Frame Tale (Genre)

A frame tale is a type of story telling technique where a story is told within an already developed story. While a story is being told, several other tales will come up during the telling of the story. These tales are related to the overall point of the main plot while the plots of the tales might not relate to one another. These tales make up the main narrative, helping the story develop.

For example in One Thousand and One Nights, King Shahrayar has been cuckolded and has lost all his faith in women. So he vows to kill every woman he marries so they can never betray him. However, his vizier’s daughter develops a scheme to stay alive while being his wife. She comes up with the idea to tell a tale and stop before it ends. These tales are told in the story and the King does not kill her due to his own curiosity. Eventually, he makes the daughter his permanent wife. So here the main frame is King Shahrayar was killing his wives every night. To deter this, Sheherazade told tales which are the stories in the story. These tales helped the plot develop and eventually take a different turn, changing the frame.