Gatsby, or temporal, like in An Incident).
Reading your message made me think about the two stories twined (or 'braided' as George says) as a tree - the prominent story is the trunk and branches living above the earth and on display, but the 'other' story is the roots pushing below the soil into dark and hidden crevices. They are connected at small and finite points in terms of the text, but fundamentally interconnected in the soul of the story; they almost seem to form an imperfect reflection of the other (and in that imperfect reflection we can better observe what is different/has changed). As readers, we see the surface level of the prominent story and judge it as a distant observer, but it's the 'other' story that worms its way into the darker/unexplored parts of our minds...
Maybe that's why, without the framing, it would be easy to sit back and judge the rickshaw customer as a jerk, but with the framing we are not just confronted with his humanity but our own? And maybe that's the same with Gatsby - without hitching our ride with Nick, it would be easier to judge Jay and Daisy at a distance; but with Nick, we're pulled in and pushed out of that orbit, that 'struggle in the beauty and nightmare'...
Hi Mikhaelya: Wow - your beautiful descriptions, comparisons and ideas! I see them so vividly. You are bringing them to life. There is entirely something else that happens with the narrator in "An Incident" that has its own moments of escalation, urgency, and ultimately change - in the narrator, and I hope in the reader. And yes!!!! That worming and winding into our minds; there is a soul in this story, and I think if we sit with the story, really read it, the soul shows itself. If we are lucky enough, we find our own souls in it. (There is a madly beautiful appreciation of Virginia Woolf written by WH Auden, and in it he quotes her statement that: "'One can’t,' she observes, 'write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes; but look at the ceiling, at Grizzle, at the cheaper beasts in the Zoo which are exposed to walkers in Regent’s Park, and the soul slips in.' ") And so I really love how you are exploring this: that this story, a well told story, reaches another level of awareness "even" if it talks about the seemingly ordinary "incident."
One of my favorite photographs in the world is Edward Steichen's "Moonrise" (1904; https://www.moma.org/collection/works/51812). It is that "imperfect reflection" you describe: it is a still moment and yet shimmering in the sky, and (I'd like to believe) even below, in the seemingly dark and sleepy water. Maybe your post has also helped me to understand why I so love to look at this photo.
That quote by Virginia Woolf is beautiful! As is the photograph. When I looked at it, I was arrested by the image of these story frames as reflections, reflecting back, imperfectly, our core story. And of course, the word 'reflection' made me think of the rickshaw's driver 'reflection' on the incident, which made me rush to explore the etymology of the world: "flecto" - (Latin (figuratively)) I persuade, prevail upon, or soften. I bend, curve or bow. I turn or curl + "re-" (Latin ) again; prefix added to various words to indicate an action being done again, or back, backwards = "reflecto" (Latin) I reflect. I turn back or away.
How beautiful is that? For me, it holds the essence of both the Incident's narrator and Nick Carraway.
There should be a "love" option on Substack. "I reflect. I turn back or away." Oh, Mikhaelya - what a wonderous post.
"I turn back or away."
Maybe this raises a point about the ending in at least the two stories mentioned ("An Incident" and "TGG"): there are shown endings (scene/image with little commentary); told endings (voice-based scenes but perhaps little reflecto), and reflecto endings (some combination of the told or shown with reflecto). And combinations of these. And endings are sometimes a mix: a paragraph or line of reflecto; a paragraph or line of shown or told endings.
Maybe narrative is really about finding the balance and "pattern" (however irregular) we want of show, tell and reflect. Sometimes the edges blur; sometimes the edges are sharp(er). Here is the famous opening of Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Pale Fire":
"Two leaves, two triskelions, like two shuddering three-legged bathers coming at a run for a swim, are borne by their impetus right into the middle where with a sudden slowdown they float quite flat. Twenty minutes past four.
View from a hospital window.
November trees, poplars, I imagine, two of them growing straight out of the asphalt: all of them in the cold bright sun, bright richly furrowed bark and an intricate sweep of numberless burnished bare twigs, old gold—because getting more of the falsely mellow sun in the higher air. Their immobility is in contrast with the spasmodic ruffling of the inset reflection—for the visible motion of a tree is in the mass of its leaves, and there remain hardly more than thirty-seven or so here and there on one side of the tree. They just flicker a little, of a neutral tint, but burnished by the sun to the same ikontinct as the intricate trillions of twigs. Swooning blue of the sky crossed by pale motionless superimposed cloud wisps.
