Narrative Parallelism and Interpretive Narrative

Abstract

The primary goal of my paper is to elaborate a methodology for literary interpretation that points out how a literary narrative prose text interprets its own characters, plots, and existential problems. In this context, one of the main premises of my remarks is that interpretation, is not the privilege of the act of reading. Misreading, or the “sins” of ideological interpretation can only be avoided if it is recognized that reading and interpretation are problems of the text itself. Beyond the formalist, structuralist, and poststructuralist methodologies of literary analysis, I found in Paul Ricœur’s Biblical hermeneutics the interpretive process and conceptual system that are able to reveal the self-interpretive functions of literary narrative works. According to him, there is a special type of text: the interpretive narrative. The interpretive narrative as a special genre designation refers to the Gospels’ narrative presentation of the passion. In a nutshell: the essence of interpretive narrative is that there is a text interpreting process, which is achieved by the narrative discourse itself (“before” any act of reading). In accordance with the results of Biblical hermeneutics but focusing on literary interpretation, I would like to elaborate on the notion of narrative parallelism in order to reveal those poetic conditions of literary narrative by which misreading or the “sins” of ideological reading can be eliminated. Narrative parallelism is a special type of metaphorical process in which a personal story is interpreted by the story of an object. Literary narrative prose has a specific and unique “virtue” compared to other literary genres or non-literary narratives: using descriptive discourse prose language recognizes, reveals, and narrativizes the significance of details. The second premise of my remarks is that the seemingly secondary narrativized details, or the seemingly insignificant stories of the objects, serve as the interpretation of the literary narrative’s central aspects, namely characters, plots, and existential problems. The interpretation of the presentation of the main character’s story is prefigured in a semantic way by the text itself. I would like to explore the main processes of narrative parallelism as an interpretive narrative by the explanation of a short story’s (A. Moravia: Friendship) twofold emplotment.

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

(Mark 8:35)

“As a reader, I find myself only by losing myself.”

(Ricœur 1981, p. 144)

With my paper I would like to contribute to the discussion of the central problem of the Special Issue of the journal Religions entitled Peccata Lectionis by connecting and simultaneously analyzing the moral problems of “interpretive sins” (Vanhoozer 1998, p. 462), the hermeneutical problems of “interpretive narrative” (Ricœur 1995), and the poetic problems of narrative parallelism. As a literary theorist, I am less interested in engaging in moral discourse. Rather, I am trying to elaborate an explanation method that subserves the overall goal of avoiding “interpretive sins” by bringing into dialog those processes of Biblical interpretation and literary interpretation that highlight how written masterpieces create the intratextual interpretation of their own central problem. Ricœur uses the explanatory models of literary theory to explore the functioning of Biblical genres. I apply Ricœur’s Biblical hermeneutics to explore the special interpretive power of certain structural features of literary narratives. By describing the phenomenon of interpretive narrative, Ricœur succeeded in demonstrating how a narrative written with a literary sophistication interprets its own worldview commitment not by a moral treatise or allegorical teaching, but in a narrative manner. For me, it seems inevitable to use the theory of interpretive narrative in order to reveal how a specific pattern of literary narrative, namely, the narrative parallelism, functions as an intratextual interpretation of the existential problem of the given literary work. By simultaneously applying the hermeneutic category of interpretive narrative and the poetic category of narrative parallelism, I would like to point out how the reading of literary narrative can avoid “interpretive sins”.

1. Introduction

It has been almost sixty years since an investigation in cultural history and interpretive theory raised—with outstanding thoroughness—the general problem of validity in the context of interpretation (Hirsch 1967). In some respects the chain of changes and (so-called) “turns” in human and cultural studies is nothing other than the trends’ and paradigms’ “race” for the validity of interpretation. Every “new” endeavor seeks to emphasize the higher level and innovativity of the validity of its own interpretive perspective and tries to demonstrate the narrower scope of validity and the obsolescence of the “rival” interpretive perspectives. And all this happens regardless of whether the given trend or paradigm takes into consideration the problem of interpretation or seeks to neglect it. In the following, I try to contribute to the exploration of the problem of validity, responsibility, and “sins” of interpretation by pointing out—following noted scholars—that interpretation is not exclusively the privilege of the act of reading. Misinterpretation, the “sins” of ideological reading, and “interpretive sins”1 can only be avoided if we recognize that interpretation and reading are the internal problems of the text itself. In this regard, the conceptual background of my investigation is the following:

To understand is to understand oneself in front of the text. It is not a question of imposing upon the text our finite capacity of understanding but of exposing ourselves to the text and receiving from it an enlarged self, which would be the proposed existence corresponding in the most suitable way to the world proposed. So understanding is quite different from a constitution of which the subject would possess the key. […] It is undoubtedly necessary to go still further: just as the world of the text is real insofar as it is imaginary, so too it must be said that the subjectivity of the reader comes to itself only insofar as it is placed in suspense, unrealised, potentialised. In other words, if fiction is a fundamental dimension of the reference of the text, it is no less a fundamental dimension of the subjectivity of the reader. As a reader, I find myself only by losing myself. […] Hence, understanding is as much disappropriation as appropriation.

(Ricœur 1981, pp. 143–44)

In respect of the interpretation theory that emphasizes the problem of the world of text, reading is a twofold act: the intersection of the act of reading and the creation of the world of text (see Ricœur 1984a). Reading is a dialogical gesture: the reader does something with the text (appropriation and understanding), but the text also does something with the reader (alienation and forcing recognition). It is not the agent of reading who rules or dominates interpretation; the subject of understanding is a result of the cooperation of text and reading. If it is not considered and the primacy of the reader (and his/her ideological preconceptions) prevails, misunderstanding, the invalidity of interpretation, the irresponsibility of explanation, and the “interpretive sins” of reading emerge.

I think it is not difficult to recognize that Ricœur’s thesis statement, which summarizes his reasoning in a sentence, repeats and reshapes one of Jesus’ most important, complex, and enigmatic statements: “As a reader, I find myself only by losing myself”—“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35). This Christian theory of understanding introduces the idea of “Thy Will be done” into the process of interpretation, through which the reader will not force his/her own expectations and preconceptions on the text or will not yearn for confirmation in the text but will hand over the “control” to the text. In other words, it lets the text read the reader (that is, the reader lets the text reshape his/her way of thinking) and—at the same time—reveal itself.

