In the Western world the idea of a first and last moment is embodied in the concept of God. Those paired features are implied in the line, attributed to God and Jesus, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord” (Revelation 1:8). Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, designate the comprehensiveness of a God that is all that has been and will be. Thus the phrase in Revelation implies that God is the first and last moment in time and ensures the progression of history toward a meaningful goal. This chapter considers literary beginnings and endings that derive from these concepts.

BEGINNING: IN THE MIDDLE OF THINGS

Realist narrators are likely to begin at the beginning, or at least with confident knowledge of the beginning, often with a narrative of the protagonist's parents or even earlier family history, and then introduce clearly defined characters and events in specific places and times. For example: “In the year 1815 Monseigneur Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne” (Victor Hugo, Les Misérables); “It was the opening of the season of eighteen hundred and thirty-two, at the Baths of Wildbad” (Wilkie Collins, Armadale, 1866); “On the 15th of September 1840, at six o'clock in the morning, the Ville-de-Montereau was lying alongside the Quai Saint-Bernard, ready to sail, with clouds of smoke pouring from its funnel” (Gustave Flaubert, Sentimental Education, 1869).