The Ten Thousand Doors of January

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What kind of story do you think the term “embedded narrative” refers to? What examples of this technique can you think of?

Teaching Suggestion: The Ten Thousand Doors of January includes an embedded narrative: the supposed text of a book called The Ten Thousand Doors. Although students may not be familiar with this specific literary term, they should be able to make reasonable guesses about its meaning; they might work in pairs to compose a definition for sharing. After they have made initial guesses, they might explore the sources below or similar resources, then refine their initial responses. Students are likely to have encountered a few examples of this technique in works they have read, watched, or played, and they may enjoy discussing examples aloud. It may be helpful to clarify for students the relationship between the terms “embedded narrative” and “frame story.”

• This article succinctly defines the term and offers several examples.
• This brief analytical article from the scholarly journal Poe Studies explores the significance and symbolism of the embedded narrative of “The Mad Trist” within Poe’s classic short story “The Fall of the House of Usher.