Frame Story

   The most basic definition of a frame story is a story within a story. Authors use frame stories when they want to connect multiple mini-stories or they want to provide multiple perspectives on a larger story. By allowing the writer to present a story within a story, a frame narrative leads the reader from the first story into another one, which is within the overall story. This guidance allows the frame narrative to establish the context for the embedded narrative and more specifically, call attention to the situation of how the story is told. The resulting effect of the guidance is that the frame narrative allows the writer to create the context for how the narrative should be interpreted. Frame narratives allow the author to provide the reader with multiple levels of meaning. Whether a narrative contains one embedded narrative or a series of related stories, the framing of a narrative creates opportunities for multiple levels of interpretation.

   Some examples of famous stories that use the frame narrative are Inception, Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, and Heart of Darkness. Some of these stories use a play within a play structure like Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew while other stories use the story within a story structure. Heart of Darkness had the main character tell his own story to the other surrounding characters.    

Good job, Quinn.
Mr. Murphy

Mercutio's Queen Mab Speech

I found Mercutio's Queen Mab speech to be particularly interesting as I thought it provided insight into Mercutio's character. To provide some context, Mercutio is trying to convince Romeo to set aside his depression over his love for Rosaline and come to the Capulet feast. When Romeo starts talking about how a particular dream of his made him sad, Mercutio launches into the Queen Mab speech. According to Mercutio, Queen Mab is a fair who supposedly brings dreams to people while they are sleeping. The main point Mercutio makes in his speech about Queen Mab is that the dreams Queen Mab brings to the person are directly related to the person who dreams them- lovers will dream of love, soldiers will dream of war, etc. While he is making this point however, Mercutio falls into a sort of wild bitterness in which he seems to see dreams as destructive and delusional. The manic way Mercutio gives this speech gives insight into how he may be an unstable character.
   For my research, I found an article on JSTOR by Donald Williams that described the different ways Mercutio's Queen Mab speech has been depicted. In the 1996 Baz Luhrmann Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio takes drugs just before the Queen Mab speech. In the Franco Zeffirelli 1968 film version, Mercutio seems manic-depressive; the Queen Mab speech starts out as an energetic manic episode but soon crumbles into a dark depression.