I’m a little late to this framing thread, but I wonder if one of the things the frame in this story does is to get the reader to feel more generously about the narrator than if the opening part of the frame was not included.
In paragraph 1, he describes himself as a misanthrope - and my first thought is, do I even want to read a story ab…
I’m a little late to this framing thread, but I wonder if one of the things the frame in this story does is to get the reader to feel more generously about the narrator than if the opening part of the frame was not included.
In paragraph 1, he describes himself as a misanthrope - and my first thought is, do I even want to read a story about a self-described misanthrope? But in the next paragraph, he immediately says that an incident aroused him from his ill temper. So I think, okay, something happened to make him change and maybe I will give this story a chance.
After the opening part of the frame, his description of himself becomes worse and worse, and it is not until paragraph 12 that his revelation about his lack of compassion begins. So, without the frame, I think I would have felt negatively about the narrator for much of the story, since I would not have known from the outset that he had changed.
I’m a little late to this framing thread, but I wonder if one of the things the frame in this story does is to get the reader to feel more generously about the narrator than if the opening part of the frame was not included.
In paragraph 1, he describes himself as a misanthrope - and my first thought is, do I even want to read a story about a self-described misanthrope? But in the next paragraph, he immediately says that an incident aroused him from his ill temper. So I think, okay, something happened to make him change and maybe I will give this story a chance.
After the opening part of the frame, his description of himself becomes worse and worse, and it is not until paragraph 12 that his revelation about his lack of compassion begins. So, without the frame, I think I would have felt negatively about the narrator for much of the story, since I would not have known from the outset that he had changed.