The operation has not been successful and my wife will die."
This weave ("braid") of show, tell, and reflecto creates urgency and beauty. (And it blurs even within the sentences.)
I don't know how much of this should be thought of consciously in early drafting, but it can certainly be considered in revising. Maybe even a reflecto can be used as a writer's mental note as to why the character/narrator is telling the tale (what's at stake), and maybe the reflecto can be ultimately included or discarded. Nothing has to remain in the final draft. But the writer/reader can feel it.
Can you imagine - at the risk of spoilers - collecting "reflectos"? Perhaps another literary non sequitur, but here is an ending reflecto that haunts me from a novel, Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" (do not read if you do want want a reflecto spolier):
"She came to me, she ran to me, that was no dream. That was no phantom I embraced that night. And on that night she said she loved me. My idea of her return to an 'original resentment' was too ingenious. One can be too ingenious in trying to search out the truth. Sometimes one must simply respect its veiled face. Of course this is a love story. She was not able to be my Beatrice nor was I able to be saved by her, but the idea was not senseless nor unworthy... The past buries the past and must end in silence, but it can be a conscious silences that rests open-eyed. Perhaps this is final forgiveness that James spoke of."
Mikhaelya (and George!), thank you for guiding me/us through this process of reflection on so many levels.
Nabokov - word artist extraordinaire. And I love the idea of frames within a work, bracketing individual microcosms of story and providing a lens we take with us until the next one is provided. Have you ever been to those science museums where you enter a room that's lit with a colour-filtered light and everything appears yellow or olive green or brown, and then you shine a white light torch around and suddenly everything is cerulean, and magenta, and emerald? That's what this framing feels like, except you sometimes forget you have that white-light torch and just let the author guide you through the rooms with their differently filtered lights...
I'm so sorry this comment is so long - Story Club is the only place I can have conversations like this and my mind jumps at the chance to let go of all these thoughts and feelings about what I've read. I'll do better to keep things shorter in future.
Thanks so much, Rosanne. Story Club has been such a rare and positive experience. And I agree - it's inspiring to see the diversity of stories despite their common structures!
That's such a good point re. those 80s movies which I hadn't thought about for a while but thinking back remember that, yeah, the framing in them is part of what made them so enthralling to me as a child!
Your comment also reminds me of Dwight V. Swain's "Techniques of the Selling Writer", the details of which are a little hazy now but if I remember correctly he insists quite heavily on breaking down narration into action/reaction of characters and that that's in essence what makes a story engaging; something happens, and you want to know how a character reacts to it. It was a really useful thing to realise for me at the time and, as you commented, I think that applies to framing as well.
Right? Story is all about the tension between the action and the reaction, and it's an interesting experiment to see how that tension can be stretched when we put a little distance between the action and reaction - either by using another narrator, or by having a reflective epilogue.
Your comment also got me thinking about why those early 80s kids movies *were* framed - and I think it was to say "hey, this is a cool movie and you're going to have a lot of fun with it, but I also have a life lesson for you, kid, that I don't want you to forget; and that's [don't grow up too quick, don't let the adult world creep in too fast and steal away your joy and imagination, don't give up fighting for what's important even when it all feels like a lost cause, don't ever let anyone tell you that what's important to you is worthless or silly...]". And maybe there's something powerful in having that advice come so directly, in seeing yourself/your dreams/your shame so clearly reflected in a story, that it sticks with you in a different way. I know I've held on to those lessons as clearly as any I got from trusted adults (parents/teachers).
Well put. Now you mention it, I also realise the Neverending Story was such a really formative experience for me in seeing the pure adulterated escapism (in the best possible sense of the word) afforded to Bastian by poring over this magical book, which I then tried to emulate through my own reading (it also helped that to me, as a European kid, Bastian was not only an introvert like I was but also incredibly cool simply by virtue of being American...)
