Section 2 Summary and Analysis

"The Story" Forster begins this lecture by stating that Story is the backbone of the novel, indicating that he makes the statement reluctantly (see "Quotes," p. 45) but recognizing that wanting to know "what happens next" is a fundamental human experience. This means, he asserts, that a novel succeeds when the audience is brought to a point of high suspense (to the desperation of wanting to know what happens next) and fails when it does not create that suspense—when an audience does not want to know, and does not care. He explains that this is so important because life itself is dependent, for the most part, on things happening one after the other, on a chain of events hung on the coat-rack of the measurable time sense. He adds, however, there is also an immeasurable quality that seems to most...