Sequential Uncertainty in Vivant Denon’s “Point de lendemain”

Because of brevity, short-story authors must assume readers will forget nothing, which imposes a special economy, one that normally shuns amplification and redundancy in favor of allusion, implication, context, elision, compression, and intensification. Readers expect every element to serve the overall effect. While stories may be predominantly sequential or imagistic, the most common and the most commonly analyzed are sequential, leading to a powerful conclusion. Brevity and sequential structure, the major issues of the chapter, are considered within an analysis of Vivant Denon’s “Point de lendemain.”