Talk:Story within a story

message: I suggest this text be merged with Frame tale. -- April
*While the current link from Frame story (to which Frame Tale redirects) could be considered enough, I think there's some merit to this idea, in the sense of bringing the Frame Story text in as a subtype of story within a story. BobGreenwade 16:57, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I support the notion that the articles should be merged because the difference of the terms is not made clear. Spannerjam 14:51, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge with [[Frame tale]]?

message: Could someone please fill in a little more on how this technique is used in this story? BobGreenwade 16:22, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

message: Joseph Conrad's The Heart of darkness is almost entirely a story within a story, with the main character retelling his travels.
That makes it a story within a story, not a story within a story within a story. And, if story X includes story Y, does it count as metafiction if the events of Y are true in the world of story X? Very often in an ordinary story, a character describes to another character events which happened. Anthony Appleyard 17:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say that a story must be fictional within the context of the containing story in order to be metafictional.  If a character is telling a true (for him) story then it's not metafiction, it's just a recounting of events.  Thus, given the above-quoted description The Heart of Darkness would not count even at that level. BobGreenwade 20:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I disagree. When Marlow asks his audience on the ship something along the lines of "can you understand the story" "can you see the truth." This is a metafictional awareness of the untranslatability of experience, the deficit of language when relaying atrocity. On a narratological level, one can even see this as Conrad's attempt to traverse between author (implied author/narrator) to the implied reader/reader. He is in fact asking in a self aware method: "can you understand what I am saying?" "Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit" Conrad to Cunningham Graham.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.46.97.210 (talk) 06:31, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Joseph Conrad's The Heart of darkness

message: I can't see how the Mousetrap can be inside Hamlet... Rich   Farmbrough. 23:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're thinking of Agatha Christie's Mousetrap, no, it isn't.  But the play presented by the player troupe to the King, originally titled The Murder of Gonzago, is rewritten and re-titled (by Hamlet) The Mousetrap. BobGreenwade 18:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hamlet 

message: The very beginning of the game is one of the best examples of TV inside a video game. The player is forced to watch from a handful of channels while the first act of the game loads in the background for about 20 minutes. 70.189.204.143 (talk) 06:20, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

message: Could someone please clarify the Star Trek reference in the "Story within a story within a story" section?  The first sentence runs on a bit, and the references need to be clarified. BobGreenwade 16:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Star Trek 

message: What, no mention of Tolkien?  The Lord of the Rings is one of the most convoluted stories-within-a-story ever told, inasmuch as Tolkien spun the The Hobbit and LOTR as yarns upon which to hang snippets of his epic poetry about elvish heroes long since gone.  It's easy to see why many readers suppose Aragorn's recital of the Tale of Tinuviel to be merely colorful detail or foreshadowing, but Beren's story was written (albeit not published) before Sauron was much more than Melkor's minion. See here and here.  The man loved a good frame narrative.  Asat 16:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  But a rough echo 

message: Is this considered a story-within-a-story? It would be a good example to quote, if it is. The outer story is told briefly at the beginning and the end, and (iirc) at a few random moments in between. 99% of the text is the inner story. The clever part is the way they link together, imo; the inner story's listener decides whether or not to buy the house, on the basis of the story. Bards 09:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wuthering Heights? 

message: I don't think that the Grand Inquisitor sums up Dostoevsky's own ideas. In fact there is some evidence to the contrary, that he in fact completely disagreed with Ivan's assertions. See Guignon's  Introduction to the Grand Inquisitor where he says, "It would be a serious mistake, however, to regard the Grand Inquisitor story as stating Dostoevsky's own view in any way. Dostoevsky made it quite clear that he regarded the passages titled 'Rebellion' and 'The Grand Inquisitor' as 'expressions of atheism,' reflections of the viewpoint of the 'athiest' and 'anarchist' Ivan Karamazov, which he hoped to refute in the following book, 'The Russian Monk.'" Author's emphasis. Igtbtk8 23:54, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grand Inquisitor 

message: Could the "x" within an "x" article be extended to include a song within a song?
One possible example that springs to mind is the recently released Kid Rock offering "All Summer Long". During the course of the lyrics, he refers to "Singing Sweet Home Alabama", with accompanying instrumental excepts from that song.
Another example might be "The Wedding", which uses the words and melody from "Ave Maria" - and is commonly mistakenly called the latter.
These are both examples of actual pre-existing songs within a song, but perhaps some suitably rigorous investigation may reveal instances of a song during which a different, original song is performed?
I don't know if Tenacious D's "Tribute" would rate a mention in this article - as they are merely performing "a tribute to the best song in the world" and do not actually perform the song to which they refer, as they "couldn't remember the greatest song in the world".
138.77.2.130 (talk) 04:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Song within a song 

