Themes of Descent

I'll begin with a thought from his next chapter "Themes of Ascent" where Frye declares, "that the happy ending exists only for readers who finish the book." (134-35) This struck me when put up against something he mentions in the prior chapter in that "life that is a pure continuum, beginning with a birth that is a random beginning, ending with a death that is a random ending, nothing is more absurd than telling stories that do begin and end." (125) If we think about this from a romantic standpoint then it fits that the typical structure of the genre's narrative excludes instances which are considered 'secondary'. These instances include potential pieces of a romance which are unnecessary (yet, ultimately containing qualities and notions of unison) such as birth, rebirth, marriage, sex, a birthing, etc. The substance of romance is interesting because, as mentioned somewhere in the text, there are explicit clues of what's on the horizon embedded in signs throughout the entirety of the story. These reoccurring small, seemingly insignificant, symbols contain within them the secrets of literature's 'big scheme-of-things'. Characters who momentously come into contact with such an image are revealed knowledge of the big picture. These happenings withhold truth of the macrocosm within the confines of a microcosm showing how any common discovery can compound into revelation, the epiphany manifested. Of course, this realization of reality and recollection of memory doesn't come into consideration until the notion of ascension has been undertaken, but then we must reconsider the fact that possibly there is no need for any explicit instance of unification.

Let's take a step back before we come to a conclusion [because, well, that's exactly what's troubling me]. A full-blown conclusion requires the utmost exhaustion and fleshing-out of characters, but in Romance we must consider this alleged requirement of two lovers coming together and unifying as a single-souled organism. This alleged requirement has been deemed unnecessary to our literate eyes which are well-versed at reading between and beyond the lines.

Therefore, all things considered, we must understand that for a story (romance or not?) to exist then a primary protagonist must descend across a threshold of an unknown existence where he unleashes his inner harlequin; "Of the various things Harlequin does, one is to divide himself into two people and hold dialogues with himself." (111) Here the hero meets his second self, his alter ego, his doppelganger; coincidentally this is the manifestation of an anti-hero. With this knowledge the hero has been exposed to both sides of his being, allowing a transcendence from an initial sense of self to take place, which gives them access to a path upwards. Self, that's the key. This 'underworld' or 'other world' is a place of self-reflection, a place where one finds love for oneself, not where two characters are unified. Finally with that said, Frye's thoughts of the Descent got me thinking that such a place of madness and chaos and sin is, so to speak, the belly of the beast. So in order to go up you might, furthermore, have to do the reverse and find verily the bottom. There is where our hero is excreted bottom of the belly and here has become "a god-born devil's dung" (119). Here is where we clean things up a bit.