The present paper aims to reveal the internal interpretive processes of the narrative literary text. The interpretive function of narrative texts operates—at least—on five levels: as the presentation of an action, as a literary fact, as poetic language, as a fiction in prose, and as a cultural fact. 1. Every narrative provides an explanation of the presented central action (as Aristotle’s Poetics characterized it); the story is the verbal unfolding or extension of the semantical possibilities of actions in limit situations. 2. Every narrative as a literary fact is a parody, that is, the reinvention and the interpretive transformation of former literary works (Shklovsky 2007). 3. Every literary narrative works with poetic language, the specific and dominant characteristic of which is self-reference (Jakobson 1987), that is, the establishing of a new poetic linguistic worldview through the renewal of verbal expressions that offers new possibilities of the understanding of existence (and as a metafiction, it often demonstrates its own linguistic production). 4. Every literary narrative as prose fiction (not as a presentation of action, but of the word and discourse) constructs a dialogic discursive order in which the different voices that intersect each other in the central problem of the work polemically reflect on each other and interpret the central problem (Bakhtin 1981). 5. Every literary work as a cultural fact is in a constant and mutual connection with other cultural lines (like “reality”, society, music, fine arts, etc.) that ends up in interpretive correspondences (Lotman 1990). However, my paper will not primarily focus on these well-known and often discussed aspects but on how the narrative literary text interprets its own expressions.

Ricœur emphasizes that there is also another interpretative function through which the narrative text interprets itself. More precisely, there is a narrative discourse that seeks to reveal its own (emerging) truth by narrative processes. And to be even more precise: there is a special mode of text production, which attempts to resolve the semantic tension of an incomprehensible, enigmatic, or aporetic statement or sentence through the narrative unfolding of its sense. “These are narratives in which the ideological interpretation these narratives wish to convey is not superimposed on the narrative by the narrator but is, instead, incorporated into the very strategy of the narrative.” (Ricœur 1995, p. 181) That is what he calls interpretive narrative. It is important to take this aspect of interpretive function into consideration because in this case the narrative interpretation is not oriented to an “external” or “externally derived” component. It is not primarily about the exploring of the meaning of an action taken from the world of life, or the reinventing and interpretive transforming of other literary works and genres, or the new understanding of existence that is revealed by the conflict of everyday language and poetic language, or the prosaic interpretation that creates new meaning through the unique conflict of social styles and genres of the spoken or written discourse, or the reinterpreting power of the transformed symbolic pattern (or semiosphere) of culture. In interpretive narrative the text interprets itself—the emplotment and narration work as an “internal” interpretation of the meaning of the text.

This problem, which at first glance seems theoretical, actually expresses a completely practical experience. It is not the “professional” interpretation procedures and the systematic explanation processes of theology or literary studies that are important here. In the center of the Ricœurian interpretation of the Gospel of Mark (which is based on the concept of interpretive narrative) and my short story interpretation (which is based on the concept of narrative parallelism) that will be explained below, there is nothing more than an everyday and “naive” reading experience. Why is it that the text we read overemphasizes certain partial elements? Why does the text burden our attention to the story with the “unnecessary” and “exaggerated” discussion of certain details? This primary experience is called (by formalists) the disorientation or distantiation or alienation of the reading process. The point of the entire discussion is what the reader can or should do with the seemingly “unnecessary” and “exaggerated”. In the literary narrative, every “surplus” has an intratextual interpretive function.

Ricœur reveals this text function by the explanation of the Gospels and passion narratives. The French philosopher makes use of literary theory to interpret Biblical texts. My task is to take into consideration what literary theory can retrieve from the interpretation of the Bible that adopts literary theory to its own material. Consequently, therefore, the following argumentation consists of three main parts: 1. a short review of Ricœur’s remarks on interpretive narrative; 2. the introduction of my own remarks on poetics and interpretation theory that clarify the functioning of the narrative parallelism as a literary self-interpretive process; 3. the test of the theory and method by the analysis of a short story.

2. Interpretive Narrative

Reading the Bible, Ricœur discovers the category of interpretive narrative. His reading experience in the territory of the analyses and interpretive strategies directed at the Old Testament2 but, above all, the interpretive challenges of the Gospels, and especially the Gospel of Mark, confront him with the special features of the genre. One of his main observations concerning the special text type and narrative genre is the following: “the juncture between exegesis and theology, before being a work of interpretation applied to the text, already functions in the text if this text is a narrative with an interpretive function” (Ricœur 1995, p. 181). It is the difference between “to” and “in” that is of great importance from the perspective of the validity, responsibility, and “sins” of reading and interpretation. According to the French philosopher, there are basically two fundamental strategies or theoretical structures to be discovered in the background of any Gospel analysis. The first and preferred method is the following: “in the beginning was the word”―on this the Christology identified with the point of view of a given evangelist is built, from which a specific Gospel narrative emerges, towards which exegesis and then theology as a systematic doctrine are directed. Ricœur recognizes another possible path too: it is the Gospel narrative that is primarily given for the reader, in which the meaning of the ever enigmatic kerygmatic statement or proclamation unfolds, and from which a Christology (identifiable with a given evangelist) emerges, which can be developed into exegesis by an interpreter and then may become a systematic theology in the hands of professional readers. This latter path is represented by the concept of the “kerygmatized narrative or narrativized kerygma” (Ricœur 1995, p. 183). From Ricœur’s point of view, the Gospels as extended passion narratives acquire the form of kerygmatized narrative or narrativized kerygma.

The Gospel of Mark is placed in the focus of the analysis because it is said to be the least edited passion narrative, which seems to have the least developed Christology, and thus its interpretation requires more theological additions and commentaries than other Gospels. It is the text of the Gospel of Mark (tending toward a summary and brief narrative) that seems to have less interpretive power and seems to require “external” interpretive strategies. Ricœur is not willing to accept this approach at all. According to him, “it is in composing his narrative with literary art that is in no way maladroit—as has been said for a long time now—that he signifies his Christology of a suffering Son of Man” (Ricœur 1995, p. 185). He elaborates on the concept of kerygmatized narrative, or narrativized kerygma, in order to prove Mark’s ingenious literary art. The concept is based on three considerations. 1. “The core of the passion narratives may be summed up in the phrase ‘the Son of Man had to be betrayed’.” (Ricœur 1995, p. 183) 2. “The Gospel appears to us today, in the words of Martin Kahler, as a passion narrative preceded by a long introduction.” (Ricœur 1995, p. 186) 3. In the Gospels “the Christian kerygma prolongs the [Hebrew] biblical message insofar as it too confronts the inevitability of the divine plan and the contingency of human action” (Ricœur 1995, p. 183). The interrelationship of the three considerations can be briefly explicated as follows. The passion narratives narrativize or unfold (by emplotment and storytelling) the sense of the proposition “the Son of Man had to be betrayed into the hands of sinners” (Mark 14:41; Matthew 26:45; Luke 24:7). Every narrative process of passion narratives is built on this sentence or proclamation, and its goal is to reveal (that is, to narratively interpret) the sense of the sentence or proclamation. As many narrative ways of unfolding are created, so many interpretations of the passion and so many Christologies emerge. Narrative composition is able to form Gospels from passion narratives because “in the large narrative the passion is both an ineluctable continuation of earlier events and a distinct core, more narrativized than the other portions, yet capable of extending its narrative cohesion to what went before” (Ricœur 1995, p. 186). And the Bible as a compositional whole is able to integrate the Gospels because the basic problem of the passion narratives and the basic problem of other Biblical (Old Testament) stories are equivalent. The tension of the passion narratives, that is, the existential situation that calls for the narrative, is vitalized by the confrontation of the inevitable divine plan and the resisting human action, just as the central tension of numerous Old Testament stories is. In passion narratives the inevitable is that “the Son of Man had to be betrayed into the hands of sinners”, and the contingency of the unpredictable human action is how the figures following Jesus and opposing Jesus confront and individually struggle with this inevitability. The companions betray Jesus one by one (especially in Mark),3 and the enemies “help” Jesus4 to fulfill the divine plan. Summarizing briefly: the narrative composition of passion narratives unfolds the complex sense of the sentence “the Son of Man had to be betrayed into the hands of sinners”; the narrative composition of a given Gospel unfolds the sense of the given passion narrative; and the Gospels together participate in the unity of the Bible in such a way that they unfold the conflict between the inevitability of the divine plan and the resisting human action into a story, just as the narrative strategy of other Biblical (Old Testament) texts does. In this way the narrative mode of the passion narrative serves as the major internal hermeneutical mode of the Christology of a passion narrative, the exegesis of a Gospel, or the theology of the Bible. This is the essence of interpretive narrative.

