d that method should be chosen which most nearly suits
the particular story.

Variation in first person narration--the typical form of which is to
have a chief character tell his own story--is possible by shifting the
story from the lips of a major character to those of a less important
personage, who is often little more than an animated mouthpiece. The
device is really an attempt to escape from the inherent disadvantages of
typical first person narration. A just regard for the reader often
requires that more be set forth than any major character could naturally
know, but some minor character may be made to pass ubiquitously through
the whole tale, viewing the essential acts of all the major characters
and relating them to the reader. Or the device may be carried farther,
and the story told in the first person by a succession of characters.

The chief advantage in first person narration by an important or the
most important character lies in the fact that the reader is accustomed
to a more or less one-sided presentation of events. That is the way he
sees things himself, as a bare succession of happenings springing from
the conflict of human motives of which he can be sure only of his own.
Something happens, and he knows within limits why he did his part in
bringing it about, but the part of the other man is obscure to him, and
he can go only on conjecture and inference. So the story told in the
first person has perhaps a slightly greater flavor of plausibility than
that told in the third person.

There is another advantage in first person narration. Some stories
cannot be launched with a rush; the significant action must be prefaced
by a considerable mass of introductory matter that is essential to full
understanding of subsequent events; and this introductory matter can
often be made less repellent to the reader when it is artfully
introduced by a narrating character. The speaking character can be made
to tell his story with a smack of personality that appears somewhat
affected and flippant when the writer employs the third person. This
flippancy and affectation is apparent is some of Kipling's and O.
Henry's work, and probably repels as many as it attracts.

Generally, throughout a story, first person narration makes easier the
attainment of uniformity of style, if that be a merit in the case of all
stories as it unquestionably is in the case of the short story, with its
necessary emphasis on all formal unities. D