EMPHASIS IN NARRATIVE
The features of any object that we contemplate may with intelligent judgment be divided into two classes, according as they are inherently essential, or else merely contributory, to the existence of that object as an individual entity. If any one of its inherently essential features should be altered, that object would cease to be itself and would become another object; but if any or all of its merely contributory features should be changed, the object would still retain its individuality, however much its aspect might be altered. And in general it may be said that we do not understand an object until we are able to set intelligently in one group or the other every feature it presents to our attention.
In contemplating natural objects, it is often difficult to distinguish those features which are merely contributory from those which are inherently essential; but it ought not to be difficult to do so in contemplating a work of art. For it is possible for the artist—in fact it is incumbent upon him—to help the observer to distinguish clearly between the essential and the contributory details of the object he has fabricated. By employing certain technical expedients in exhibiting his work, the artist is able to communicate to the observer his own intelligent distinction between its more important, and its less important, features. He does this by casting emphasis upon the necessary details and gathering out of emphasis the subsidiary ones.
The importance of the principle of emphasis is recognized in all the arts; for it is only by an application of this principle that the artist can gather and group in the background the subsidiary elements of his work, while he flings into vivid relief those elements that embody the essence of the thing he has to say. The halo with which the Byzantine mosaicists surrounded the faces of their saints, the glory of golden light that gleams about the figure of Christ in heaven in Tintoretto's decorations, the blank bright walls of the Doge's palace undermined by darkling and shadowy arcades, the refrain of a Provençal song, the sharp shadow under the visor of Verrocchio's equestrian statue, the thought-provoking chiaroscuro of Rembrandt's figure paintings—these expedients are all designed to attract attention to the essential elements of a whole of many parts. By technical devices such as these, emphasis must be given to the central truth of a work of art in order that the observer may not look instead at the mere accidents of its investiture. Where many elements are gathered together for the purpose of representing an idea, some of them must be more important than the others because they are to a greater extent imbued with it inherently; and the artist will fail of his purpose unless he indicates clearly which elements are essential and which are merely subsidiary.
Scarcely any other work of art, excepting a Gothic cathedral or a theatrical performance, is made of elements more multifarious than those of a fictitious narrative. The details of a novel are so many and so various that the author needs at all times a nice understanding and a careful application of the principle of emphasis. It is therefore advisable that the present chapter should be devoted to the enumeration and illustration of the different technical devices which are employed by artists in narrative to cast the needed emphasis on the essential features of their stories.
First of all, it is obviously easy to emphasize by position. In any narrative, or section of a narrative, that is designed to be read in a single sitting, the last moments are of necessity emphatic because they are the last. When the reader lays the narrative aside, he remembers most vividly the last thing that has been presented to his attention; and if he thinks back to the earlier portions of the story, he must do so by thinking through the concluding passage. Therefore, it is necessary in the short-story, and advisable in the chapters of a novel, to reserve for the ultimate position one of the most inherently important features of the narrative; for surely it is bad art to waste the natural emphasis of position by casting it upon a subsidiary feature.
The importance of this simple expedient will readily be recognized if the student will gather together a hundred short-stories written by acknowledged masters and examine the last paragraph of each. Consider for a moment the final sentences of "Markheim," which we have already quoted in another connection:—
"He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a smile.
"'You had better go for the police,' said he: 'I have killed your master.'"