EMPHASIS IN NARRATIVE
Essential and Contributory Features--Art Distinguishes Between the
Two by Emphasis--Many Technical Devices: 1. Emphasis by Terminal
Position; 2. Emphasis by Initial Position; 3. Emphasis by Pause
[Further Discussion of Emphasis by Position]; 4. Emphasis by
Direct Proportion; 5. Emphasis by Inverse Proportion; 6. Emphasis
by Iteration; 7. Emphasis by Antithesis; 8. Emphasis by Climax; 9.
Emphasis by Surprise; 10. Emphasis by Suspense; 11. Emphasis by
Imitative Movement.
=Essential and Contributory Features.=--The features of any object
that we contemplate may with intelligent judgment be divided into two
classes, according as they are inherently essential, or else merely
contributory, to the existence of that object as an individual entity.
If any one of its inherently essential features should be altered,
that object would cease to be itself and would become another object;
but if any or all of its merely contributory features should be
changed, the object would still retain its individuality, however much
its aspect might be altered. And in general it may be said that we do
not understand an object until we are able to set intelligently in one
group or the other every feature it presents to our attention.
=Art Distinguishes Between the Two by Emphasis.=--In contemplating
natural objects, it is often difficult to distinguish those features
which are merely contributory from those which are inherently
essential; but it ought not to be difficult to do so in contemplating
a work of art. For it is possible for the artist--in fact it is
incumbent upon him--to help the observer to distinguish clearly
between the essential and the contributory details of the object he
has fabricated. By employing certain technical expedients in
exhibiting his work, the artist is able to communicate to the observer
his own intelligent distinction between its more important, and its
less important, features. He does this by casting emphasis upon the
necessary details and gathering out of emphasis the subsidiary ones.
The importance of the principle of emphasis is recognized in all the
arts; for it is only by an application of this principle that the
artist can gather and group in the background the subsidiary elements
of his work, while he flings into vivid relief those elements that
embody the essence of the thing he has to say. The halo with which the
Byzantine mosaïcists surrounded the faces of their saints, the glory
of golden light that gleams about the figure of Christ in heaven in
Tintoretto's decorations, the blank bright walls of the Doge's palace
undermined by darkling and shadowy arcades, the refrain of a Provençal
song, the sharp shadow under the visor of Verrocchio's equestrian
statue, the thought-provoking chiaroscuro of Rembrandt's figure
paintings--these expedients are all designed to attract attention to
the essential elements of a whole of many parts. By technical devices
such as these, emphasis must be given to the central truth of a work
of art in order that the observer may not look instead at the mere
accidents of its investiture. Where many elements are gathered
together for the purpose of representing an idea, some of them must be
more important than the others because they are to a greater extent
imbued with it inherently; and the artist will fail of his purpose
unless he indicates clearly which elements are essential and which are
merely subsidiary.
=Many Technical Devices.=--Scarcely any other work of art, excepting
a Gothic cathedral or a theatrical performance, is made of elements
more multifarious than those of a fictitious narrative. The details of
a novel are so many and so various that the author needs at all times
a nice understanding and a careful application of the principle of
emphasis. It is therefore advisable that the present chapter should be
devoted to the enumeration and illustration of the different technical
devices which are employed by artists in narrative to cast the needed
emphasis on the essential features of their stories.
=1. Emphasis by Terminal Position.=--First of all, it is obviously
easy to emphasize by position. In any narrative, or section of a
narrative, that is designed to be read in a single sitting, the last
moments are of necessity emphatic because they are the last. When the
reader lays the narrative aside, he remembers most vividly the last
thing that has been presented to his attention; and if he thinks back
to the earlier portions of the story, he must do so by thinking
through the concluding passage. Therefore, it is necessary in the
short-story, and advisable in the chapters of a novel, to reserve for
the ultimate position one of the most inherently important features of
the narrative; for surely it is bad art to waste the natural emphasis
of position by casting it upon a subsidiary feature.
The importance of this simple expedient will readily be recognized if
the student will gather together a hundred short-stories written by
acknowledged masters and examine the last paragraph of each. Consider
for a moment the final sentences of "Markheim," which we have already
quoted in another connection:--
"He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a
smile.
"'You had better go for the police,' said he: 'I have killed your
master.'"
