< previous page page_238 next page >

Page 238
holding in the nineteenth century) /marriage/ is to be analyzed as a relation between two human beings of opposite sex, rMm could not hold (or /marriage/ would have to be intended as a mere figure of speech introduced at the discoursive level).
Thus S-necessary properties, once established as a link producing the syntax of the fabula, are also submitted to the requirements of their semantic nature. Therefore they can belong to different semantic categories such as
f0d057874ee5e31d4706f7033c0ae11d.gif f0d057874ee5e31d4706f7033c0ae11d.gif
relations of graduated antonymy (x is smaller than y);
relations of complementarity (x is a male as opposed to y who is a female);
relations of directional opposition (x is at the left of y), and many others, comprehending members of nonbinary oppositions (see Leech, 1974; Lyons, 1977).
In any case, all these semantic relations in the fabula are structurally linked by S-necessity, and this relation is symmetrical in the sense that the narrative function of one element is established by the presence of another (or of many others).
Accidental properties do not interest the fabula. The fact that Raoul took a coupé is accidental and, as far as the fabula is concerned, our two heroes could have returned home walking.
Notice that, if Marguerite had forgotten or lost her purse in the coupé and the fabula had been focused upon the quest for the mysterious coupé, we would have a story like Le fiacre n. 13, Le chapeau de paille d'Italie, or ''The Purloined Letter,'' in which the coupé could be a precise individual to be singled out through procedures of identification based upon S-necessity.
By S-necessity, supernumeraries in a fictional world are as necessary to each other as two distinctive features are to distinguish a given phoneme from another. To quote a dialogue from Calvino's Invisible Cities, when Marco Polo tells Kublai Khan about bridges:
f0d057874ee5e31d4706f7033c0ae11d.gif f0d057874ee5e31d4706f7033c0ae11d.gif
"But which is the stone that supports the bridge?. . ."
"The bridge is not supported by one stone or another. . . . but by the line of the arch they form."
". . . Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me."
". . . Without stones there is no arch." 15
It is only because of this S-necessary relation that two or more characters in a fabula can be taken as the actors embodying different roles. Narrative functions à la Propp (Villain, Helper, Victim, Hero, and so on) can exist only by a mutual relation of S-necessity. Fagin is not the Vil-

 
< previous page page_238 next page >