message: Isn't lotf a huge example of a story within a story? Or is that symbolism? It kind of blurs the line, because while piggy for example is a symbol of science, there's an actual storyline in which what the boys symbolize is affected by events and the way it is affected by events provides a commentary on human nature...
Not sure if that make sense; I'm afraid it's a bit convoluted. Anyways i'll just leave this here.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Incogniot (talk • contribs) 14:08, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lord of the Flies 

message: Classic example of film within a film, the film storyline even convinces one character that the film is really happening.
98.172.160.190 (talk) 23:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bowfinger 

message: I came to this page to get some hints as to what professional writers have to say about embedding stories within stories.  Instead, I was handed a litany of stories in stories by a bunch of people who are advocating their favorite show.  Stories in stories happen a lot in Star Trek?  That's interesting... what does Gene Roddenberry have to say about their use?  What do T.V. critics have to say is the value of the story within the story format of these episodes?  If the article can't explain this, then the paragraph is trivia.
Would it be kosher to have a section labeled "Examples", or another entry entirely for this?  That way readers who stumble into this page don't have to poke through every paragraph to find encyclopedic information on the writing form?  Heck, I'd even pitch in to do a little organization, in hopes this bore fruit and gathered citations.  My own book is very story in story, and I'd love to see more research on the subject.  Jmgariepy (talk) 21:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Off Topic

message: Is this section big enough to stand on its own as a sub-article? I'm thinking of making the change, subject to other contributors' views. --Old Moonraker (talk) 12:03, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I would suggest a short summary here and its own article. However, the material currently here isn't well-sourced. DionysosProteus (talk) 16:18, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I would try to improve the referencing (or, if  WP:NN applies, make some deletions) when copy-editing the transfer. There is always the last-ditch possibility of using  the work itself as the reference—permitted in Wikipedia:When to cite—but it should be possible to do better than that. --Old Moonraker (talk) 10:00, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Play within a play" spinoff 

message: In the article it says 'This dramatic device was probably first used by Thomas Kyd in The Spanish Tragedy around 1587, where the play is presented before an audience of two of the characters, who comment upon the action.[5]' - while it is obviously true that the play is presented before an audience of two of the characters this is not as such a play within the play because those two characters belong to that very world (they're just dead) - it only bares structural resemblence to a play-within-the-play. However, Hieronimo later does stage an actual play-within-the-play. 
Apart from that the source cited here (Google Books Link) does not say anything about Kyd's tragedy probably being the first to use this device.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.34.214.122 (talk) 17:13, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed, with a new ref. Thanks for pointing this out. --Old Moonraker (talk) 11:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Play to use the Play within the Play 

message: How come the poems from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass such as You Are Old, Father William, Jabberwocky, and The Walrus and the Carpenter aren't included? 71.95.53.89 (talk) 00:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  The poems in Lewis Carroll's Alice duology 

message: This entire article looks more like a huge list of examples, rather than an encyclopedic article. A very large portion of this article does not aid in understanding what a story within a story is, why people use this plot device, what critics think, I might even expect some philosophical aspects? Currently, I'd actually suggest making an entirely new article - "List of stories within stories" - while cutting out 90% of this article... Thoughts? Maplestrip (talk) 14:01, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  A list of examples 

message: would a wii being in pokemon B2W2 count as game in a game? Valehd (talk) 21:40, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  i have a question 

message: One of Stephen King's series of The Dark Tower books, this is a three-layer story; is it worth adding to the already-extensive examples list?
FrinkLabs (talk) 05:04, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Wind Through The Keyhole 

message: I made some broad changes to merge duplicate sections, break out new sections that were not previously covered, and to move examples into their proper sections.  Overall, no content was removed outside of duplicate information.
===Fictional Artists===
The fictional artists section seems misplaced on this page.  I feel it should be moved to another page, made its own page, or just deleted. Kitoba (talk) 16:27, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Restructuring

message: The fictional artists section seems misplaced on this page.  I feel it should be moved to another page, made its own page, or just deleted. Kitoba (talk) 16:27, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Fictional Artists

message: Much of this section was redundant with the rest of the article.  I removed it, and integrated the unique pieces into other sections. Kitoba (talk) 21:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Deeply Nested Fiction

message: — Assignment last updated by Musicperson201 (talk) 17:38, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Search and the Information Landscape