The entire story is summed up in the concluding phrase; and the final
sentence rings ever after in the reader's memory.
Here, to cite a new example, is the conclusion of Poe's "The Masque of
the Red Death":--
"And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come
like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the
blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing
posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with
that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired.
And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion
over all."
The sense of absolute ruin which we derive from this impressive
paragraph is, to a considerable extent, due to the emphasis it gains
from its finality. The effect would unquestionably be subtracted from,
if another paragraph should be appended and should steal away its
importance of position.
In order to derive the utmost emphasis from the terminal position, the
great artist Guy de Maupassant, in his short-stories, developed a
periodicity of structure by means of which he reserved the solution of
the narrative, whenever possible, until the final sentences. This
periodic structure is employed, for example, in his well-known story
of "The Necklace" ("_La Parure_"). It deals with a poor woman who
loses a diamond necklace that she has borrowed from a rich friend in
order to wear at a ball. She buys another exactly like it and returns
this in its place. For ten years she and her husband labor day and
night to pay off the debts they have incurred to purchase the
substituted jewels. After the debts are all paid, the woman tells her
friend of what had happened. Then follows this last sentence of the
story:--
"'Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine were false. At most they were worth
five hundred francs!'"
The periodic pattern of Guy de Maupassant was sedulously copied by O.
Henry; but this popular contributor to the American magazines went
even further than his master and developed a double surprise to be
delivered suddenly at the conclusion of the narrative. A typical
example of his work is "The Gift of the Magi," wherein an unexpected
outcome is immediately capped by a second outcome still more
unexpected. The success of O. Henry with the reading public may be
attributed mainly to his cleverness in taking full advantage of the
powerful expedient of emphasis by terminal position. His technical
adroitness may be studied best by reading rapidly the final paragraphs
of any hundred of his stories. He had the happy faculty of saying last
the best and brightest thing he had to say.
=2. Emphasis by Initial Position.=--Next to the last position, the
most emphatic place in a brief narrative, or section of a narrative,
is of course the first. The mind of the reader receives with an
especial vividness whatever is presented to it at the outset. For this
reason it is necessary in the short-story, and advisable in the
chapters of a novel, to begin with material that not only is
inherently essential, but also strikes the key-note of the narrative
that is to follow. Edgar Allan Poe is especially artistic in applying
this principle of emphasis by initial position. We have already
quoted, in another connection, the solemn opening of "The Fall of the
House of Usher," with its suggestion of immitigable gloom of setting
as the dominant note of the narrative. In "The Cask of Amontillado,"
wherein the thing to be emphasized is the element of action, Poe
begins with this sentence: "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had
borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed
revenge": and we know already that the story is to set forth a signal
act of vengeance. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," which is a study of
murderous madness, and deals primarily with the element of character,
the author opens thus:--
"True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but
why _will_ you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my
senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of
hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I
heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe
how healthily--how calmly I can tell you the whole story."
=3. Emphasis by Pause.=--In general it may be said that any pause in a
narrative emphasizes by position whatever immediately precedes it, and
also (though to a considerably less extent) whatever immediately
follows it. For this reason many masters of the short-story, like
Daudet and de Maupassant, construct their narratives in sections, in
order to multiply the number of terminal and initial positions.
Asterisks strung across the page not only make the reader aware of the
completion of an integral portion of the story, but also focus his
attention emphatically on the last thing that has been said before the
interruption. The employment of _points de suspension_--a mark of
punctuation consisting of a series of successive dots ...--which is so
frequent with French authors, is a device which is used to interrupt a
sentence solely for the sake of emphasis by pause.
=Further Discussion of Emphasis by Position.=--The instances which we
have selected to illustrate the expedient of emphasizing by position
have been chosen for convenience from short-stories; but the same
principle may be applied with similar success in constructing the
chapters of a novel. Certain great but inartistic novelists, like Sir
Walter Scott, show themselves to be singularly obtuse to the advantage
of placing emphatic material in an emphatic position. Scott is almost
always careless of his chapter endings: he allows the sections of his
narrative to drift and straggle, instead of rounding them to an
emphatic close. But more artistic novelists, like Victor Hugo for
example, never fail to take advantage of the terminal position.
Consider the close of Book XI, Chapter II, of "Notre Dame de Paris."