In order to reveal the interpretive function of the Gospel’s specific narrative mode, Ricœur applies the means and resources of literary theory: “only literary analysis shows that it is across the specificity of the narrative composition of each Gospel that its corresponding Christological project can be discerned” (Ricœur 1995, p. 184). The problems in literary theory that are revealed by morphological analysis (Propp, Greimas), narratological description (Genette, Cohn, Lotman, Uspensky), and discursive interpretation (Bakhtin) offer a wide range of interpretive processes, which raise many new aspects in the explanation of Biblical narratives and, in particular, in defining the genre features of the interpretive narrative. It is not possible and perhaps not necessary to present in detail here and now the thorough analysis through which Ricœur demonstrates how consistently applied literary processes enable Mark to develop a unique Christology by his passion narratives that explain the sense of the proclamation “the Son of Man had to be betrayed into the hands of sinners”. I would like to draw attention to just one sequence that precisely demonstrates how interpretive narrative works. The proclamation “the Son of Man had to be betrayed into the hands of sinners” acquires a unique sense in the Gospel of Mark as it creates a semantic correlation between the event of the “betrayal” and the absence of presence that the passion narrative progressively elaborates. According to Ricœur, the correspondence (among others) upon which the Christology that is genuinely able to contrast the Markan image of the suffering Son of Man with the image of the glorified Messiah is based is the following:

Jesus betrayed is the major peripeteia. This theologoumen of Jesus betrayed is given a history that, in each of its episodes, is a story of treason, denial, abandonment, and flight, oriented toward the disappearance of Jesus’ body, to the point of positing the equivalence between Jesus “risen” (elsewhere) and Jesus absent: “He is not here” (Mark 16:6).

(Ricœur 1995, p. 192)

And this equivalence can only be produced if disappearance is being continuously introduced (step by step) throughout the narrative: “this negativity of presence belongs to the guiding theme of the progressive disappearance of the body throughout the passion narrative” (Ricœur 1995, p. 199). The disappearance and the absence of body emerge for the first time when Jesus warns the disciples about the upcoming events. For example, in the scene of the “anointing at Bethany” (Mark 14:3–9), just before the Last Supper, not only does the anointing of Jesus’s body (which anticipates the last anointing or its absence) have an important role, but also the fact that he warns the disciples (who do not understand why the usage of the expensive perfume is necessary and why they do not give the worth of the perfume to the poor) that he will soon be gone: “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial” (Mark 14:7–8). The disappearance is later announced again during the Last Supper, woven into the pronouncement of betrayal: “The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man!” (Mark 14:21). This is particularly important because the significance of disappearance thus becomes the organic part of the Eucharist established by the Last Supper.

As for the instituting of the Eucharist, it too is as marked by absence as by presence. “This is my body”; “This is my blood of the covenant”—indications of presence. “Truly, I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God”—absence.

(Ricœur 1995, p. 194)

Disappearance plays an important role again in the Gethsemane scene following the Last Supper, and here it is related to the disciples. On the one hand, they sleep instead of being vigilant, and on the other hand, they flee at the moment of capture. They are therefore doubly absent from Jesus’ most painful limit situation. This is what emphasizes the absolute abandonment (see: “Then everyone deserted him and fled” [Mark 14:50]). Those “who were sleeping during the time of agony flee at the time of arrest” (Ricœur 1995, p. 195). Abandonment functioning as the equivalent of disappearance is increasing during the upcoming events and becomes total in the crucifixion scene. In the moment before his death, Jesus’ cry is quoting Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). “Jesus’s cry brings to a peak his abandonment at Gethsemane. The disciples have fled; there remain the mockers—and the centurion” (Ricœur 1995, p. 198), who (as an enemy, as a Roman soldier) utters one of the most fundamental sentences of the Gospel: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39). But the story of disappearance and abandonment does not end here, because there is the scene of the empty tomb. This scene is especially focused on absence of presence, as it is a

unique feature of Mark’s narrative that the only ones present at the tomb are the women, no guards (as in Matthew), no disciples (as in Luke and John), and not even the figure of Jesus himself (as in Matthew and John). This “parsimony of presence” is particularly appropriate to the general tone of the Markan passion narrative and accords quite easily with the hypothesis that the narrative of the empty tomb constituted the actual redactional conclusion of the Gospel of Mark. What I have called narrative parsimony illustrates the following formula. The Lord resurrected, according to the kerygma, has as his narrative trace only the absence of the body of Jesus. If it is true that Mark here continues to oppose a Christology that would immediately lead to a Christology of glory, short-circuiting the Master’s suffering and the difficulty of being a disciple, then the narrative that best interprets this theology of the suffering Son of Man is one that does without an appearance of Jesus himself to Peter and the apostles.

(Ricœur 1995, pp. 198–99)

The only presences at the tomb are the young man and the women. However, both draw attention to absence. The narrative function of the young man is to announce the disappearance: “Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen [from the dead], he is not here” (Mark 16:6). And the women leave the tomb in fear and silence: “And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). The interpretive function and the Christological and theological importance of the narrative sequence that is constituted by the line of narrative elements, which realize the aspects of disappearance, abandonment, and absence of presence, can be summed up as follows. Jesus provides redemption for everybody through his death and resurrection—and this is presented in the following way: the dead Christ’s body disappears from that “everybody”, who, abandoning him in different ways, has disappeared from the circle of the living Jesus.

So, what is there to be concerned about here? The theological significance of the absence of presence in relation to betrayal, sacrifice, and resurrection is not ideologically explained or argumentatively discussed but narratively unfolded in the Gospel of Mark. Mark inserts several events and utterances into his passion narrative that are about disappearance, and these microstories are assembled into a larger sequence through the narrative composition that illuminates the problem of betrayal and the significance and meaningfulness of Jesus’ situation and actions in a unique way. The narrative sequence of disappearances interprets the central problem of the Gospel in a narrative semantic way. This is the mode of operation of interpretive narrative.

