The Past Perfect in Novels: What Happened Before the Story's Past
Hiroki Obara · DeveloperABC GeorgeHow-To
Jane Eyre opens with these two sentences:
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question.
The story’s “now” is this point in that day, when a walk is no longer possible. The word was in the first sentence sets it. The morning walk and the wind bringing the clouds both came earlier, so they take had. The second sentence ends with was now out of the question, a past tense with now attached. In a novel the past tense plays the part of the present, and had is how the writer steps back from it.
Had comes up often. In The Secret Garden it appears about 12 times per 1,000 words, or once in about 85 words. That count includes had as a main verb. This article uses texts from Project Gutenberg, starting with Jane Eyre, to show what tells you when something happened in a novel.
The order of events and the order on the page
British Council’s page on the past perfect puts it this way: “The past perfect shows the earlier action and the past simple shows the later action.” In novels the two often come in reverse order. Here is a passage from “A Scandal in Bohemia” in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:
At three o’clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the house shortly after eight o’clock in the morning.
Put in the order things happened, it looks like this:
| Order | When | Text | Form |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Just after 8 a.m. | he had left the house | had + past participle |
| 2 | Up to 3 p.m. | Holmes had not yet returned | had not + past participle |
| 3 | 3 p.m. | I was at Baker Street | past simple |
| 4 | After that | The landlady informed me | past simple |
The story’s now is number 3, three o’clock. The parts with had look back from there.
The second sentence also shows reported speech. What the landlady said moves one tense back, and as the British Council page on reported speech says, “past simple usually changes to past perfect simple.” So a had after said or told usually points to something earlier in the story.
The past perfect page adds that a single event doesn’t take the past perfect, however long ago it happened. Its example is The Romans spoke Latin. Turned around, this is useful for reading: when you meet had, there is a point in the past that it is measured from.
A flashback starts with had and goes on in the past simple
This is where most readers lose track, because had disappears partway through.
Here is the first page of The Secret Garden, on Mary’s mother. The first she is the mother, and an Ayah is a nurse.
She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah
After had not wanted, the birth is told with handed, a plain past. The past simple carries on:
by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.
She is six here, and the story has still not reached its now. That comes with the next paragraph:
One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she awakened feeling very cross
Events move forward from here. At the start of this book, had marks the way into the flashback, and the flashback itself is in the past simple. A switch to the past simple doesn’t mean the story is back in its now.
“A Scandal in Bohemia” opens the same way. It enters with I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. In the same paragraph it moves to the past simple with From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings and I knew little of my former friend and companion. That paragraph sums up the time since Watson’s marriage. The next one starts with One night and arrives at the evening of March 20, 1888.
In both examples the way out is a new paragraph and a phrase of time. One frightfully hot morning and One night each name a single day. When a passage covering months or years narrows to one day, the story has probably returned to its now.
With when, had changes the order
A when clause reads differently depending on whether had is there.
- When I had listened to all they had to tell, I began to walk up and down near Briony Lodge once more (“A Scandal in Bohemia”). He finished listening, and then started walking.
- she became crosser still when she saw that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah (The Secret Garden). She got crosser the moment she saw.
- He had hardly shut the door behind him when Holmes rose to put on his overcoat (“The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”). Holmes got up almost as soon as the door closed.
In had hardly … when, the two events sit almost on top of each other, even with the had.
When had doesn’t point to something earlier
All of these come from “A Scandal in Bohemia”. The words around had tell them apart.
| Text | What had is doing |
|---|---|
| It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday | Main verb, followed by a noun |
| I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he. | Had to: something he needed to do |
| I think that I had better go, Holmes. | Had better: advice about what comes next |
| You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. | If you had lived, with if dropped and had moved to the front |
| I wish she had been of my own station | A wish against the facts: the King regrets that she was not |
The fourth form is explained on British Council’s page on inversion in conditionals. When had comes before its subject in the middle of a sentence, it means “if”.
Is ’d had or would?
In dialogue, had shrinks to ’d, and would takes the same form. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has both.
- I’d made sure you’d played hookey and been a-swimming. Made and played are past participles, so both are had. Aunt Polly is telling Tom she had been certain he skipped school and went swimming.
- Now you said you’d do it, now let’s see you do it. Do is a base form, so this is would.
A past participle after ’d means had, and a base form means would. ’d better is had better, ’d rather is would rather, and ’d have with a past participle is would have.
Three things to check
When had stops you, there are three places to look: whether the next word is a past participle, where the story’s now is, and where the flashback ends. For the third, it helps to look for the point where the telling narrows to one day, not the point where the tense changes.
More on how Holmes reads and which story to begin with is in Reading Sherlock Holmes in the Original.
Reading them in ABC George
I make ABC George, a free iPhone and iPad app for reading Project Gutenberg books with a built-in dictionary. It has no ads and no in-app purchases.
The Secret Garden, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer are on the “Start here” shelf. Jane Eyre can be found by title with the search in “Discover”, which works without a connection.
Press and hold a word and tap “Look up”, and the built-in dictionary answers. A past participle like risen takes you to rise. In “Chat” view, a chapter arrives one sentence at a time in speech bubbles, so you can check the way into a flashback and the way out one line at a time. Switching views and getting to your first book are covered in Getting Started with ABC George.
