Question

In Poe's "The Oval Portrait," a delirious narrator discovers a book on a bedside table. The narrator begins reading the book, and the remainder of "The Oval Portrait" becomes a telling of the selection he is reading. What structure does this represent?

A) flashback

B) exposition

C) frame narrative

D) simple plot structure

Answer 1

The correct answer is option C) frame narrative.

Frame fiction, also known as frame tales or frame narrative is a literary technique used to encase a story within another, sometimes larger story. In Edgar Allan Poe's tale, The Oval Portrait this technique is cleverly employed by the author to then direct the reader's attention to the work that the delirious narrator is reading.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is also an example of this technique. In more recent times the Argentinean short story writer Jorge Luis Borges frequently uses this technique to introduce apocryphal texts (mostly non existent). H.P. Lovecraft did the same with his continual references to non existent books such as the Necronomicon. He did so to such extent that nowadays some people insist the Necronomicon actually exists and there are in fact, some versions of it in printed circulation.