3. Narrative Parallelism

In the second part of my remarks, I would like to focus attention on the common problem of interpretive narrative, literary prose language, and metaphor.5 I presume that prose language does have a very special process of creating metaphorical meaning in connection with the production of interpretive narrative. Interpretive metaphor in prose language leads us far beyond the general problem of metaphorical utterances, as it has a unique concern in the devices of emplotment and narrative discourse. The production of metaphorical meaning in prose works has two main aspects. The first is a structural one: when prosaic metaphor and the phenomenon of narrative parallelism in emplotment coincide.6 The second aspect is a semantic one: when prosaic metaphor and narrative parallelism result in a special semantic parallelism and an interpretive narrative. This is what I would call the production of counterpart, in which the “hero”, the agent, or the subject acquires a special (interpretive) kind of alter ego in objects.7 Prosaic metaphor, narrative parallelism, and the production of counterpart work together in order to create an internal interpretation of the plot in a novel or a short story.

The whole problem arises from the function of objects and descriptive discourse in literary prose language. In 1981, Mieke Bal revised the problem of description in her essay On Meanings and Descriptions. In the classical narratologies of the 1960s, description was considered to be a “subordinate aid to narrative text segments” (Bal 1981, p. 101). In the paradigm of narratology, it was Mieke Bal who pointed out, with the assistance of Van Buuren’s model, that description works as a metaphor in novels. Descriptive paragraphs have special and unique connections with all those narrative sentences that represent agents in action. And these connections are not structural but semantic ones, as the description of a landscape, a town, a room, an object, or clothes becomes a metaphorical interpretation of the agent. Moreover, by means of the analysis of the novel Madame Bovary, Mieke Bal managed to demonstrate that the “metaphoric contiguity” (Bal 1981, p. 129) between descriptive and narrative paragraphs can even be spread out to an entire novel: the successive descriptions of the city of Rouen spread a net all over the novel, which results in a metaphorical interpretation of the main character and her narrated story. As Mieke Bal writes, “because the comparé of this metaphor includes the entire fabula of the novel, the description may also be regarded as a mise en abyme, a mirror-text” (Bal 1981, p. 130).

Now I would like to add some methodological comments to this metaphorical concept of description (see also: Bal 2004, 2006). The comments are derived from a slightly different method of reading literary texts. This method is concerned with poetic language. I read literary text as a consistent poetic discourse. In literary text every component of the linguistic material is subordinated to a dominant element or a constructive principle. It is poetic language that deforms and unifies all the other usages of language. From this point of view I would like to emphasize that the separation of description from narration is only a result of rhetorical and theoretical distinctions. It is very useful to make distinctions between the words characters live by, the words used by the narrative devices of emplotment, and the world-making words, because this is the only method that enables us to separate subjects, acts, and objects logically. And of course interpretation may make use of the recognition of the obvious differences between the language of a character, the phrasing of narrative discourse, and the sentence production of descriptive discourse. But we must not forget: first of all, it is the prose language of a novel or a short story that we read. It is not the words of a character, it is not the narrative discourse, and it is not a description that we read. It is only the book that we are confronted with. And because of the very special devices of poetic language, a book, a work, a novel, or a short story acquires a unique, individual, and consistent discourse or text in spite of the fact that it may contain many languages. This discursive poetic unity of heteroglossia is called the dialogical character of prose language by Bakhtin (Bakhtin 1981, pp. 358–66), or the “concordant discordance” in the configurative act of emplotment and narrative discourse by Ricœur (Ricœur 1984b).

Why is it important to say that first of all there is only prose language? Because what narrative, descriptive, and personal discourse may distantiate, prose language links together. In prose, language subject, act, and object get involved in a mutual correspondence. Not only does the agent have a story, but the object also has one. In a novel or a short story, the object is not only the instrument of an action or a focal point of description, but also the main character of a story. In literary prose language, the subject, the agent, shares the story with the object. The object takes part in the subject’s activity, and vice versa, the subject becomes an active part of the object’s life.8 The structural realization of this mutual participation in each other’s story is narrative parallelism. And in this mutual correspondence, in accordance with the narrative parallelism, the object becomes the counterpart of the subject.

There are two types of narrative parallelism. In the first type, at least two distinguishable stories take place, one after the other, and a morphological (sujet) correspondence interweaves the two sequences.9 That is what I would call progressive narrative parallelism. Progressive—because the story of the main character invites and anticipates similar stories, and the invited and anticipated story, which is presented after the main story, refers back to the main story as a rhyme. So there is a dynamic preparation and a dynamic confirmation or allowance between the two plot sequences. This type of narrative parallelism has already been discovered among the Biblical narrative strategies. For example, in Jeremiah 26–45, “the narrator uses the structural parallelism between 26–35 and 36–45, as well as the narrative parallelism between various episodes from the life and ministry of Jeremiah, to argue that the nation of Judah has repeatedly failed to respond with faith and obedience to the prophetic word proclaimed by Jeremiah” (Yates 2005, p. 267). In this way narrative parallelism becomes a special process of creating interpretive narrative as narrative parallelism serves “as one of the keys to understanding the present arrangement of material in the book of Jeremiah” (Martens 1987). In progressive narrative parallelism there is usually one “hero”, and in connection with the “hero” there are two (or more) plot sequences, one after the other with (more or less) the same morphological structure in which the subordinated elements acquire a metaphoric contiguity.

The second type of narrative parallelism is when at least two different stories take place simultaneously and the two sequences are interlocking like the two tapes of a zipper. That is what I would call inlaid narrative parallelism. The terminology of narratology would use the expression embedded. But I prefer the word inlay, because the processes of woodwork illuminate the processes of narrative parallelism. The intarsia as a piece of art consists in the conflict of two different wooden materials, patterns, or textures. A wooden floor or an item of furniture has a dominant color, material, and texture. The process of inlaying inserts another wooden material with a different color in order to create a new, special pattern. The second type of narrative parallelism works the same way. A new material is inlaid into the narration of the main and dominant story by descriptive sentences in order to reveal and unfold an irrelevant, inadequate, unsuitable story pattern. But, of course, the textual interweaving of the dominant story and the inadequate story results in a productive conflict and a meaningful concordance, that is, in an interpretive narrative. In inlaid narrative parallelism there are usually two “heroes”, a human one and an objective one, and both the (dominant) person or character and the (subordinated) object have individual stories that are presented in parallel. And it is the parallel narrative presentation that constitutes metaphoric contiguity. In a moment, I shall give an example of this.

Both of these two types of narrative parallelism result in a semantic equivalence and develop new possibilities for the production of prosaic metaphors in the frame of an interpretive narrative. This way the “hero”, or the agent, acquires an alter ego, or more precisely, a counterpart. And as a result, the similarities and the dissimilarities of the “hero” and its (objective) counterpart produce an internal interpretation of the story within the very limits of the literary work.

