This is a sketch, wherein the mist, the fog, the forest, and the shadowy figures combine with the muffled sounds into a dim monotone. It is a picture galvanized into life. Notice that the narrative tense is not preferred.
The meaning of the sketch emerges in the last sentence. It is the idea which lends significance to the picture.
THE EMPEROR OF ELAM
Classification. A novelette. The length (around 20,000 words), the many and rapid changes of scene, the shifting from character to character, the broken progress,—these are the outstanding characteristics not of the short-story but of a more leisurely type of fiction, one having a wider canvas, a larger significance.
Study
I
What part of the quotation prefixed to the beginning does the story emphasize? Has the quotation an interpretative value, even a constructive value, for the story?
What is the locale? Does the author know his setting or has he fancied it? (Read his “Stamboul Nights.”) Study the locale with a map at hand (preferably one showing both Turkey and Persia). With this map before you, note the scene of each phase of the action.
Do you follow easily the identities of the boats and passengers in Division I or is it necessary to study the situation?
What is the significance of the “translucent” look in Magin’s eyes?