One thing we learned about literature while completing our PhD is that the frame story is important. You know what I’m talking about although you probably haven’t thought about it. It is the story that comes at the beginning and end of the narrative itself. frames it. As in Joseph Conrad heart of darkness when Marlowe is on the boat saying “this was also one of the dark places on earth”. Then Marlowe launches into the story of his time in Africa. That frame story is very important and helps explain everything about the novel. That’s right: the frame story holds the key to the entire narrative.
So if you have to write an essay on any literary work, consider the frame story and try to figure out why it is there and whether it contains the theme of the whole work. As an example, let’s take a look at “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. You remember the plot of this narrative poem, I hope. It’s the one where the ship is visited by an albatross, but then the narrator, the Ancient Mariner, kills the albatross for no reason. Then the ship stalls, he is visited by a ghost ship with Death and Life-in-Death. All are killed except the Old Mariner himself, and he is taken back to England, where he learns that all of God’s creatures are important, both “great and small”.
It’s a great supernatural story, to be sure, but there’s a weird frame story about a wedding guest. However, it is very important. The Ancient Mariner is forced to tell his story to certain people. In fact, “That moment when I see his face, / I know the man who must listen to me: / I show him my story.” The rhyme of The Ancient Mariner is more than a mere story; it is a lesson, a parable, a reading. After all, he teaches those who need to hear him. And this particular wedding guest needs to hear it.
The Wedding-Guest is literally that, a guest at the wedding. He is about to go inside and enjoy the wedding celebration when the Ancient Mariner stops him and holds him spellbound while teaching him this important lesson. Notice what the Wedding Guest says to the Old Mariner: “The Groom’s gates are wide open, / And I am next of kin; / The guests are received, the feast is ready: / May you listen the joyous roar.” The wedding guest wants to party with everyone else! That’s all that matters to him. He doesn’t care about the wedding itself; he just wants to have fun with them. However, this wedding guest missed the point of the wedding. A wedding was supposed to be a mirror of Christ’s relationship with the church, not just an excuse to party. But this boy doesn’t understand that. He doesn’t even mention the wedding, just the party.
In the end, however, his tone has changed. After hearing the Old Mariner’s story of woe and redemption, he no longer even wishes to go to the wedding feast: “and now the Wedding Guest / Turned away from the bridegroom’s door. / Gone like one who has been dazed , / And it is meaningless: / A sadder and wiser man, / He got up the next morning.”
The Old Mariner’s tale worked. She taught the wedding guest to think straight and not worry about selfish pleasure. Instead, he now knows that “The one who loves the most prays better / All things, both great and small; / For the dear God who loves us, / He made and loves everything.”
So don’t neglect the frame story. Think of a way to read the frame story so that it contains the whole theme of the narrative.