Thanks for discussion of films with framing device as I'm still getting my head around it. So would 'Wizard of Oz' and 'Stand by Me', 'Shawshank Redemption' also fit into this device category?
Your post, Emma, really got me thinking :) I think Wizard of Oz is a framed story - the real world brackets the fantastical world and the two are tethered by the thinnest of threads, the framing primes us for how to view/make conclusions about the prominent story, and there is a moral lesson to be learned from the prominent story that is applied in the 'other' story.
My mind thinks of it as brackets - (Other story/world prologue (Prominent story/world) Other story/world epilogue) - the prominent story is self-contained and doesn't rely on the other story to be a fully-fleshed story, but without it, the prominent story loses some of that emotional resonance and moral lesson. Wizard of Oz, Princess Bride, Neverending Story, and Stand by Me all have that in common with Hsun's story. I guess the difference with Wizard of Oz (and also Goonies) is that in the others, the moral lesson transforms either another person or a later version of that person, whereas with Oz and Goonies the moral lesson is felt straight away. Oz is definitely a better example than Goonies, since there is a *moral* lesson, whereas Goonies is more of an external impact (ie the story sets up the global stakes then moves to internal and then ends with global - which is not what I typically find with stories (usually the other way round)).
I think when you boil it down, all stories are framed - it's why we have the beginning show us the main character's status quo (telegraphing 'these are the things that will change throughout the story') - it's just that some are more obvious about it? And some, like Hsun, use it to coach us how to *feel* about what comes next.
Someone else in the comments put it much better than I can - they suggested that the direct prologue and epilogue is like a lawyer arguing a case - the opening statement says 'I'm going to present evidence of something important that will prove X' and the closing statement says 'I've proved what I set out to, I hope you were paying attention and got the point'.
I think when you have this structure, it broadcasts to the reader - the point of this story isn't the drama of what happens in between - the trials and the successes - it's the lasting impact on characters beyond the main event.
Thanks for responding, Mikhaeyla- I can't remember The Goonies, Princess Bride or Never-ending story anymore (though am an X). I suspect Labyrinth is another in this framing type I did see!
Your line 'I think when you boil it down, all stories are framed' feels very true - hadn't really understood 'framing' to be but one device of many for writers. This structural consideration of story telling is bringing a whole new dimension into reading- appreciate it so much!
Yes! I had been thinking of Princess Bride, but hadn’t thought of Goonies. The framing in that story definitely adds to the meaning and depth. It would just be an adventure without the trouble in the Goondocks, and the satisfying ending with Mikey’s marble bag.
I've been thinking on why Hsun chose to use a frame instead of incorporating the details in the meat of the story - surely we could have 'seen' him unimpressed by the affairs of the state and misanthropic. Perhaps the reason he chose this narrative summary was because it was more efficient? Which begs the question, what is this particular efficiency driving? How is the story served by telling us these things, rather than showing them in a more organic way?
These questions have tumbled around in my head for the past few days without any real answer or epiphany, and then this morning my brain recalled another framing story that I loved as a child (and still do) - the Princess Bride. Which led me to discover that a number of my favourite movies as a kid (and this goes out to all the Gen X story clubbers) were also (to various extents) framing stories: The Neverending Story, and (probably to a lesser extent the Goonies). They all have this secondary (but ultimately more important) story that is connected by the smallest thread to the prominent story - that if you removed it, would still leave the prominent story (of action and drama) intact - take out Kevin Arnold and Columbo (jks - I mean, the grandson (played by Fred Savage) and grandfather (Peter Faulk)) and you still have a fun caper fantasy; take out Bastian and his breakfast conversation about unicorns with his dad, and him riding a massive luck dragon at the end, and you still have a great adventure fantasy (you could even take his character out altogether and have a great fantasy, albeit a tragedy); and take out the threat of the local country club taking buying up Astoria homes, and there's still a great caper fantasy.
