A story within a story is a literary device or conceit in which one story is told during the action of another story. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device (also referring to the practice in heraldry of placing the image of a small shield on a larger shield). A story within a story can be used in novels, short stories, plays, television, films, poems, music, and even philosophy. A 1903 work is entitled A Story Within a St...
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A story within a story is a literary device or conceit in which one story is told during the action of another story. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device (also referring to the practice in heraldry of placing the image of a small shield on a larger shield). A story within a story can be used in novels, short stories, plays, television, films, poems, music, and even philosophy. A 1903 work is entitled A Story Within a Story
The inner stories are told either simply to entertain or more usually to act as an example to the other characters. In either case the story often has symbolic and psychological significance for the characters in the outer story. There is often some parallel between the two stories, and the fiction of the inner story is used to reveal the truth in the outer story.
The literary device of stories within a story dates back to a device known as a frame story, when the outer story does not have much matter, and most of the bulk of the work are...
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