Eventuality in Fiction: Contingency, Complexity and Narrative

This essay seizes upon the tension between two senses of “eventuality,” as concerning staple narrative, events, and kind contingency that remains unassimilated by narrative sense. Contingency is a manifestation gap systemic complexity temporal phenomena reductive heuristic mode cognition. Sophisticated forms however, may choose to confront this rather than merely exhibit it, part their continual effort refine finesse its limitations. The possibility doing so arises because features inherent in form itself, which are latent reflexiveness dependence implicit. “One Missing,” Ambrose Bierce, serves means through these ideas elaborated more concrete terms, exhibiting it does both self-conscious concern with an implicit potentiality beyond imposition logic.