Piers Plowman Passus 2

The central plot point of a mystery story is an unsolved question, dilemma, or puzzle. The characters in the story largely pertain to this puzzle in one way or another, and the story progresses with the drive of solving this puzzle. A crime story is a subset of mystery stories that follows the same structure around an unsolved crime.

There can also be mystery in the story, and it does not necessarily have to be a mystery in a mystery story. There can be puzzles, questions, and dilemmas in a story that is not focused around that very puzzle. Stories can have mysteries, even if a mystery is not the focal point of the story.

This Passus starts to make clear the essence of this story. The names of the characters seem to act as allegories for more abstract concepts (Truth, False, etc.). The woman Mede wishes to be wed to False, but the powers at be wish her to be wed to Truth instead. Passus 2 focuses around this dilemma, and though it has not yet (to my knowledge) become a full-blown mystery story, or even a mystery in the story, there is a seed. This dilemma may later evolve into a mystery later in the story. Or perhaps, it already has, and has simply slipped my gaze due to the language barrier.

Comments

  1. I agree with your definition of the mystery story, most of them are driven by the desire to solve some problem or reach a conclusion of some sort. The naming of the characters in the passus definitely have a much deeper moral meaning to them, and perhaps Vaughan is trying to communicate something to us through them. And there definitely appears to be a bit of plot set-up before the actual "mystery" happens. Or maybe there is no mystery in this story, or at least not the traditional kind of mystery we're used to.

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