These stories and 'An Incident' use the same kind of framing structure - there's a prologue and epilogue based in this 'other' story, and a moment (or two) in the prominent story that calls back to this other story - in Hsun, it's the 'Suddenly, I had a strange feeling' (the moment of introspection, where we see how the events of the prominent story have affected him), in Princess Bride, it's that moment where we cut to Kevin and Columbo "Do you want me to stop. You look a little scared." "I'm not scared, maybe a little concerned, but that's not the same thing" (or something along those lines, it's been a while...) - where again we see how the main characters of the 'other' story are being affected by the events of the prominent story, in the Neverending Story there's a few but my fave is where Sebastian saves the rest of his sandwich like Atreyu; and in the Goonies, it's that moment where Troy turns up at the wishing well.
And I think the reason why they are all framed (and successful because of their framing), is because a) the real impact is the one that happens outside the events of the story, and b) the framing removes the distance between the story and the reader, whereby even if we can't relate to the events of the prominent story, we can relate to the 'other' story and their protagonists. It makes the fantasy of the fiction more tangible, and helps us to experience it more intimately (rather than at the kind of distance we'd be faced with if we didn't have these story interlocutors). I wonder if, in the same vein, we can call Gatsby a framing story? Where the story is framed by Nick's observation/engagement in the key story at a distance, which provides the moral lesson and a more relatable character for the reader to hitch a ride with...
Anyway, after this long digression, I think that while Hsun could have left out the prologue (or incorporated its points more organically in the story), the epilogue is needed to show the future/ongoing impact on the narrator long after the events of that day. And the prologue, then, is needed to balance that epilogue and give a sense of symmetry. (ie He needed to have an open bracket at the beginning in order to use the close bracket at the end).
"As you wish."
There's also something wonderful about how dang short "An Incident" is. It's a real tour de force, in my view. A lesser writer might have put in a scene of him at work, etc. But...why?
Exactly! I think putting more in about the narrator, would cheapen the story and turn the focus to him, instead of turning the focus to ourselves. The true genius of this story is that it presents the narrator in broad strokes, which helps us to occupy his nebulous form without resistance as we read the story...
So interesting to link back to these stories from childhood and the experience of reading/being told a story in those formative years. Maryanne Wolfe in her Proust and the Squid (on science of reading and learning to read) talks about how for some the very first experience of reading is of sitting with a parent or grandparent to sing/read along together. She says (if I remember correctly) that such an experience which connects the act of reading with feelings of love, safety and warmth is not something that can be provided by schooling. Not everyone is lucky.
I wonder, after reflecting on your ideas about these early stories with frames, whether there is something deep about the act of reading which is a frame in itself: this time is important to me, it is nourishing, this chair I sit in and this lamp's familiar light are echoes of that grandmother and her musical voice, framing what it is to be a story worth hearing.
Do, then, written frames such as the prologue/epilogue in An Incident draw on these same responses? Perhaps, for me, they do, though I will need to think further on this. Perhaps also there is an implicit frame in every act of reading or choices made in sending out a piece of writing.
I suppose what I wonder is can I stop thinking about framing as a device that is either present or not present, but rather as something that is always present and either spoken or unspoken?
This is such an interesting train of thought. I like the idea that all stories are externally framed. It rings true - we come to them all with a mood or emotion in us (sometime we have that Princess Bride/memories of childhood warmth, sometimes the frame is less nostalgic and more current (bad day/i'm tired/i've just binged three hours of horror, etc) - which colour the text and the juxtapositions and the symbolism (at least in the beginning, until we get our bearings, depending on how much the text echoes our mood or pulls us out of it). So, perhaps, Lu Hsun's framing is a way to manipulate that mood before we begin - he's positioning us in that old armchair in preparation of the story to come.
It kind of reminds me how eating food in a fancy restaurant changes the taste of the food in the way that if I ate the same food presented differently on cheap plates sitting on plastic chairs in a fluorescent-lit and crowded diner, it would 'taste' different. Which makes sense, because taste isn't an objective experience - it's a translation of all (some dominant, some subtle) stimuli by the brain. And maybe reading is the same - it's not just the words on the page that affect our reading experience (although the more immersive a text is, the more we can shut out external stimuli and get drawn into the story (despite the lingering internal stimuli of memories and mood)).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in this sense, framing is a very useful device for manipulating the reader to be in a certain mood or frame of mind (ha! (terrible pun)) before they approach the meat of the story and its transformative elements.
