pqj a contrasting view of situation and character, cf Lodge 17,

Emelye? The Idiot asks: Whom will Myshkin choose? Consequently, The Idiot must take on the whys and wherefores of choice. The Knight's Tale does not because no one is choosing. Its situation pits two virtually equal contenders against one another. One must win and one must lose. "'Ye shul noon oother ende with me maken, / That oon of yow ne shal be deed or

taken'" (1865-66). Thus, situation decides that the | Knight's Tale deal with the mysterious how and why of

things happening. The Idiot with the equally mysterious how and why of a character making a choice. Clearly it is the difference in the conditions of the initial

situation— specifically the characters' ability or lack of ability to choose— which determines a difference in the theme.

Alternative Development of Action: Journey Stories It has been demonstrated that the conditions of the situation determine what sort of question the action is capable of posing and that theme, in turn, can be found in the answer to this active question. This model works well with plot-structures that have a clear disturbance which makes an active problem and poses an active question. I call this traditional and very prevalent type of plot-structure "dramatic"— due to its similarity to classical drama. Its merits are obvious enough from the stories discussed thus far.

Naturally, the dramatic plot-structure is not the only way of developing action. Aristotle, for example.

I

refers to an "episodic" plot-structure which he

understandably deems inferior to the dramatic because the order of its events "is neither probable nor

necessary" (41; ch. 9). In the Poetics, then, there are plots that are unified by necessary and probable causation and those that are not. The next chapter will return to this issue.

However, it is also possible to think of story genres in which action, by the very nature of the genre, develops neither dramatically nor episodically. The journey story is such a genre. In the journey story the parameters of the action may be imprecise, the active question vague, and the theme unclear until well into the story. Nevertheless it typically still possesses a beginning, middle, and end and is still able to centre on the resolution of a problem rather than, say, on the life of a character, or even on the mere sequential recounting of what happened on the trip. In other words, it possesses unity of action.

In this final section of the chapter I compare and contrast the way in which disturbance and theme develop in two journey stories: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Heart of Darkness. Despite the great chronological distance separating them, they invite comparison, for they share some rather striking characteristics.

The most notable of these is the nature of the journey in each story. Both Gawain and Marlow leave civilization far behind and travel deep into a hostile and forbidding wilderness:

Rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe . . . (Darkness 41; pt. 1) The hasel and the hawthorne were

harled al samen

With roghe raged mosse rayled aywhere, Brokes byled and breke bi bonkkes aboute, Schyre schaterande on schores ther thay doun

schowved.

(Gawain 744-5, 2082-3 )

Further, both Gawain and Marlow are tryihgitb fiihd a strange, elusive, and powerful man. Both the Greeh Knight and Kurtz have the power and the tendency^tp : ;

behead people. The physical search for their i yi I antagonists leads both Gawain and Marlow to a journey ,

deep into his own heart. Both prove their courage in the face of violent death, and yet each finds himself morally lacking in the end. And in both cases this moral weakness comes through the telling of a lie.

Gawain and Marlow are, of course, the protagonists in each tale. Kurtz and the Green Knight fulfill

similar functions as the objects towards whigh - protagonists respectively journey. Gawain's stay at

the castle corresponds in some respects to Marlow's J sojourn at the Central Station, Finally, the Green

Chapel corresponds to the Inner Station as the location of the denouement and the "heart of darkness", so to speak, for each protagonist.

Yet despite all these similarities, the plot- , structures themselves are essentially different, again reflecting, above all, significant differences in the nature of thé situations. The plot-structure of Sir

Gawain and the Green Knight is dramatic, that of Heart of Darkness non-dramatic.

As noted earlier, the disturbance in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight can be precisely located:

If any so hardy in this hous holdes hymselven. Be so bolde in his blod, brayn in hys hede. That dar stifly strike a strok for an other, I schal gif hym of my gyft thys giserne ryche. This ax, that is heve innogh, to hondele as

hym lykes.

And I schal bide the fyrst bur, as bare as I