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Note that there is no real contradiction here between what we have just said about the unity of plot and what we said about the uniqueness of the language of a fictional work.

Even a lyric has a "plot" in the sense in which we are using the term here. But the plot is not the concrete experience that is re-created in the reader by the work, be it lyric, play, or novel; it is only the framework of it, or perhaps the occasion of it. It stands for the unity of the work, which is properly in the experience itself, just as the logical summation of the meaning of an expository work stands for the argument of the whole.

( 3 ) You must not only reduce the whole to its simplest unity, but you must also discover how that whole is constructed out of all its parts. The parts of an expository book are concerned with parts of the whole problem, the partial solutions contributing to the solution of the whole. The parts of fiction are the various steps that the author takes to develop his plot-the details of characterization and incident. The way in which the parts are arranged differs in the two cases. In science and philosophy, they must be ordered logically. In a story, the parts must somehow fit into a temporal scheme, a progress from a beginning through the middle to its end. To know the structure of a narrative, you must know where it begins-which is not necessarily on the first page, of coursewhat it goes through, and where it comes out at. You must know the various crises that lead up to the climax, where and how the climax occurs, and what happens in the aftermath.

( By "aftermath" we do not mean what happens after the story is over. Nobody can know that. We mean only what happens, within the narrative, after the climax has occurred. ) An important consequence follows from the points we have just made. The parts or sub-wholes of an expository book are more likely to be independently readable than the parts of fiction. Euclid published his Elements in thirteen parts, or books, as he called them, and the first of them can be read by How to Read Imaginative literature 21 1

itself. That is more or less the case with every well-organized expository book. Its sections or chapters, taken separately or in subgroups, make sense. But the chapters of a novel, the acts of a play, or the verses of a lyric often become relatively meaningless when wrenched from the whole.

Second, what are the interpretive rules for reading fiction?

Our prior consideration of the difference between a poetic and a logical use of language prepares us to make a translation of the rules that direct us to find the terms, the propositions, and the arguments. We know we should not do that, but we must do something analogous to it.

( 1 ) The elements of fiction are its episodes and incidents, its characters, and their thoughts, speeches, feelings, and actions. Each of these is an element in the world the author creates. By manipulating these elements, the author tells his story. They are like the terms in logical discourse. Just as you must come to terms with an expository writer, so here you must become acquainted with the details of incident and characterization. You have not grasped a story until you are familiar with its characters, until you have lived through its events.

( 2) Terms are connected in propositions. The elements of fiction are connected by the total scene or background against which they stand out in relief. The imaginative writer, we have seen, creates a world in which his characters "live, move, and have their being." The fictional analogue of the rule that directs you to find the author's propositions can, therefore, be stated as follows: become at home in this imaginary world; know it as if you were an observer on the scene; become a member of its population, willing to befriend its characters, and able to participate in its happenings by sympathetic insight, as you would do in the actions and sufferings of a friend.

If you can do this, the elements of fiction will cease to be so many