ABSTRACT
The reader's desire to complete the "poorly constructed plot" may be satisfied by additions to the story that extend the narrative past or future to encompass an acceptable beginning or end. The desire is amply demonstrated by the addition of the other endings to Mark, as well as by the endings provided in the other biblical gospels. The desire to rewrite Mark's ending resulted historically in actual writings. Only the reader who refuses to choose an ending to Mark will not "get the message"; for this reader, the desire for belief is frustrated. The effect of the incompleteness of Mark’s text is comparable to the incompleteness of Jesus’s parables. Both Mark as a whole and the parables individually produce a division of interpretative responses. Aristotle’s theory of poetics is closely connected not only with his metaphysics (via the concept of mimesis) and his logic, but also with his views on ethics (via the concept of character), politics, and rhetoric.