4. The Interpretive Function of Narrative Parallelism in the Short Story

Alberto Moravia published a short story entitled L’Amicizia, Friendship, in his book Racconti romani (Moravia 1954), Roman Tales (Moravia 1959), in 1954. The short story tells a kind of love triangle. Ernesto, the main character and personal narrator, recounts a sequence of events about his love, or rather sexual attraction, for a woman named Mariarosa. He tries to seduce her in many ways, but he always fails. She constantly rejects him, but she continues to flirt with him. Finally, Attilio, Ernesto’s best friend, marries Mariarosa. Since Ernesto believes that friendship is sacred, he does not want to meet Mariarosa anymore. One day, they accidentally run into each other on the street. Ernesto tries to treat the woman coolly, although when he looks at her, his “old feelings come back to” (Moravia 1959, p. 130) him. After the brief, half-page introduction, the central problem of the short story emerges. Mariarosa hands over her bags to Ernesto and asks him to help her repair the waste pipe of the kitchen sink in her flat. Ernesto, who is a plumber, consents. They climb up to the flat, and while Ernesto is repairing the waste pipe and Mariarosa is shelling beans, they start talking about Attilio. Mariarosa asks four questions about her husband. The first question: “don’t you think that job he’s found is hardly the right thing for him?” (Moravia 1959, p. 132). Ernesto expresses his opinion about his friend, which, in short, is that he is extremely lazy. The woman asks the second question: “he talks about going to work—but I haven’t seen any money yet… I’m beginning to think he may have told me sort of a lie… What d’you think?” (Moravia 1959, pp. 132–33). Ernesto answers that he is convinced that his friend is “the biggest liar” (Moravia 1959, p. 133). Mariarosa asks another question: “you know what I think? That there is a woman in it… You who know him, can you tell me if that’s true?” (Moravia 1959, p. 133). Ernesto takes advantage of this question too and explains that he thinks that “women, for him [Attilio], are everything” (Moravia 1959, p. 133). Mariarosa’s last question is the following: “perhaps he is having an affair with Emilia, that girl with red hair—d’you know her?—who used to work with me at the laundry… What d’you think?” (Moravia 1959, p. 133). Ernesto starts to tell lies about Attilio’s so-called affairs while he stands behind Mariarosa and puts his arm around her waist. Mariarosa disengages herself. At this moment, Attilio enters, surprised by his friend’s presence, but he does not have much time to do so, because the enraged wife starts throwing various household items at her husband. Finally, Attilio flees the flat, and Ernesto follows him in shame and defeat. In the stairwell, Attilio questions Ernesto about the lies he recounted to Mariarosa about him, then sends Ernesto to hell in anger. Ernesto draws the following (false) lesson at the end of the story: “and I swore to myself that, from that day onwards, I would never again be friends with anybody” (Moravia 1959, p. 135).

In the short story there is a subordinated detail that, for the first sight, seems to be insignificant nothingness, but, because of the consistent repetition, becomes a significant and meaningful element, a metaphoric sign of the acting subject, and, at the same time, becomes an organic part of figuration. The emphasized detail has two components: the objective component is the waste pipe, and the active or operative component is the repairing of the waste pipe. The seemingly insignificant object, as the prosaic “hero” of the secondary and subordinated plotline, acquires a considerable significance on the semantic level of the short story’s text. This significance also deeply permeates and transforms the narrative structure. It is this refiguration that I would call narrative parallelism. The seemingly secondary and subordinated “story” of the repairing of the lead waste pipe runs parallel with the conversation that forms the central plotline of the short story. But the interweaving of the two plotlines acquires such a spectacularly oriented and organized narrative rhythm that it puts the seemingly insignificant and secondary plotline into the foreground. The story of the conversation is mainly presented by narrative discourse; the “story” of the waste pipe is mainly presented by the descriptive discourse of prose language. In what follows we will follow the unfolding of the zipper-like intertwining plotlines of narrative parallelism.

4.1. The “Story” of the Waste Pipe

As Ernesto runs into Mariarosa on the street, the description emphasizes a detail: “one day, on my way to a customer, with my bag of tools over my shoulder and a double coil of lead piping round my arm, I was going along the Via Ripetta [!] I heard my name called…” (Moravia 1959, p. 130). The lead piping is mentioned again when they climb up to the woman’s flat: “and so there I was, laden like a donkey, with my bag of tools, the lead piping and the shopping bag, following her as she walked in front of me” (Moravia 1959, p. 131). In the presentation of the conversation process that takes place in the focus of the short story, every change in topic is followed in strict order by a sentence that describes what happens to the lead waste pipe. As soon as they enter the flat, Ernesto gets to work: “I, putting my tool-bag on the floor, knelt down beside the sink to carry out the repair. I saw at once that the pipe was rotten and a new one would have to be put in” (Moravia 1959, p. 131). Ernesto warns Mariarosa that the repair will cost a little money, but to avoid the problem of money, she brings up the topic of friendship. Ernesto continues to work: “I took my pincers, unscrewed the fitting, which was just as rotten as the pipe, removed the pipe, took the soldering lamp from my bag and poured some petrol into it” (Moravia 1959, p. 132). Continuing the topic of friends, Mariarosa asks Ernesto what he thinks of Attilio’s job. Ernesto gives his opinion. But in the meantime, the repairing is in progress: “I had lit the lamp and was regulating the flame” (Moravia 1959, p. 132). At Mariarosa’s urging, he also gives his opinion on Attilio’s laziness. And in the meantime, he continues working: “I had inserted the pipe. I took the soldering lamp, and almost without thinking, as I dangled it with my hand, I asked: ‘D’you want the truth or d’you want me to be polite?’” (Moravia 1959, p. 132). Ernesto keeps on articulating his opinion about his friend’s character, but the work is also going on: “I took a piece of tin, put the lamp to it and began the soldering. The flame made a roaring sound, and I raised my voice to be heard above the noise” (Moravia 1959, p. 132). Mariarosa shifts the topic towards women and potential lovers. As Ernesto tells her what she wants to hear, the repair work slowly comes to an end: “the soldering was finished. I put out the lamp and levelled down the still soft metal with my finger. Then I begun tightening the nut with my spanner” (Moravia 1959, p. 133). When they are talking about Attilio’s alleged affairs, Ernesto gets up from under the sink. After the failed attempt at a hug, he packs his things: “I felt mortified […], so I collected my tools and was about to say good-bye to her and go away” (Moravia 1959, p. 134). But the story of the lead piping does not end here. It appears for the last time when Ernesto is escaping from the flat: “I made my escape too, leaving my two or three yards of lead piping on the floor, and rushed off down the stairs” (Moravia 1959, p. 135). There is one more short paragraph, which describes the quarrel between Attilio and Ernesto, and with that the short story ends.

Consequently, therefore, narrative parallelism forms a rhythmic plot (sujet). The story of the conversation, which takes its place in the focus of the emplotment, is consistently and systematically interrupted by descriptive sentences that present the seemingly insignificant secondary theme, that is, the “story” of the lead waste pipe.

