The structure of the epistolary novel, produced for the first time by accident in Les Lettres persanes de Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, is a series of fictitious letters or other forms of communication. Structure allows a writer to present the perspectives and experiences of different people, often while they are in different locations, while still advancing the plot of the novel. However, epistolary technique depends on two things: the natural limitations of the letter writer's point of view and the fact that the writer cannot communicate directly or in "real time" with the letter recipient. Although epistolary structure can be extremely useful in terms of conflict and character development, it presents challenges for the author when the needs of the plot require characters to "write" in an unnatural way that interferes with the reader's suspension of disbelief. This essay, using primarily examples from Persian Letters, will identify the primary ways in which epistolary structure contributes to character and plot development. It will discuss the inherent weaknesses of the structure, address the problems posed by modern communication, and present an example of a modern science fiction novel that draws very successfully on the epistolary tradition. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay The Persian Letters were first published in 1721. A great commercial and critical success, the Letters were not at the originally intended to be a novel, but rather a collection of interesting, if fictional, discussions and satires. It was not until well after their publication that Montesquieu and others noticed that Les Lettres persanes had all the characteristics of a novel and could be marketed and presented as such, particularly after Montesquieu added a few key letters to the sequence to emphasize the dramatic elements of the novel. history. As the work was translated and distributed, other authors noticed the potential of the "letter novel" and began using the structure themselves. The epistolary novel offers exceptional opportunities for character development. Since the characters in an epistolary novel cannot respond to each other in conversation, they must "speak" at length with their unique narrative voice. In doing so, they reveal their biases, mannerisms, education level, emotional states, and perceptions of others. The reader is sometimes given more than one description of a character or event, and the way a character describes something can say as much about the narrating character as it does about the subject being described. Usbek, for example, is revealed as a self-centered hypocrite who lies to his friends. One of the first challenges of writing an epistolary novel is creating a plausible letter. Lengthy descriptions of settings, events, emotional reactions, and other topics are only credible when the thing described is unfamiliar to the letter writer, the recipient, or both. The satirical descriptions of the Pope, King Louis The format also works when characters share allegorical stories about the Troglodites or events from Islamic legend: one character communicates to another character something that he cannotnot know. The epistolary structure offers all the advantages of the first person. singular narrator, including perspective limitations that allow characters to err, make mistakes, and make important decisions based on incomplete or incorrect information. Misunderstandings are a useful source of character development and plot conflict. In Persian Letters, Usbek punishes one of his Zashi for Zephis' indiscreet behavior with a slave. He uses the eunuchs to control and punish his women, but the women pit Usbek against the eunuchs and sometimes against each other. Meanwhile, one of Usbek's wives has corrupted the chief eunuch and possibly others, and is using him to deliberately betray Usbek in the most hurtful way possible. The chief eunuch, confiding in a man he considers an old friend, says he has been compromised and manipulated by a beautiful young woman, but he does not say who it is. The format of the letter allows anything not explicitly stated in the letter to be ambiguous. An astute reader might guess that the traitor in the seraglio is Roxane, because Usbek's account of the young woman's decision to flee and hide in the seraglio somewhat matches the chief eunuch's account of the circumstances surrounding her problem. moral, and because the leader The eunuch dies suddenly after informing Usbek of the troubles in the seraglio. Unreliable narrators are extremely useful to an author: there is no good way to know for sure who, if anyone, is telling the truth. In Les Lettres persanes, events continue until the disorder becomes obvious enough to be noticed outside the seraglio. The chief eunuch, for example, communicates only the vaguest version of events to Usbek, who responds with fury. If Usbek and the chief eunuch could have simply spoken to each other, many misunderstandings could have been avoided. When using an epistolary structure, the author has complete control over the timing and rhythm. By allowing time to pass between letters, the author can compress time and move on to the next relevant event, much like a Shakespearean play is divided into scenes that are always sequential but sometimes separated in time by hours, days or more. To increase the reader's sense of tension, the author may introduce other letters, subplots, and discussions of unrelated topics. This has the effect of pausing one story while advancing another. Even the delay between when a letter is written and when it is received can advance the plot. In Les Lettres persanes, Montesquieu planned four to six months of travel for each letter to go from Isfahan to Paris or vice versa. Having to wait up to a year for an answer to a question ensured that pressing questions could not wait for Usbek's decision. Usbek's orders to maintain order in the seraglio do not arrive in time: the chief eunuch dies suddenly and is replaced by a man who does not open Usbek's letter. Usbek's next letter disappears because the mail is stolen. Such events, entirely plausible in the 17th century, allow disorder in the seraglio to grow unchecked until Usbek orders the sadistic Solim to enforce his will. The rigor and severity with which Solim obeys triggers a final rebellion. As a plot device, the delays work because of the distance and technology involved in letter correspondence. Indeed, Samuel Richardson, known for his 18th-century epistolary novels, including the two-volume Pamela published in 1740, used stolen or intercepted letters as a plot tool. The epistolary structurepresents weaknesses. The story becomes artificial and unbelievable every time the author attempts to present information known to one or both characters but unknown to the reader. Human beings never talk or write to each other about things that are familiar to them. They only emphasize what is new or unexpected. For this reason, the reader never knows what color the curtains in Usbek's seraglio are or how many pillows Zachi has in his room. We also have no reasonable physical description of Usbek himself. The reader's imagination must fill in the gaps. When this principle is violated and the author sacrifices verisimilitude to convey information, as in Usbek's condescending lectures on the rules of the harem, suspension of disbelief becomes more difficult. Zachi's spicy letter to Usbek, released almost immediately after his departure, appears at first glance to be gratuitous eroticism. It is not until the middle of the novel that the reader realizes that each narrator is telling a version of the past that interests him most and that explains his actions in a positive way. Usbek's decision to flee Isfahan, for example, cannot be based solely on his supposed inability to flatter people: he demonstrates great skill in flattering religious scholars. The lack of realism is a second major weakness of the epistolary convention. In order to suspend disbelief, the reader must believe that the writer of the letter is actually literate or is writing through others. This is not always a reasonable assumption. Usbek's wives and slaves demonstrate a remarkable level of literacy in a country and at a time when intellectuals were frequently put to death. While it is plausible that Usbek, Rica, and the scholars with whom they communicate are literate, the same assumption does not hold for wives and lower-ranking slaves. To be plausible, the epistolary novel requires a physical separation between the writer and the writer. and the recipient, because people only write things they can't say in person. Usbek and Rica only write to each other when one of them is not in Paris, because it is more efficient to just meet and talk in person. But the correspondence with Ibben in Smyrna and Rhedi in Venice is perfectly credible, because no other means of communication exists. This fact of logistics poses a problem for a modern author, because beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, inventions such as the telegraph and telephone allowed people to communicate over long distances and have a real-time discussion. An epistolary structure is only possible if the novel is set in the distant past or if there is a reasonable explanation for why the characters cannot simply talk to each other. A final valid criticism of epistolary convention is the impossibility of accurately or realistically describing incidents in which there were no survivors. First-person death scenes are almost impossible to present plausibly. Roxana's death, for example, is sensational but ridiculous. Having just murdered several Usbek eunuchs and taken poison, she would have just enough strength to write a final letter of several paragraphs, address it and send it to someone for whom delivering a letter is more important than a full seraglio. of corpses. Compare this with Gustave Flaubert's realistic depiction of Emma Bovary's death, with all its doubts, hallucinations and brutal details. This required an omniscient narrator simply because the only person to experience Emma's final interaction with Raoul, her troubled and hallucinating return home,.