My favorite moment of cross-talk between the frames in Neverending Story is when Bastian realizes it's up to him, as the reader, to save the world in the book by naming the Empress. I always assumed he named her after his late mother, and loved imagining what that name might be (I must have rewound the VHS a dozen times during that part to try to figure out what he shouted into the storm). Powerful stuff!
Your comment made me realize that another one of my childhood favorite films is a framed story: Stand By Me. Could easily chop Richard Dreyfuss out of the movie entirely. But really, adult Gordie remembering . . . that last line of text on the screen . . . what a gut punch.
Yes! Trying to figure out the name he shouted was an ongoing source of frustration that kids who have only ever known the powerful convenience of google could never imagine :) (And 'Stand by Me' - another great one! Golden age of cinema :D)
Mikhaeyla: I so love your posts, ideas, and questions. You have led me to think about "The Great Gatsby" because I am teaching it this term. I see the frames there as so important and revealing. There is the story of Jay Gatsby, of course, and there is Nick's story in telling it. In my opinion, we need these frames to see TGG as a story of how to hold oneself up (in American life/life) after seeing all the contradictions in it, and in ourselves. We need the fragments in the opening and closing (monologues, "straight narration," scene work, poetic interludes) to see how a human being tries to make sense of a confusing and even downright cruel modern world. Maybe the ending is really about Nick trying to hold himself together as "a Westerner, after all" given what he has witnessed and experienced in the East. He tries to return/returns (?) in these fragmented frames (particularly the conclusion) to the ideas and dreams of his America and America, even if, like all of us (Americans, if not many in the world), we face its contradictions as "boats against the current." Anyway, now I don't know if my post makes sense, but like a message in a bottle I am throwing it out there. What I know is the frames in TGG are sometimes overlooked or admired, but they are not always considered for how they escalate the plot and advance the narrative. The frames here tell me that a human will struggle in the beauty and nightmare of American dreams, and yet struggle one must (or at least one may choose to do). Maybe the frames in TGG tell other readers other ideas, but I hope they tell readers something, and I hope readers see the meaning in them - just like you do. Thank you for inspiring me, Mikhaelya, and no doubt many others on this thread.
Your bottle has found me as well, and its message makes perfect, wonderful sense.
Mikhaeyla's initial comment on framed films reminded me of how much I loved "Stand By Me" as a child. I was probably 8 or 9, much younger than the boys in the film when I first watched (and rewatched) it, and I doubt that I gave much thought to the adult Gordie/narrator at the time. It was only later, when seeing it again as an adult myself, that the frame's power finally hit me. Here Gordie is, reminiscing about the friendships of his youth, trying to say, "I never felt that way again." I get a little weepy just thinking about it. Now that I am at my own distance from that particular simplicity and innocence of childhood, I too can say, "I never felt that way again."
I have similar feelings about TGG, but like with "Stand By Me," they came to me later. I have a vague recollection of first reading the book in high school and discussing symbolism, the American Dream, etc. I may have just left it at that, if it weren't for an interview I came across many years later with a writer I love and greatly admire (Stuart Dybek, and many of his stories come to mind that handle memory in such beautifully braided/framed ways). His admiration for TGG turned me back to it, and I'm so grateful that I read it again as an adult. The frame! It was probably overlooked in class discussion, or perhaps I just didn't "feel it" as a teenager and so I'd forgotten it. But for me now, it's essential to my understanding of the book. My awareness of Nick colors everything. My uncertainty over whether or not he's being completely honest. The fact that he's "a Westerner, after all" (that passage about the "thrilling returning trains of youth" is probably my favorite in the entire book). You've made me want to revisit it again, and I feel a little twinge of envy for your students!
And the Woolf quote that you've shared is beautiful. A quote of hers has been on my mind these past few days, especially since it speaks to my understanding of "An Incident" and our general discussion here:
“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”
What are the moments we hold on to, and why? What experiences do we revisit to try to make meaning out of? What do they say about the people we are now? Like so many narrators in the stories I love, I feel myself searching for answers to these questions in my own life. If I can't quite express what certain moments mean (like the coins to the narrator in "An Incident"), I find myself returning to them moreso. Every single thing I remember and everything I understand is framed by the person I am now.