The repairing of the waste pipe	Conversation
1. “I, putting my tool-bag on the floor, knelt down beside the sink to carry out the repair. I saw at once that the pipe was rotten and a new one would have to be put in; so I warned her: ‘You see, a new pipe will have to be put in… Are you prepared to pay for that?’” (Moravia 1959, p. 131)
	1. “How about your friendship?” (Moravia 1959, p. 131)
2. “I did not say anything. I took my pincers, unscrewed the fitting, which was just as rotten as the pipe, removed the pipe, took the soldering lamp from my bag and poured some petrol into it, still in silence.” (Moravia 1959, p. 132)
	2. “Are you really a friend of Attilio’s?” (Moravia 1959, p. 132)
3. “I had lit the lamp and was regulating the flame.” (Moravia 1959, p. 132)
	3. “Don’t you think that job he’s found is hardly the right thing for him?” (Moravia 1959, p. 132)
4. “I had inserted the pipe. I took the soldering lamp, and almost without thinking, as I dangled it with my hand, I asked: ‘D’you want the truth or d’you want me to be polite?’” (Moravia 1959, p. 132)
	4. “In the first place, he’s lazy.—Lazy?” (Moravia 1959, p. 132)
5. “I took a piece of tin, put the lamp to it and began the soldering. The flame made a roaring sound, and I raised my voice to be heard above the noise.” (Moravia 1959, p. 132)
	5. “I’m beginning to think he may have told me some sort of a lie… What d’you think?” […] “He’s the biggest liar I know.” […] “You know what I think? That there is a woman in it… You who know him, can you tell me if that’s true?” […] “I think you’re right… Women for him, are everything.” (Moravia 1959, p. 133)
6. “The soldering was finished. I put out the lamp and levelled down the still soft metal with my finger. Then I begun tightening the nut with my spanner” (Moravia 1959, p. 133)
	6. “Perhaps he is having an affair with Emilia […] What d’you think?” (Moravia 1959, p. 133)
7. “I rose to my feet” (Moravia 1959, p. 133)
	7. “I went up behind her and placed my two hands around that wonderfully slim waist of hers, saying: ‘Yes, it’s quite true, he sees Emilia every day […] Now you know the whole story: what did you expect?’” (Moravia 1959, p. 133)
8. “I felt mortified […], so I collected my tools” (Moravia 1959, p. 134)
	8. “I was about to say good-bye to her and go away. At that moment the kitchen door opened and Attilio appeared.” (Moravia 1959, p. 134)”
9. “I made my escape too, leaving my two or three yards of lead piping on the floor, and rushed off down the stairs” (Moravia 1959, p. 135)

Every change in the conversation’s topic is followed by an interrupting and digressive sentence about the lead waste pipe. The consistency of the repetition elevates the secondary theme from the background into the foreground of attention and to the semantic focus because it is not obvious why it is so important to describe the story of the waste pipe (which seems to be so insignificant in respect of the great importance of the central problem of the conversation) in such a detailed manner. As a semantic consequence of the strict order of narrative parallelism, the creation of counterpart emerges. A semantic correlation unfolds between the agent of the conversation and the lead waste pipe without the appearance of a metaphorical utterance. This is not an allegory nor a parable. This is the creation of counterpart: a metaphorical correspondence, which is metaphor-free at the level of expressions but still unfolds a semantic analogy based on the morphological level of emplotment. The lead waste pipe is the counterpart of Ernesto, and the story of the lead waste pipe interprets Ernesto’s discursive strategy. The story of the described detail, that is, the narrativized object, works as an interpretive narrative. What is the purpose of this order of correlations?

In the English translation of the short story, one of the central statements indicating the character’s self-identification is the following: “I’m a plumber” (Moravia 1959, p. 130). In the Italian original text there is: “sono stagnaro”. The word stagnaro is used only in the Roman dialect for the meaning ‘plumber’ (in standard Italian: ‘idraulico’).10 The word stagnaro derives from the word stagno, which means ‘tin’. So the agent or subject who is working with the tin is named by and identified with the tin. The equivalence of the subject and the object is of crucial importance on the poetic semantic level of the text, because working with tin assumes a metaphorical character. And this is related to what the text says about being a plumber. This is how Ernesto describes his job: “gli stagnari girano da una casa all’altra”; in English: “plumbers go round from one house to another” (Moravia 1959, p. 130). In this sentence the meaning ‘go’ is expressed by the word girano, which is derived from the word giro that means ‘round, circular’. The English translation expresses this aspect with “go round”. The importance of giro/girano is that the following sentence repeats the semantic aspect of circularity: Ernesto has “a double coil of lead piping round his arm” (130); in Italian: “un doppio giro di tubi di piombo”. The word giro (‘round’) appears here again, this time referring to the lead piping. So the correlations of the expressions “sono stagnaro”, “gli stagnari girano”, and “giro di tubi di piombo” merge the tin/plumb, the lead waste pipe, and Ernesto in one semantic sphere. It is this line of potential metaphorical discursive correlation that narrative parallelism realizes. The tin and the lead waste pipe become the counterpart of Ernesto in the narrative parallelism of repair and conversation, and the story of the tin/lead waste pipe becomes the interpretive narrative of the man’s story.

While Ernesto is continuing to lie to Mariarosa about Attilio in order to get closer to her, he removes the rotten lead waste pipe and fitting that connects the sink and the sewer, pours some petrol into the soldering lamp, lights the lamp and regulates the flame, bends with soldering lamp and inserts the new pipe, levels down the soft tin in the new fitting, than finishes the repair by the tightening of the nut with a spanner. So the repair of the waste pipe and the sewer runs parallel with the long process of lying by which Ernesto tries to get closer to and grab Mariarosa. The renovation of the waste pipe and the new conquest attempt are equivalent in the text. By means of the narrative parallelism as an interpretive narrative, the rotten lead waste pipe and the rotten fitting become the equivalent of the previous (unsuccessful) conquest attempts. The new waste pipe and the new fitting become the metaphorical signs of the new conquest attempt. The soldering of the soft solder (60% tin [Sn] + 40% lead [Pb]) becomes the interpretant of the softening of the firm principle of “friendship is a sacred thing” (Moravia 1959, p. 130). I would also add to all this that the meaning of the name Ernesto is ‘seriousness, virtue’; the melting of the solid but rather soft metals, lead and tin, that appear as the character’s counterparts, metaphorically interprets the transformation of the figure who seems to firmly believe in and to proclaim the sanctity of the bond of friendship but who dissolves it with his unvirtuous actions and behavior. At the end of the short story the opposite elements of the soft solder, that is, heavy metals, like “the heavy flat-iron [and…] heavy, dangerous objects such as knives, polling-pins, pots and pans” (Moravia 1959, pp. 134–35) appear, which, with the hardness of iron, represent the firm principles of the otherwise flirtatious woman, and thus stand in contrast to the softened metals representing Ernesto’s loose virtues and morals. Accordingly, the entire waste pipe system becomes the counterpart of Ernesto and his uncontrollable sexual desire, which puts friendship in the background.

