We have here a piling of chance upon
chance, in which the long arm of coincidence[3] is very apparent. The
coincidence would have been less startling had she returned to the place
where she left her son and where she believed him to be. But no! she
left him in Paris, and it is only by a series of pure chances that he
happens to be in Bordeaux, where she happens to land, and happens to
shoot a man. For the sake of a certain order of emotional effect, a
certain order of audience is willing to accept this piling up of
chances; but it relegates the play to a low and childish plane of art.
The _Oedipus Rex_, indeed--which meets us at every turn--is founded on
an absolutely astounding series of coincidences; but here the conception
of fate comes in, and we vaguely figure to ourselves some malignant
power deliberately pulling the strings which guide its puppets into such
abhorrent tangles. On the modern view that "character is destiny," the
conception of supernatural wire-pulling is excluded.
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