4. Emphasis by Direct Proportion.––Another means of emphasis in narrative is by proportion. More time and more attention should be given to essential scenes than to matters of subsidiary interest. The most important characters should be given most to say and do; and the amount of attention devoted to the others should be proportioned to their importance in the action. Becky Sharp stands out sharply from the half a hundred other characters in “Vanity Fair,” because more time is devoted to her than to any of the others. Similarly, in “Emma” and in “Pride and Prejudice,” as we have noted in the preceding chapter, the heroine is in each case emphasized by the fact that she is set forth from a more intimate point of view than the minor people in the story. It is wise, for the sake of emphasis by proportion, to draw the major characters more completely and more carefully than the minor; and much may therefore be said, on this ground, in defence of Dickens’s habit of 147 drawing humanly only the leading characters in his novels and merely sketching in caricature the subsidiary actors.
5. Emphasis by Inverse Proportion.––It is sometimes possible, in special cases, to emphasize ironically by inverse proportion. An author may deliberately devote several successive pages to dwelling on subsidiary matters, only to emphasize sharply a sudden paragraph or sentence in which he turns to the one thing that really counts. But this ironical expedient is, of course, less frequently serviceable than that of emphasis by direct proportion.
6. Emphasis by Iteration.––Undoubtedly the easiest means of inculcating a detail of narrative is to repeat it again and again. Emphasis by iteration is a favorite device of Dickens. The reader is never allowed to forget the catch-phrase of Micawber or the moral look of Pecksniff. In many cases, to be sure, the reader wishes that he might escape the constantly recurrent repetition; but Dickens occasionally applies the expedient with subtle emotional effect. In “A Tale of Two Cities,” for example, the repeated references to echoing footsteps and to the knitting of Madame Defarge contribute a great deal to the sense of imminent catastrophe.
Certain modern authors have developed a phase of emphasis by iteration which is similar to the employment of the leit-motiv in the music-dramas of Richard Wagner. In the Wagnerian operas a certain musical theme is devoted to each of the characters, and is woven into the score whenever the character appears. Similarly, in the later plays of Henrik Ibsen, certain phrases are repeated frequently, to indicate the recurrence of certain dramatic moods. Thus, in “Rosmersholm,” reference is made to the weird symbol of “white horses,” whenever the mood of the momentary scene foreshadows the double suicide which is to terminate the play. Students of “Hedda 148 Gabler” need not be reminded of the emphasis flung by iteration on the phrases, “Vine-leaves in his hair,” “Fancy that, Hedda!”, “Wavy-haired Thea,” “The one cock on the fowl-roost,” and “People don’t do such things!” The same device may be employed just as effectively in the short-story and the novel. A single instance will suffice for illustration. Notice, in examining the impressive talk of the old lama in Mr. Kipling’s “Kim,” how much emphasis is derived from the continual recurrence of certain phrases, like the “Search for the River,” “the justice of the Wheel,” “to acquire merit,” and so forth.
A narrative expedient scarcely distinguishable in effect from simple iteration is the device of parallelism of structure. For example, in Hawthorne’s story of “The White Old Maid,” the first scene and the last, although they are separated in time by many, many years, take place in the same spacious chamber, with the moonbeams falling in the same way through two deep and narrow windows, while waving curtains produce the same ghostly semblance of expression on a face that is dead.
7. Emphasis by Antithesis.––Emphasis in narrative is also attained by antithesis,––an expedient employed in every art. In most stories it is well so to select the characters that they will set each other off by contrast. In the great duel scene of the “Master of Ballantrae,” from which a selection has been quoted in a previous chapter, the phlegmatic calm of Mr. Henry is contrasted sharply with the mercurial hot-headedness of the Master; and each character stands forth more vividly because of its opposition to the other. Of the two women who are loved by Tito Melema, the one, Tessa, is simple and childish, the other, Romola, complex and intellectual. The most interesting stories present a constant contrast of mutually foiling personalities; and whenever characters 149 of varied views and opposing aims come nobly to the grapple in a struggle that vitally concerns them, the tensity of the situation will be augmented if the difference between the characters is marked. This expedient is therefore of especial importance in the drama. Othello seems more poignantly emotional in the presence of the coldly intellectual Iago. In “The School for Scandal,” Charles and Joseph Surface are much more effective together than either of them would be alone. The wholehearted and happy-go-lucky recklessness of the one sets off the smooth and smug dissimulation of the other; the first gives light to the play, and the second shade. Hamlet’s wit is sharpened by the garrulous obtuseness of Polonius; the sad world-wisdom of Paula Tanqueray is accentuated by the innocence of Ellean. Similarly, to return to the novel for examples, we need only instance the contrast in mind between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the contrast in mood between Claude Frollo and Phoebus de Châteaupers, the contrast in ideals between Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Grandcourt.
The expedient of antithesis is also employed effectively in the balance of scene against scene. The absolute desolation which terminates “The Masque of the Red Death” is preceded by “a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.” In Scott’s “Kenilworth,” we pass from the superb festivities which Leicester institutes in honor of Queen Elizabeth, to the lonely prison where Amy Robsart, his discarded wife, is languishing. Victor Hugo is, in modern fiction, the greatest master of antithesis of mood between scene and scene. His most emphatic effects are attained, like those of Gothic architecture, by a juxtaposition of the grotesque and the sublime. Often, to be sure, he overworks the antithetic; and entire sections of his narrative move like the walking-beam of a ferry-boat, tilting now to this side, now to that. 150 But in spite of his excess in employing this device, his practice should be studied carefully; for at his best he illustrates more convincingly than any other author the effectiveness of emphasis by contrast.
The subtlest way of employing this expedient is to present an antithesis of mood within a single scene. Dame Quickly’s account of Falstaff’s death touches at once the heights of humor and the depths of pathos. At the close of “Mrs. Bathurst,” the tragic narrative is interrupted by the passage of a picnic-party singing a light love-song. Shylock, in his great dialogue with Tubal, is at the same moment plunged in melancholy over the defection of his daughter and flushed with triumph because he has Antonio at last within his clutches. Each emotion seems more potent because it is contrasted with the other. In Mr. Kipling’s “Love-o’-Women,” the tragic effect is enhanced by the fact that the tale is told by the humorous Mulvaney. Thus:––
“‘An’ now?’ she sez, lookin’ at him; an’ the red paint stud lone on the white av her face like a bull’s-eye on a target.
“He lifted up his eyes, slow an’ very slow, an’ he looked at her long an’ very long, an’ he tuk his spache betune his teeth wid a wrench that shuk him.