So, actually, there are two waste pipes in the text: one of them is made of lead piping, and the other is made of desire. The metaphor of the uncontrollable sexual desire and the desire of possession is the lead waste pipe, and the installation of the new waste-pipe system is the interpretant of the reorganization of desire satisfaction. So it is not by chance that when Ernesto escapes after the final rejection, the double coil of lead piping is left at the scene of multiple defeats, Mariarosa’s flat. There are no metaphorical utterances referring to this complex pattern of correlations, but the discursive criteria of the creation of ambiguity are established by the structure of narrative parallelism and the formation of counterpart. The semantic suggestions of the narrative parallelism as an interpretive narrative and the creation of counterpart conclude in the following metaphorical textual intention: the outpouring of the desire for sexual possession towards the rejecting Other’s body is like the drainage of wastewater.

However, it is important to note that the repairing process cannot be separated from Mariarosa, just as the conversation process is a shared activity in the text. The installation process and the conversation actually end with Mariarosa’s activity, that is, the testing of the new waste pipe: “I rose to my feet. Mariarosa, who had put the beans into the saucepan, also got up, shaking her dress to get rid of the shells. Then she went over to the sink, held the pan under the tap and ran some water into it. I went up behind her and placed my two hands round that wonderfully slim waist of hers” (Moravia 1959, p. 133). The conversation is ended by a violent hug; the repairing is finished by the testing of the new waste pipe. All this draws attention to the fact that there is another process of counterpart creation besides the metaphorization of the lead waste pipe and the story of repair. The “heroes” of the other process are beans. Throughout the conversation and repair processes, Mariarosa is shelling beans, which she then washes in the repaired sink. The juxtaposition of the bean-shelling and the conversation creates another consistently arranged (although perhaps less spectacular due to the fewer repetitions) narrative parallelism and interpretive narrative. Let us follow this process through!

4.2. The “Story” of the Beans

The introduction of Mariarosa occurs in quite a striking way. It is Ernesto as a personal narrator who draws up a character sketch in the first lines:

Mariarosa is a double name, and the woman who bore that name was double too, both in her physical and her moral nature. She had a great red and white face, as big as a full moon, out of all proportion to her body, which was normal; she made you think of those roses that are called cabbage-roses because they are as big and solid as cabbages; and in truth, the moment you saw her, you could not help thinking that two faces could easily be made out of a face like hers. This big face, moreover, was always placid and smiling and seraphic—quite the opposite of her character, which, as I discovered to my cost, was positively devilish. That was why I said she was double in her moral nature as well.

(Moravia 1959, p. 129)

In the opening paragraph, the unreliable narrator presents the female character as an unpredictable duality of contrastive features in order to convince himself that it is only the woman to be blamed for everything that goes wrong in the story. The angelic Maria character of the one half of the woman expresses an innocent beauty, while the devilish Rosa character of the other half realizes a fury. One attracts, the other repels. This is roughly the role the narrator assigns to Mariarosa, by which he tries to represent a flirtatious Roman Italian woman.11 He presents every act that Mariarosa performs in accordance with this dual characterization. When Ernesto recollects their past—about which we learn that allegedly the woman always played with the man and then rejected him—and even when he talks about the main theme of the story presented, i.e., the invitation to the apartment and the new rejection, he uses the perspective of dual characterization. Ernesto keeps quiet about the factors that do not fit into this model of action attributed to the woman, since (in the framework of the goal of blaming the other) it is not in his interest to see or to introduce Mariarosa as a more complex figure.12

However, the short story’s text creates an opposing sequence of actions that Ernesto cannot or does not want to manipulate with his narrative strategy, as for him (as a character and as a narrator) it seems to be absolutely insignificant and incidental. Ernesto deliberately compares Mariarosa’s face to a cabbage-rose. But this comparison does not return in the text and thus will not have any significance later, because another vegetable will be associated with the woman. In the context of the whole presented scene, it seems to be completely insignificant that Mariarosa is shelling beans during the conversation. Not even Ernesto attaches any importance to the shelling of beans; that is, he does not include this motoric action in the system of the dual action model he constructed about the woman, but he still devotes a sentence or two to it just so that the picture of the scene becomes complete. What Ernesto’s goal-oriented narration presents as insignificant achieves significance and meaningfulness on the level of the text—again by the dynamization of narrative parallelism as an interpretive narrative. The “story” of the beans and the emplotment of the sujet of bean-shelling occur in the following way. When they meet on the street, Ernesto observes the woman is going home from shopping: “on her arm she was carrying her shopping bag, full of vegetables” (Moravia 1959, pp. 130–31). Mariarosa hangs the vegetable bag on Ernesto’s arm when they are walking towards the flat: “‘you must carry my shopping bag for me.’ And so there was I, laden like a donkey, with my bag of tools, the lead piping and the shopping bag, following her as she walked in front of me” (Moravia 1959, p. 131). It is very important that it is Ernesto who is carrying all the tools, the lead piping and the shopping bag when they are climbing up to the flat. There, Mariarosa takes over the shopping bag, then they both get to work, and the conversation about Attilio begins. Ernesto is performing the repair. And Mariarosa starts peeling vegetables: “Mariarosa sat down on a chair, legs apart, her lap full of beans to be shelled” (Moravia 1959, p. 131). When the woman starts asking Ernesto about Attilio, she is looking at the beans: “she was sitting there with eyes lowered, smiling, sweet as honey, intent on her beans” (Moravia 1959, p. 132). During the conversation, Attilio’s alleged laziness and lying come up—as I have mentioned several times. The conversation is interrupted by an action: “she broke off to take a saucepan from the shelf in which to put the beans she had already shelled” (Moravia 1959, p. 133). This is immediately followed by the raising of a new conversation topic: Attilio may have a lover, and perhaps the lover is Emilia. By the end of the conversation Mariarosa is done with shelling beans, just as Ernesto is with the repair, and the woman goes to the repaired sink to wash the vegetables: “Mariarosa, who had put the beans into the saucepan, also got up, shaking her dress to get rid of the shells. Then she went over to the sink, held the pan under the tap and ran some water into it” (Moravia 1959, p. 133). After that, Ernesto only sees the flying kitchen utensils and then starts to flee with Attilio, who has just returned home. We do not come to know what happens to the beans.

Consequently, therefore, the story of the beans and the sequence of bean-shelling follow the process of conversation in strict order, just like the story of the lead waste pipe and repair does.

