A Narratological Analysis of the Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe.

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A Narratological Analysis of The Oval Portrait The story ‘The Oval Portrait’ is packaged in the form of a “story-within-a-story” form of narrative structure. In other words, the story is presented in two blocks, a main plot with an embedded story or sub-plot in it. The main plot is known as the Frame or Primary narrative while the sub-plot is referred to as an Embedded or Secondary narrative. In the given tale (story), the distinction between a plot and a sub-plot becomes quiet clear in the way the events are presented in a reverse chronological order. The main plot starts with the narrator getting injured in the civil war, his taking refuge in the castle and the discovery of the portrait. Subsequently, the reader gets to know the story of the lady in the portrait in the form of a sub-plot or embedded narrative. These two blocks of the story make up the whole narrative in by contemplating readers’ interest and curiosity. The first part of the story (about the wounded officer) makes up the Frame narrative, and the second part (concerning the details about the portrait) is the secondary or Embedded narrative. In this story, the reader finds an unusual balance between the two types of narratives that is; both are given almost equal voice in the story. Usually the frame narrative is very short and the most part of the story is allocated for the embedded narrative. In other words, the story is narratologically as well as emotionally balanced. The two narratives present an implied emotional equivalence as well, so that the narrator’s wound, and the denotation of his processes of perception seem to have an almost equal weighting to the tragic story of the squandering of a young life. Most probably, the author has presented an implication of putting things on stake in pursuit of an ideal. The frame narrative’s setting is a whole country, forced into war
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