George Saunders 19 An Incident part Three
"An Incident," Part Three To Frame, or not to Frame... George Saunders Jan 30 In my first post about “ An Incident ,” I mentioned the structure of the story. It is, fundamentally, a “frame story,” its essential action book-ended between an introduction (paragraphs 1 and 2) and an epilogue (paragraph 18). In this post, I want to talk about this device and, specifically, about how the frame justifies itself (how it “earns its keep.”) I’m sure you can all think of other examples of frame stories (Raymond Carver’s “The Calm,” comes to mind for me). If I’m remembering correctly, Heart of Darkness is another. I don’t have any big, overarching theories about frame stories, except that the frame and the inner story should, you know, cross-talk, in some way that causes the inner story to be more meaningful than it would if told alone. The implicit claim of a frame story is: “I’m better with the framing device.” So, here, re. “An Incide...