The shelling of the beans	Conversation
	1. “Are you really a friend of Attilio’s?” (Moravia 1959, p. 132)
1. “Mariarosa sat down on a chair, legs apart, her lap full of beans to be shelled” (Moravia 1959, p. 131)
	2. “I’m beginning to think he may have told me some sort of a lie… What d’you think?” […] “He’s the biggest liar I know.” […] “You know what I think? That there is a woman in it… You who know him, can you tell me if that’s true?” […] “I think you’re right… Women for him, are everything.” (Moravia 1959, p. 133)
2. “she broke off to take a saucepan from the shelf in which to put the beans she had already shelled” (Moravia 1959, p. 133)
	3. “You know what I think? That there is a woman in it… You who know him, can you tell me if that’s true?” […] “I think you’re right… Women for him, are everything.” […] “Perhaps he is having an affair with Emilia […] What d’you think?” (Moravia 1959, p. 133)
3. “Mariarosa, who had put the beans into the saucepan, also got up, shaking her dress to get rid of the shells. Then she went over to the sink, held the pan under the tap and ran some water into it” (Moravia 1959, p. 133)

The sequence of bean-shelling is less segmented than the story of the waste pipe repair, but the elements interrupt the sequence of conversation in the same consequent morphological order. Thus, in this aspect too, the formation of narrative parallelism as an interpretive narrative emerges, which also elaborates the possibility of the creation of counterpart in relation to the female figure. The counterpart of the man’s discursive strategy is the repairing of the waste pipe, the counterpart of the woman’s discursive strategy is the bean-shelling. In the dialog, Mariarosa’s desperate questions line up one after the other like the beans waiting to be shelled and sorted. And the answers to the questions fuel suspicion like the shelled beans fill the pan. Just as the woman believes that she is understanding Attilio’ attitude more and more clearly as a result of the conversation, so the beans are being cleaned one after the other (and then together under the tap), and so the bean shells (as the counterpart of the previously unanswered questions and doubts) are gathering in Mariarosa’s lap waiting to be thrown away. It is not clear whether the saucepan full of beans also flies towards Attilio at the end of the story (the text only mentions that there are pots and pans), but it becomes obvious through narrative parallelism that everything that happens to the beans has a metaphorical interpretive relationship with the process of conversation about Attilio.

So, the bean is the counterpart of Mariarosa’s attitude to her husband. While the woman tries to understand her husband’s character and tries to figure out her own upcoming attitude toward her husband during the conversation, and by asking Ernesto, she is puttering with beans. It is important that when the first question is asked, “she was sitting there with eyes lowered, smiling, sweet as honey, intent on her beans” (Moravia 1959, p. 132). The double, confused gesture of lowered eyes and smile is clearly not directed at the bean, but at the actual topic: the questions to be clarified regarding Attilio. Although this gesture projects or objectifies the suppressed emotions and temper onto or into the beans, at the end of the story Mariarosa’s suppressed emotions erupt in flinging things at Attilio. It is this transposition by which narrative parallelism as interpretive narrative manages to create correlations: the beans waiting to be shelled become the counterpart of the questions (oriented to Attilio’s character) waiting to be answered; the bean shells become the counterpart of Mariarosa’s doubts; and the shelled and washed beans become the counterpart of supposed truths. It is important to emphasize that these are supposed truths, because what can be seen is only a “reality” created by Ernesto’s lies. And the metaphorical process presents this uncertainty of truth in a special way: it is at the waste pipe of the sink repaired by Ernesto where the cleaning of the beans is finished. The story of the cleaning of beans thus becomes a narrative interpreter of Mariarosa’s misguided recognitions (the false clarifications of her questions).

Perhaps it is also interesting that the beans waiting to be shelled are getting into Mariarosa’s hands in this way: “Mariarosa sat down on a chair, legs apart, her lap full of beans to be shelled” (Moravia 1959, p. 131). In Italian: “Mariarosa sedette su una seggiola, a gambe larghe, il grembo pieno di fagioli da capare”. The meaning ‘lap’ is designated here by the word grembo, which also means ‘womb, uterus’ (see: grembo della terra—’womb of the earth’). So, the beans waiting to be shelled are therefore placed in the lap between the “legs apart”, which is named after a word that also means ‘(mother) womb, uterus’. Perhaps there is no need to elaborate on the eroticism of the scene,13 especially if it is also taken into consideration what kind of correlation could be made between masculinity and the waste pipe… Is it possible to recognize sexual allegories on the basis of these suggestions? It might be possible—but these correlations in connection with sexual metaphors would be only presuppositions that cannot be validated. Although it is true that the erotic interpretations of Moravia’s works are very frequent in the reception and are plausible (Krysinski 1996), and the erotic aspect is included in Friendship too by Ernesto’s sexual desires, intentions, and attempts, in the case of the given short story, the recognition of sexual metaphors can only be built on an invalid suggestion, since the narrative parallelism as an interpretive narrative does not confirm it. The text does not reject such an interpretation, but does not validate it. Therefore, the sexual interpretation of those correspondences that are established by narrative parallelism, or the recognition of sexual metaphors, would be a misleading explanation, a misunderstanding, or a “wrong” or “false” reading within the framework of interpretive narrative. Although the mechanism of narrative parallelism as an internal text interpretation does not exclude the erotic interpretation of the short story, it does not support the identification of sexual metaphors (and thus puts the validity of a broader, extensive, comprehensive erotic reading of the ambiguity of the text within narrow limits).

5. Conclusions

The poetic structure of Moravia’s short story emphasizes that prose language has a special focusing method in regard to the revealing of the subject’s personality, which goes far beyond the representation of acts and the descriptive characterization. I call this special focusing method and literary process the “creation of counterpart” in objects. Prose language never considers the world of objects surrounding the subject as a “reality”; rather, it reveals and presents objects as the extensions or metaphors of the subject. It is the literary process of narrative parallelism as interpretive narrative by which prose language points out that the objects we live by are not entities independent of us but rather organic, dynamic, formative elements of the subject. It is achieved by the presenting of a thoroughly developed and detailed object story alongside or parallel with the presentation of the story of the work’s main character. The latter is developed by narrative discourse; the former is unfolded by descriptive discourse. The structured and organized linking of the two stories (subject story, object story) and the two discourses (narrative, descriptive) elaborates a narrative parallelism, which puts the object story, hiding almost imperceptibly in the background, into the foreground, and, at the same time, prepares the semantic progress of the creation of counterpart. In respect of Moravia’s short story, the consistently correlating construction of the subject stories and the object stories fulfills the seemingly insignificant story of the lead waste pipe and waste pipe repair and the story of the beans and bean-shelling with meaning, and thus the object stories become the metaphorical narrative interpretant of the figure of Ernesto (on the one side) and the figure of Mariarosa (on the other side). So, why is it so important to pay attention to the “fate” of the lead waste pipe or the beans? “To explain more is to understand better what has already been preunderstood” (Ricœur 1995, p. 189): if we take into consideration the metaphorical possibilities of the story of the lead waste pipe and the story of the beans, we understand much more carefully those existential aspects of the situation presented by the story of the characters that cannot be narrated in any other way (in terms of personal narration). This interpretation is not proposed by the narrator. And it is not a mode of understanding chosen by the reader. It is proposed by the text as an interpretive narrative, which does offer possible paths for explanation and understanding, but, at the same time, “excludes” or invalidates other possibilities. Misinterpretation, “interpretive sins”, and the “sins” of ideological reading can only be avoided if the offered paths are followed. That is how interpretive narrative, narrative parallelism, and the creation of counterpart support each other in prose language and in the understanding of narrative prose.