Plot

Robbe-Grillet constructs a nontraditional plot in "The Replacement." He interweaves three fragments: the interaction between the teacher and the pupils in the classroom, the schoolboy peering intently at the tree, and the story that is being read aloud in the classroom. Robbe-Grillet continually moves among the three, which disrupts chronology and subverts readers' understanding of the elements in the story.

The narrator does not make clear the relationship between the schoolboy looking at the tree and what is happening in the classroom. Readers are not sure whether the teacher periodically looks out the window to observe the boy or something else. Thus the schoolboy could be a figment of the teacher's imagination, or the students' imagination, as the students cannot see out of the frosted windows.

Robbe-Grillet again confounds readers' expectations for an understandable plot with his inclusion of a bit of the story that is being read...