ABSTRACT
In a story, where the essence is the progression of events, one would perhaps expect a great deal of linkage. However, it turns out that a more subtle distinction has to be made in the analysis. Apart from introducing himself into the narration, the story-teller also uses dialogue in the story, which has the effect of heightening the dramatic impact. In fact the amount of dialogue in this story is, to me, rather surprising. If we leave out the punctuation exclamations by the story-teller and the repetitions etc. that function similarly, we get as follows: 242 sentences of pure narrative and 284 sentences in dialogue. (The term 'dialogue' is used rather loosely here, covering as well as conversation, sentences of a parallel structure to 'He said .. .', viz. 'He thought, realised, etc .. .'. There are not a great many of these.) But it is plain that the story-teller relies as much if not more on dialogue as on pure narration to attract and hold his audience.
