Once upon a time....

The definition of a frame story has stuck with me since I was a freshman in Mrs. Miles' class. As soon as the writer in the story started telling the "children's" story, I immediately knew that the short story would be a story within a story. In the beginning, the murder of the woman in broad day light foreshadows the death of the boy later on in the other story. The purpose of the story before the child's one is to give the reader an idea as to what is going to happen. The frame story structure strengthen's the overall message by the story because it is stated twice. Once by the writer, and once in the child's story. Without this structure, the reader would not know why the story is being told to begin with. The author of both stories is kind of saying "here's a child's story for you".