This, then, is the obligatory scene as Sarcey generally understands
it--a scene which, for one reason or another, an audience expects and
ardently desires. I have italicized the phrase "expectation mingled with
uncertainty" because it expresses in other terms the idea which I have
sought to convey in the formula "foreshadowing without forestalling."
But before we can judge of the merits of M. Sarcey's theory, we must
look into it a little more closely. I shall try, then, to state it in my
own words, in what I believe to be its most rational and
defensible form.
An obligatory scene is one which the audience (more or less clearly and
consciously) foresees and desires, and the absence of which it may with
reason resent. On a rough analysis, it will appear, I think, that there
are five ways in which a scene may become, in this sense, obligatory:
(1) It may be necessitated by the inherent logic of the theme.
(2) It may be demanded by the manifest exigencies of specifically
dramatic effect.
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