Thank you, and again Mikhaeyla, for giving me much to think about today. Hope the bottle I'm pitching out here makes some sense as well :)
I've loved this discussion thread - so many beautiful observations. And you've both made me want to go back and read everything ever written by Virginia Woolf! I really loved your reflection Manami - "What are the moments we hold on to, and why? What experiences do we revisit to try to make meaning out of? What do they say about the people we are now?". What a perfect story seed.
Yes!!! Manami & Mikhaelya, and all: Why these seeds? (Why those moments with x...?) When we did George's exercise with our chronology of people, places, moments, et al over time... What keeps rising or trying to.
I literally just worked with students on "story seeds" - noticing them, listening to them, and making the first steps to put them down on paper, if only in phrases, until they reveal themselves; eventually a butterfly can break out of even the tightest cocoon.
P.S. Seeds do not exactly relate to a cocoon. Bad connection. I should stick to the plant world. :)
Thanks for such a lovely message, MVM (and throwing out messages in bottles is my kind of style :)). Your line about struggling 'in the beauty and nightmare of American dreams' is beautiful. I think that's what good framing does - it shifts attention from the overt/obvious/surface-level impacts of the story event, and pulls us towards the subtle/intense/complex impacts that come with distance (either physical, like in Gatsby, or temporal, like in An Incident).
Reading your message made me think about the two stories twined (or 'braided' as George says) as a tree - the prominent story is the trunk and branches living above the earth and on display, but the 'other' story is the roots pushing below the soil into dark and hidden crevices. They are connected at small and finite points in terms of the text, but fundamentally interconnected in the soul of the story; they almost seem to form an imperfect reflection of the other (and in that imperfect reflection we can better observe what is different/has changed). As readers, we see the surface level of the prominent story and judge it as a distant observer, but it's the 'other' story that worms its way into the darker/unexplored parts of our minds...
Maybe that's why, without the framing, it would be easy to sit back and judge the rickshaw customer as a jerk, but with the framing we are not just confronted with his humanity but our own? And maybe that's the same with Gatsby - without hitching our ride with Nick, it would be easier to judge Jay and Daisy at a distance; but with Nick, we're pulled in and pushed out of that orbit, that 'struggle in the beauty and nightmare'...
Hi Mikhaelya: Wow - your beautiful descriptions, comparisons and ideas! I see them so vividly. You are bringing them to life. There is entirely something else that happens with the narrator in "An Incident" that has its own moments of escalation, urgency, and ultimately change - in the narrator, and I hope in the reader. And yes!!!! That worming and winding into our minds; there is a soul in this story, and I think if we sit with the story, really read it, the soul shows itself. If we are lucky enough, we find our own souls in it. (There is a madly beautiful appreciation of Virginia Woolf written by WH Auden, and in it he quotes her statement that: "'One can’t,' she observes, 'write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes; but look at the ceiling, at Grizzle, at the cheaper beasts in the Zoo which are exposed to walkers in Regent’s Park, and the soul slips in.' ") And so I really love how you are exploring this: that this story, a well told story, reaches another level of awareness "even" if it talks about the seemingly ordinary "incident."
One of my favorite photographs in the world is Edward Steichen's "Moonrise" (1904; https://www.moma.org/collection/works/51812). It is that "imperfect reflection" you describe: it is a still moment and yet shimmering in the sky, and (I'd like to believe) even below, in the seemingly dark and sleepy water. Maybe your post has also helped me to understand why I so love to look at this photo.
That quote by Virginia Woolf is beautiful! As is the photograph. When I looked at it, I was arrested by the image of these story frames as reflections, reflecting back, imperfectly, our core story. And of course, the word 'reflection' made me think of the rickshaw's driver 'reflection' on the incident, which made me rush to explore the etymology of the world: "flecto" - (Latin (figuratively)) I persuade, prevail upon, or soften. I bend, curve or bow. I turn or curl + "re-" (Latin ) again; prefix added to various words to indicate an action being done again, or back, backwards = "reflecto" (Latin) I reflect. I turn back or away.
How beautiful is that? For me, it holds the essence of both the Incident's narrator and Nick Carraway.