The gypsy-girl, Esmeralda, has been hanged in the Place de Grève. The
hunchback, Quasimodo, has flung the archdeacon, Claude Frollo, from
the tower-top of Notre Dame. This paragraph then brings the chapter to
an end:--
"Quasimodo then raised his eye to the gypsy, whose body he saw,
depending from the gibbet, shudder afar under her white robe with the
last tremblings of death-agony; then he lowered it to the archdeacon,
stretched out at the foot of the tower and no longer having human
form; and he said with a sob that made his deep chest heave: 'Oh! all
that I have loved!'"
A chapter ending may be artistically planned either (as in the
foregoing instance) to sum up with absolute finality the narrative
accomplishment of the chapter, or else, by vaguely foreshadowing the
subsequent progress of the story, to lure the reader to proceed. The
elder Dumas possessed in a remarkable degree the faculty of so
terminating one chapter as to allure the reader to an immediate
commencement of the next. He did this most frequently by introducing a
new thread of narrative in a phrase of the concluding sentence, and
thereby exciting the reader's curiosity to follow up the thread.
The expedient of emphasis by terminal and by initial position cannot,
of course, be applied without reservation to an entire novel. The last
chapter of a novel with a complicated plot is often of necessity
devoted to tying or untying minor knots in the straggling threads of
the general network. Therefore, the most emphatic place in an extended
narrative is not at the very end, but rather at the close of the
chapter which sets forth the culmination. Also, although many great
novels, like "The Scarlet Letter," have begun at an emphatic moment in
the plot, many others have opened slowly and have presented no
important material until the narrative was well under way. "The
Talisman" of Scott, "The Spy" of Fenimore Cooper, and many another
early nineteenth-century romance, began with a solitary horseman whom
the reader was forced to follow for several pages before anything
whatever happened. Latterly, however, novelists have learned from
writers of short-stories the art of opening emphatically with material
important to the plot.
=4. Emphasis by Direct Proportion.=--Another means of emphasis in
narrative is by proportion. More time and more attention should be
given to essential scenes than to matters of subsidiary interest. The
most important characters should be given most to say and do; and the
amount of attention devoted to the others should be proportioned to
their importance in the action. Becky Sharp stands out sharply from
the half a hundred other characters in "Vanity Fair," because more
time is devoted to her than to any of the others. Similarly, in "Emma"
and in "Pride and Prejudice," as we have noted in the preceding
chapter, the heroine is in each case emphasized by the fact that she
is set forth from a more intimate point of view than the minor people
in the story. It is wise, for the sake of emphasis by proportion, to
draw the major characters more completely and more carefully than the
minor; and much may therefore be said, on this ground, in defence of
Dickens's habit of drawing humanly only the leading characters in his
novels and merely sketching in caricature the subsidiary actors.
=5. Emphasis by Inverse Proportion.=--It is sometimes possible, in
special cases, to emphasize ironically by inverse proportion. An
author may deliberately devote several successive pages to dwelling on
subsidiary matters, only to emphasize sharply a sudden paragraph or
sentence in which he turns to the one thing that really counts. But
this ironical expedient is, of course, less frequently serviceable
than that of emphasis by direct proportion.
=6. Emphasis by Iteration.=--Undoubtedly the easiest means of
inculcating a detail of narrative is to repeat it again and again.
Emphasis by iteration is a favorite device of Dickens. The reader is
never allowed to forget the catch-phrase of Micawber or the moral look
of Pecksniff. In many cases, to be sure, the reader wishes that he
might escape the constantly recurrent repetition; but Dickens
occasionally applies the expedient with subtle emotional effect. In "A
Tale of Two Cities," for example, the repeated references to echoing
footsteps and to the knitting of Madame Defarge contribute a great
deal to the sense of imminent catastrophe.
Certain modern authors have developed a phase of emphasis by iteration
which is similar to the employment of the _leit-motiv_ in the
music-dramas of Richard Wagner. In the Wagnerian operas a certain
musical theme is devoted to each of the characters, and is woven into
the score whenever the character appears. Similarly, in the later
plays of Henrik Ibsen, certain phrases are repeated frequently, to
indicate the recurrence of certain dramatic moods. Thus, in
"Rosmersholm," reference is made to the weird symbol of "white
horses," whenever the mood of the momentary scene foreshadows the
double suicide which is to terminate the play. Students of "Hedda
Gabler" need not be reminded of the emphasis flung by iteration on the
phrases, "Vine-leaves in his hair," "Fancy that, Hedda!", "Wavy-haired
Thea," "The one cock on the fowl-roost," and "People don't do such
things!" The same device may be employed just as effectively in the
short-story and the novel. A single instance will suffice for
illustration. Notice, in examining the impressive talk of the old lama
in Mr. Kipling's "Kim," how much emphasis is derived from the
continual recurrence of certain phrases, like the "Search for the
River," "the justice of the Wheel," "to acquire merit," and so forth.
