Embedded narrative is a privileged formal aspect of literature because norms of representation - and often reception - are themselves depicted. This work focuses on the exchange depicted between embedding and embedded narratives and how this exchange participates with other aspects of the text and with the socio-historical forces which ultimately frame any act of literature. The use of embedded narrative is studied in a wide variety of novels and short stories including works by Balzac, Huysmans, Zola, Gide, Camus, Duras, and Tournier.