There should be a "love" option on Substack. "I reflect. I turn back or away." Oh, Mikhaelya - what a wonderous post.
"I turn back or away."
Maybe this raises a point about the ending in at least the two stories mentioned ("An Incident" and "TGG"): there are shown endings (scene/image with little commentary); told endings (voice-based scenes but perhaps little reflecto), and reflecto endings (some combination of the told or shown with reflecto). And combinations of these. And endings are sometimes a mix: a paragraph or line of reflecto; a paragraph or line of shown or told endings.
Maybe narrative is really about finding the balance and "pattern" (however irregular) we want of show, tell and reflect. Sometimes the edges blur; sometimes the edges are sharp(er). Here is the famous opening of Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Pale Fire":
"Two leaves, two triskelions, like two shuddering three-legged bathers coming at a run for a swim, are borne by their impetus right into the middle where with a sudden slowdown they float quite flat. Twenty minutes past four.
View from a hospital window.
November trees, poplars, I imagine, two of them growing straight out of the asphalt: all of them in the cold bright sun, bright richly furrowed bark and an intricate sweep of numberless burnished bare twigs, old gold—because getting more of the falsely mellow sun in the higher air. Their immobility is in contrast with the spasmodic ruffling of the inset reflection—for the visible motion of a tree is in the mass of its leaves, and there remain hardly more than thirty-seven or so here and there on one side of the tree. They just flicker a little, of a neutral tint, but burnished by the sun to the same ikontinct as the intricate trillions of twigs. Swooning blue of the sky crossed by pale motionless superimposed cloud wisps.
The operation has not been successful and my wife will die."
This weave ("braid") of show, tell, and reflecto creates urgency and beauty. (And it blurs even within the sentences.)
I don't know how much of this should be thought of consciously in early drafting, but it can certainly be considered in revising. Maybe even a reflecto can be used as a writer's mental note as to why the character/narrator is telling the tale (what's at stake), and maybe the reflecto can be ultimately included or discarded. Nothing has to remain in the final draft. But the writer/reader can feel it.
Can you imagine - at the risk of spoilers - collecting "reflectos"? Perhaps another literary non sequitur, but here is an ending reflecto that haunts me from a novel, Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" (do not read if you do want want a reflecto spolier):
"She came to me, she ran to me, that was no dream. That was no phantom I embraced that night. And on that night she said she loved me. My idea of her return to an 'original resentment' was too ingenious. One can be too ingenious in trying to search out the truth. Sometimes one must simply respect its veiled face. Of course this is a love story. She was not able to be my Beatrice nor was I able to be saved by her, but the idea was not senseless nor unworthy... The past buries the past and must end in silence, but it can be a conscious silences that rests open-eyed. Perhaps this is final forgiveness that James spoke of."
Mikhaelya (and George!), thank you for guiding me/us through this process of reflection on so many levels.
Nabokov - word artist extraordinaire. And I love the idea of frames within a work, bracketing individual microcosms of story and providing a lens we take with us until the next one is provided. Have you ever been to those science museums where you enter a room that's lit with a colour-filtered light and everything appears yellow or olive green or brown, and then you shine a white light torch around and suddenly everything is cerulean, and magenta, and emerald? That's what this framing feels like, except you sometimes forget you have that white-light torch and just let the author guide you through the rooms with their differently filtered lights...
I'm so sorry this comment is so long - Story Club is the only place I can have conversations like this and my mind jumps at the chance to let go of all these thoughts and feelings about what I've read. I'll do better to keep things shorter in future.
I think story club is made for long comments. Personally, I enjoy reading them. (And writing them! 😊)
Thanks for your kindness, Sara!
Thanks so much, Rosanne. Story Club has been such a rare and positive experience. And I agree - it's inspiring to see the diversity of stories despite their common structures!
Your comments are always wonderfully thoughtful, Mikhaeyla. So...please feel free to make them even longer, is my view. :)
George, you are such a kind and generous teacher. Thank you!
A+
Enjoying them too! So great to find a place where readers/writers want to chat about stories like this.
That's such a good point re. those 80s movies which I hadn't thought about for a while but thinking back remember that, yeah, the framing in them is part of what made them so enthralling to me as a child!