A narrative expedient scarcely distinguishable in effect from simple
iteration is the device of parallelism of structure. For example, in
Hawthorne's story of "The White Old Maid," the first scene and the
last, although they are separated in time by many, many years, take
place in the same spacious chamber, with the moonbeams falling in the
same way through two deep and narrow windows, while waving curtains
produce the same ghostly semblance of expression on a face that is
dead.
=7. Emphasis by Antithesis.=--Emphasis in narrative is also
attained by antithesis,--an expedient employed in every art. In most
stories it is well so to select the characters that they will set
each other off by contrast. In the great duel scene of the "Master
of Ballantrae," from which a selection has been quoted in a previous
chapter, the phlegmatic calm of Mr. Henry is contrasted sharply
with the mercurial hot-headedness of the Master; and each character
stands forth more vividly because of its opposition to the other.
Of the two women who are loved by Tito Melema, the one, Tessa, is
simple and childish, the other, Romola, complex and intellectual.
The most interesting stories present a constant contrast of
mutually foiling personalities; and whenever characters of varied
views and opposing aims come nobly to the grapple in a struggle that
vitally concerns them, the tensity of the situation will be augmented
if the difference between the characters is marked. This expedient
is therefore of especial importance in the drama. Othello seems more
poignantly emotional in the presence of the coldly intellectual
Iago. In "The School for Scandal," Charles and Joseph Surface are
much more effective together than either of them would be alone. The
wholehearted and happy-go-lucky recklessness of the one sets off
the smooth and smug dissimulation of the other; the first gives light
to the play, and the second shade. Hamlet's wit is sharpened by the
garrulous obtuseness of Polonius; the sad world-wisdom of Paula
Tanqueray is accentuated by the innocence of Ellean. Similarly, to
return to the novel for examples, we need only instance the contrast
in mind between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the contrast in mood
between Claude Frollo and Phoebus de Châteaupers, the contrast in
ideals between Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Grandcourt.
The expedient of antithesis is also employed effectively in the
balance of scene against scene. The absolute desolation which
terminates "The Masque of the Red Death" is preceded by "a masked ball
of the most unusual magnificence." In Scott's "Kenilworth," we pass
from the superb festivities which Leicester institutes in honor of
Queen Elizabeth, to the lonely prison where Amy Robsart, his discarded
wife, is languishing. Victor Hugo is, in modern fiction, the greatest
master of antithesis of mood between scene and scene. His most
emphatic effects are attained, like those of Gothic architecture, by a
juxtaposition of the grotesque and the sublime. Often, to be sure, he
overworks the antithetic; and entire sections of his narrative move
like the walking-beam of a ferry-boat, tilting now to this side, now
to that. But in spite of his excess in employing this device, his
practice should be studied carefully; for at his best he illustrates
more convincingly than any other author the effectiveness of emphasis
by contrast.
The subtlest way of employing this expedient is to present an
antithesis of mood within a single scene. Dame Quickly's account of
Falstaff's death touches at once the heights of humor and the depths
of pathos. At the close of "Mrs. Bathurst," the tragic narrative is
interrupted by the passage of a picnic-party singing a light
love-song. Shylock, in his great dialogue with Tubal, is at the same
moment plunged in melancholy over the defection of his daughter and
flushed with triumph because he has Antonio at last within his
clutches. Each emotion seems more potent because it is contrasted with
the other. In Mr. Kipling's "Love-o'-Women," the tragic effect is
enhanced by the fact that the tale is told by the humorous Mulvaney.
Thus:--
"'An' now?' she sez, lookin' at him; an' the red paint stud lone on
the white av her face like a bull's-eye on a target.
"He lifted up his eyes, slow an' very slow, an' he looked at her long
an' very long, an' he tuk his spache betune his teeth wid a wrench
that shuk him.
