Talk:Frame tale

This text was entered under "Story within a story" and merged with "Frame tale". -- April 21:05 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)

A story within a story is a story told by a character who appears in a first, framing narrative. This technique is used, for example, in the Thousand and One Nights, where the many stories are told by Scheherezade, who is herself a character in the framing story. Sometimes a story within the main narrative can be used to sum up or encapsulate some aspect of the framing story, in which case it is referred to in literary criticism by the French term 'mise en abyme'.