The technique of the English novel has developed wonderfully as man's thoughts and feelings have been enlarged and deepened with time, but when one contemplates its structure or skeleton, one finds there are three types or traditions (and the mixed type besides them) that have not much changed. I classify them as the pilgrimage, group and struggle types. The pilgrimage-type is a narrative of the wanderings of a hero or a heroine in the external or internal world. It has no definite plot, the story consisting of events or emotions succeeding, more or less rhythmically, in a single though devious line. The group-type has no definite plot either. It is a panoramic picture, a kind of more or less static "composition" (with a particular tone to it) made up of several or many characters, among whom there is no prominent hero, and who, as a group, represent a certain kind of life, society or mental climate. The struggle-type of novel is a dramatic representation with a typical plot that develops from the deadly opposition of two parties with an issue or the third party between them as their object, of struggle. In this essay, I consider the pilgrimage-type, comparing it with the other types, with reference to the general characteristics of its form anc4 effects and the supposed motives of its creation, which are inducible from the studies. of each of the following subspecies of the type: (1) travel of a rogue among various kinds of the world (reportage of exploration of society and human existence); (2) wanderings of a cur or a bitch urged by his or her animal passion (study of human nature, or character); (3) wanderings of consciousness (enquiry into the secret of human mind and the universe); (4) humorous travel (enjoyment of humorous aspects of a travel); (5) wanderings full of strange and thrilling adventures (pure romance, sometimes tinged with a mythical element); (6) sentimental journey (expression of lyricism implicit in, or symbolized by, wanderings); (7) pilgraimage after truth (search for the ultimate reality); (8) soul's pilgrimage (trial and error for the attainment of an ideal); (9) these kinds of wanderings mixed.