"'I'm dyin', Aigypt--dyin',' he says; ay, those were his words, for I
remimber the name he called her. He was turnin' the death-color, but
his eyes niver rowled. They were set--set on her. Widout word or
warnin' she opened her arms full stretch, an' 'Here!' she sez. (Oh,
fwhat a golden mericle av a voice ut was.) 'Die here,' she sez; an'
Love-o'-Women dhropped forward, an' she hild him up, for she was a
fine big woman."
=8. Emphasis by Climax.=--Another rhetorical expedient from
which emphasis may be derived is, of course, the use of climax.
The materials of a short-story, or of a chapter of narrative,
should in nearly every case be assembled in an ascending order of
importance,--each incident carrying the interest to a higher
level than that of the preceding. The same is true of the structure
of a novel from the outset to the moment of the culmination; but
of course it is rarely possible in the _dénouement_ to carry the
interest any higher than the level it attained at the point of
greatest complication. Climacteric progressiveness of structure
is effectively exhibited in Henry James' tale of mystery and
terror, "The Turn of the Screw." The author on horror's head
horrors accumulates, in a steadily ascending scale. But, on the
other hand, many stories have been marred by the introduction of
a very striking scene too early in the structure, after which
there has succeeded of necessity an appreciable diminution in the
interest. The reason why sequels to great novels have rarely been
successful is that it has been impossible for the author in the
second volume to sustain a climacteric rise of interest from the
level where he left off in the first.
=9. Emphasis by Surprise.=--A means of emphasis less technical and
more psychological than those which have been hitherto discussed is
that which owes its origin to surprise. Whatever hits the reader
unexpectedly will hit him hard. He will be most impressed by that for
which he has been least prepared. Chapter XXXII of "Vanity Fair"
passes in Brussels during the battle of Waterloo. The reader is kept
in the city with the women of the story while the men are fighting on
the field a dozen miles away. All day a distant cannonading rumbles on
the ear. At nightfall the noise stops suddenly. Then, at the end of
the chapter, the reader is told:--
"No more firing was heard at Brussels--the pursuit rolled miles away.
Darkness came down on the field and city: and Amelia was praying for
George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his
heart."
This statement of George Osborne's death is emphasized in several ways
at once. It is made emphatic by position, since it is placed at the
very end of a long chapter; by inverse proportion, since it is set
forth in a single phrase after many pages that have been devoted to
less important matters; but most of all by the startle of surprise
with which it strikes the reader. Likewise, the last sentence of de
Maupassant's "The Necklace," quoted earlier in this chapter, is
emphatic by surprise as well as by position; and the same is true of
the clever and unexpected close of H. C. Bunner's "A Sisterly Scheme,"
in many ways a little masterpiece of art.
In tales of mystery, the interest is maintained chiefly by the deft
manipulation of surprise; but even in novels wherein the aim to
mystify is very far from being the primary purpose of the author, it
is often wise to keep a secret from the reader for the sake of the
emphasis by surprise which may be derived at the moment of revelation.
In "Our Mutual Friend" the reader is led for a long time to suppose
that the character of Mr. Boffin is changing for the worse; and his
interest is stimulated keenly when he discovers ultimately that the
apparent degeneration has been only a pretense.
In the drama this expedient must be used with great delicacy, because
a sudden and startling shock of surprise is likely to scatter the
attention of the spectators and flurry them out of a true conception
of the scene. The reader of a novel, when he discovers with surprise
that he has been skilfully deceived through several pages, may pause
to reconstruct his conception of the narrative, and may even re-read
the entire passage through which the secret has been withheld from
him. But in the theatre, the spectators cannot stop the play while
they reconstruct in retrospect their judgment of a situation; and
therefore, in the drama, a moment of surprise should be carefully led
up to by anticipatory suggestion. Before Lady Macbeth is disclosed
walking in her sleep, her doctor and her waiting-gentlewoman are sent
on to tell the audience of her "slumbery agitation." This is excellent
art in the theatre; but it would be bad art in the pages of a novel.
In a story written to be read, surprise is most effective when it is
complete.
