Book IV: General, Chapters 1 - 8 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 1: Obligatory Scene

In order to find what is the most important part of a story, the author creates a brief biography of a fictional scientist. His goal is to disprove the theory of an obligatory scene, something he declares many are ill-informed about. He states here that there cannot be one scene that everything is led to because every scene is obligatory in a sense that each scene in a play is a result of the one before it. He blames the failure of an obligatory scene on the writer's concentration toward just that one moment. In cases like this, the writer can forget the premise's importance, and may not be making the audience wait for anything good. The author stresses, as well, that obligatory scenes cannot be treated as independent. Disagreeing...