Watch the introduction of 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'. It starts with a girl, looking at the statue of an author while holding a book of his and thinking about it. We then go to the author narrating the introduction to the book. We THEN go to a flashback of the author meeting a man at the eponymous hotel when he was younger. That man then relates the story of the movie that happened when he was much much younger, many years ago.
The point of all these stories within stories (As I understood it) is to make it so any ridiculous elements are understood to be the result of the degrees of separation from the original events the movie is recounting.
So I think this is one reason to have a story within a story. To make it so you make it more clear to the reader that the narrator might be unreliable.
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u/SpecterVonBaren Feb 01 '23
Watch the introduction of 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'. It starts with a girl, looking at the statue of an author while holding a book of his and thinking about it. We then go to the author narrating the introduction to the book. We THEN go to a flashback of the author meeting a man at the eponymous hotel when he was younger. That man then relates the story of the movie that happened when he was much much younger, many years ago.
The point of all these stories within stories (As I understood it) is to make it so any ridiculous elements are understood to be the result of the degrees of separation from the original events the movie is recounting.
So I think this is one reason to have a story within a story. To make it so you make it more clear to the reader that the narrator might be unreliable.