entral character, it was not perhaps evident at
first that another person was needed for the tale. But in all stories
which set forth an extraordinary being, it is necessary to introduce
an ordinary character to serve as a standard by which the unusual
capabilities of the central figure may be measured. Furthermore, in
stories which treat of the miraculous, it is necessary to have at
least one eye-witness to the extraordinary circumstances beside
the person primarily concerned in them. Hence another character was
absolutely needed in the tale. This second person, moreover, had to
be intimately associated with the heroine, for the two reasons already
considered. The most intimate relation imaginable was that of husband
and wife; he must therefore be the husband of Ligeia. Beside these
two people,--a woman of superhuman will, and her husband, a man of
ordinary powers,--no other character was necessary; and therefore Poe
did not (and _could not_, according to the laws of the short-story)
introduce another. The Lady of Tremaine, as we shall see later on, is
not, technically considered, a character.

The main outline of the story could now be plotted. Ligeia and her
husband must be exhibited to the reader; and then, in her husband's
presence, Ligeia must conquer death by the vigor of her will. But in
order to do this, she must first die. If she merely exerted her will
to ward off the attacks of death, the reader would not be convinced
that her recovery had been accomplished by other than ordinary means.
She must die, therefore, and must afterwards resurrect herself by a
powerful exertion of volition. The reader must be fully convinced that
she did really die; and therefore, before her resurrection, she must
be laid for some time in the grave. The story, then, divided itself
into two parts: the first, in which Ligeia was alive, terminated
with her death; and the second, in which she was dead, ended with her
resurrection.

Having thus arrived at the main outline of his plot, Poe was next
forced to decide on the point of view from which the story should be
told. Under the existing conditions, any one of three distinct points
of view may have seemed, at the first glance, available: that of
the chief character, that of the secondary character, and that of an
external omniscient personality. But only a little consideration was
necessary to show that only one of these three could successfully be
employed. Obviously, the story cou