=10. Emphasis by Suspense.=--An even more interesting form of emphasis
in narrative is emphasis by suspense. Wilkie Collins is accredited
with having said that the secret of holding the attention of one's
readers lay in the ability to do three things: "Make 'em laugh; make
'em weep; make 'em wait." Still abide these three; and the greatest is
the last. The ability to make the reader wait, through many pages and
at times through many chapters, is a very valuable asset of the writer
of fiction; but this ability is applied to best advantage when it is
exercised within certain limitations. In the first place, there is no
use in making the reader wait unless he is first given an inkling of
what he is to wait for. The reader should be tantalized; he should be
made to long for the fruit that is just beyond his grasp; and he
should not be left in ignorance as to the nature of the fruit, lest he
should long for it half-heartedly. A vague sense of "something
evermore about to be" is not so interesting to the reader as a vivid
sense of the imminence of some particular occurrence that he wishes
ardently to witness. The expedient of suspense is most effective when
either of two things and only two, both of which the reader has
imagined in advance, is just about to happen, and the reader, desirous
of the one and apprehensive of the other, is kept waiting while the
balance trembles. In the second place, there is seldom any use in
making the reader wait unless he is given in the end the thing he has
been waiting for. A short-story may occasionally set forth a suspense
which is never to be satisfied. Frank R. Stockton's famous tale, "The
Lady or the Tiger?", ends with a question which neither the reader nor
the author is able to answer; and Bayard Taylor's fascinating
short-story, "Who Was She?", never reveals the alluring secret of the
heroine's identity. But in an extended story an unsatisfied suspense
is often less emphatic than no suspense at all, because the reader in
the end feels cheated by the author who has made him wait for nothing.
There are, of course, exceptions to this statement. In "The Marble
Faun," Hawthorne is undoubtedly right in never revealing the shape of
Donatello's ears, even though the reader continually expects the
revelation; but, in the same novel, it is difficult to see what, if
anything, is gained by making the reader wait in vain for the truth
about the shadowy past of Miriam.
=11. Emphasis by Imitative Movement.=--Emphasis in narrative may also
be attained by imitative movement. Whatever is imagined to have
happened quickly should be narrated quickly, in few words and in rapid
rhythm; and whatever is imagined to have happened slowly should be
narrated in a more leisurely manner,--sometimes in a greater number of
words than are absolutely necessitated by the sense alone,--the words
being arranged, furthermore, in a rhythm of appreciable sluggishness.
In "Markheim," the dealer is murdered in a single sudden sentence:
"The long, skewerlike dagger flashed and fell." But, later on in the
story, it takes the hero a whole paragraph, containing no less than
three hundred words, to mount the four-and-twenty steps to the first
floor of the house. In the following passage from "The Masque of the
Red Death," notice how much of the effect is due to imitative movement
in the narrative:--
"But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the
mummer had inspired the whole party there were found none who put
forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard
of the Prince's person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one
impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made
his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step
which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber
to the purple--through the purple to the green--through the green to
the orange--through this again to the white--and even thence to the
violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was
then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the
shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six
chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that
had seized upon all." The spectre and the Prince pass successively
through the same series of rooms; but it takes the former fifty-one
words to cover the distance, whereas it takes the latter only six.
In every story that is artistically fashioned, the methods of emphasis
enumerated in this chapter will be found to be continually applied.
Its essential features will be rendered prominent by position
(terminal or initial), by pause, by proportion (direct or inverse), by
iteration or parallelism, by antithesis, by climax, by surprise, by
suspense, by imitative movement, or by a combination of any or all of
these. The necessity of emphasis is ever present; the means of
emphasis are simple; and any writer of narrative who knows his art
will endeavor to employ them always to the best advantage.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What reasons account for the importance of the principle of
emphasis in art?
2. Imagine a fictitious event of sufficient complexity; select the one
detail that seems to be the most essential; and then write eleven
distinct themes, narrating this same incident, and emphasizing this
detail successively, 1. By Terminal Position; 2. By Initial
Position; 3. By Pause; 4. By Direct Proportion; 5. By Inverse
Proportion; 6. By Iteration; 7. By Antithesis; 8. By Climax; 9. By
Surprise; 10. By Suspense, and 11. By Imitative Movement.
SUGGESTED READING
VICTOR HUGO: "Notre Dame de Paris."--This is one of the great novels
of the world; and it illustrates, at many moments, every technical
device of emphasis that has been expounded in this chapter.