Continuity of Parks

In “Continuity of Parks,” the setting serves to establish the continuity of the two narrative levels in the story. Throughout the story, locations are repeated as a kind of motif. An intersection between locations is created by the movement between the settings of each story: the estate house and its park, on one hand, and, on the other, the cabin in its wooded forest. The continuity of the action of the two narratives moves across these locations effortlessly. In the frame narrative, the reader-protagonist sits in a study overlooking his park with its avenue of oak trees. He later enters as a “witness” to the novel he is reading, directly into the scene taking place in the cabin in the forest. The hero-protagonist of the novel meets his lover in the cabin in the forest. He then hurries through the woods until he enters “the avenue of trees which led up to the house” (65). In this way, the paths of the two protagonists intersect—from the estate in the park to the cabin in the woods, and from the cabin in the woods to the estate in the park.