Your comment also reminds me of Dwight V. Swain's "Techniques of the Selling Writer", the details of which are a little hazy now but if I remember correctly he insists quite heavily on breaking down narration into action/reaction of characters and that that's in essence what makes a story engaging; something happens, and you want to know how a character reacts to it. It was a really useful thing to realise for me at the time and, as you commented, I think that applies to framing as well.
Right? Story is all about the tension between the action and the reaction, and it's an interesting experiment to see how that tension can be stretched when we put a little distance between the action and reaction - either by using another narrator, or by having a reflective epilogue.
Your comment also got me thinking about why those early 80s kids movies *were* framed - and I think it was to say "hey, this is a cool movie and you're going to have a lot of fun with it, but I also have a life lesson for you, kid, that I don't want you to forget; and that's [don't grow up too quick, don't let the adult world creep in too fast and steal away your joy and imagination, don't give up fighting for what's important even when it all feels like a lost cause, don't ever let anyone tell you that what's important to you is worthless or silly...]". And maybe there's something powerful in having that advice come so directly, in seeing yourself/your dreams/your shame so clearly reflected in a story, that it sticks with you in a different way. I know I've held on to those lessons as clearly as any I got from trusted adults (parents/teachers).
Well put. Now you mention it, I also realise the Neverending Story was such a really formative experience for me in seeing the pure adulterated escapism (in the best possible sense of the word) afforded to Bastian by poring over this magical book, which I then tried to emulate through my own reading (it also helped that to me, as a European kid, Bastian was not only an introvert like I was but also incredibly cool simply by virtue of being American...)
Thanks for discussion of films with framing device as I'm still getting my head around it. So would 'Wizard of Oz' and 'Stand by Me', 'Shawshank Redemption' also fit into this device category?
Your post, Emma, really got me thinking :) I think Wizard of Oz is a framed story - the real world brackets the fantastical world and the two are tethered by the thinnest of threads, the framing primes us for how to view/make conclusions about the prominent story, and there is a moral lesson to be learned from the prominent story that is applied in the 'other' story.
My mind thinks of it as brackets - (Other story/world prologue (Prominent story/world) Other story/world epilogue) - the prominent story is self-contained and doesn't rely on the other story to be a fully-fleshed story, but without it, the prominent story loses some of that emotional resonance and moral lesson. Wizard of Oz, Princess Bride, Neverending Story, and Stand by Me all have that in common with Hsun's story. I guess the difference with Wizard of Oz (and also Goonies) is that in the others, the moral lesson transforms either another person or a later version of that person, whereas with Oz and Goonies the moral lesson is felt straight away. Oz is definitely a better example than Goonies, since there is a *moral* lesson, whereas Goonies is more of an external impact (ie the story sets up the global stakes then moves to internal and then ends with global - which is not what I typically find with stories (usually the other way round)).
I think when you boil it down, all stories are framed - it's why we have the beginning show us the main character's status quo (telegraphing 'these are the things that will change throughout the story') - it's just that some are more obvious about it? And some, like Hsun, use it to coach us how to *feel* about what comes next.
Someone else in the comments put it much better than I can - they suggested that the direct prologue and epilogue is like a lawyer arguing a case - the opening statement says 'I'm going to present evidence of something important that will prove X' and the closing statement says 'I've proved what I set out to, I hope you were paying attention and got the point'.
I think when you have this structure, it broadcasts to the reader - the point of this story isn't the drama of what happens in between - the trials and the successes - it's the lasting impact on characters beyond the main event.
Thanks for responding, Mikhaeyla- I can't remember The Goonies, Princess Bride or Never-ending story anymore (though am an X). I suspect Labyrinth is another in this framing type I did see!
Your line 'I think when you boil it down, all stories are framed' feels very true - hadn't really understood 'framing' to be but one device of many for writers. This structural consideration of story telling is bringing a whole new dimension into reading- appreciate it so much!
Yes! I had been thinking of Princess Bride, but hadn’t thought of Goonies. The framing in that story definitely adds to the meaning and depth. It would just be an adventure without the trouble in the Goondocks, and the satisfying ending with Mikey’s marble bag.