It may be so, it very often
is so for a time. But it is not so always, and the story-teller
himself grows conscious of a misgiving. If the spell is weakened at
any moment, the listener is recalled from the scene to the mere author
before him, and the story rests only upon the author's direct
assertion. Is it not possible, then, to introduce another point of
view, to set up a fresh narrator to bear the brunt of the reader's
scrutiny? If the story-teller is _in_ the story himself, the author is
dramatized; his assertions gain in weight, for they are backed by the
presence of the narrator in the pictured scene. It is advantage
scored; the author has shifted his responsibility, and it now falls
where the reader can see and measure it; the arbitrary quality which
may at any time be detected in the author's voice is disguised in the
voice of his spokesman. Nothing is now imported into the story from
without; it is self-contained, it has no associations with anyone
beyond its circle.
Such is the first step towards dramatization, and in very many a story
it may be enough. The spokesman is there, in recognizable relation
with his matter; no question of his authority can arise. But now a
difficulty may be started by the nature of the tale that he tells. If
he has nothing to do but to relate what he has seen, what anyone might
have seen in his position, his account will serve very well; there is
no need for more.
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