Story Skeleton—The Name of the Rose

Story structure relates to the psychological appeal of narrative, that which engages readers and builds in them a sense of anticipation—a desire to know what happens next. Our ongoing exploration now delves into mysteries, illustrating yet again the universality of story structure, albeit from a different angle.

 

By David Griffin Brown

Signs of the Crime

Umberto Eco was a scholar of signs—a semiotician whose academic work explored how meaning is constructed and interpreted. He also happened to be a medievalist with a sharp sense of narrative structure. In The Name of the Rose, his first novel, those strands converge in a story that operates on multiple levels. At its surface, it’s a murder mystery: monks are dying at a secluded abbey, and a visiting friar tries to uncover the killer. But that surface is layered with theological debate, historical detail, and philosophical play.

Eco uses the framework of a classic detective story to draw readers in, regardless of how much they care about 14th-century heresies or medieval theories of laughter. In interviews, he described writing the novel for three types of readers: those looking for plot, those interested in historical allegory, and those who enjoy intertextual games. But it’s the mystery that pulls all three in. Without the dead bodies and creeping dread, the novel wouldn’t work.

Brother William of Baskerville is Eco’s version of Sherlock Holmes—logical, detached, deeply curious. Adso of Melk, his novice and narrator, plays the Watson role, though framed as an old man writing his memoir many years later. Together, they navigate a world of signs, interpreting texts, symbols, and motives. But unlike Holmes, William embraces ambiguity. He doesn’t seek certainty; he looks for the most plausible guess.

That approach shapes the novel itself. Readers may not catch every allusion or understand the untranslated Latin, but the structure is still engaging. There is a puzzle to solve, after all. The story may invite multiple levels of interpretation, but its emotional engine is the same as drives every good mystery: someone is hiding something, and we want to know the truth.

The Found Manuscript Prologue: Of Custom Houses and Catalogues

Eco begins the novel with a metafictional preface in which the narrator claims to have discovered a centuries-old manuscript by Adso of Melk. The story we are about to read, he says, is his translation. This frame narrative recalls the "Custom House" prologue in The Scarlet Letter and the cetology chapters in Moby-Dick—both metafictional gestures that blur the boundary between fact and fiction, history and invention. Like those examples, Eco's prologue builds what we might call immersive authenticity.

Yet at the same time, metafiction draws attention to a story’s artifice. It signals to readers that the narrative is a construct, shaped by layers of perspective and intention. In The Name of the Rose, the prologue positions the story as filtered, translated, and incomplete. So while this creates an illusion of authenticity, it also tells us that the narrative itself is unreliable.

Plot Points

The Detective and His Methods

William of Baskerville arrives at the abbey with his novice, Adso of Melk. On the steep approach, they encounter a frantic group of monks and servants—Remigio among them, whose horse has gone missing. William deduces the animal’s location using only traces left in the mud. It’s a classic Holmesian flourish, a show of rational method and close observation. William explains his thinking to Adso, who is awed. “The world speaks to us like a great book,” he says.

This scene introduces William’s intellect and perspective. He sees signs everywhere, interprets them with confidence, and treats reason as the best tool for navigating the world. Thus, we get a classic mystery stasis—the “Detective and His Methods” beat—a demonstration of skill before the case begins. Notably, this is the clearest and most complete deduction William makes in the entire novel.

The Initial Puzzle

Abbot Abo discreetly asks William to investigate the death of a young monk, Adelmo of Otranto, who was found at the base of the Aedificium. Abo suggests it was suicide. William, noting inconsistencies and reading signs at the scene, isn’t so sure. Adelmo was buried on consecrated ground, which wouldn’t happen if suicide were confirmed. The height and structure of the windows raise further doubt. Murder becomes a possibility.

William is granted wide access to the abbey—but with a crucial limitation: the upper level of the labyrinthine library is off-limits. Only the librarian and his assistant may enter. Abo insists this is to protect the rarest texts. The secrecy around the library is absolute.

From here, the narrative splinters into theological and political context. William visits Ubertino of Casale, a former inquisitor now living in uneasy exile. They debate heresy, torture, and the failings of Church authority. Ubertino warns William that the danger at the abbey comes not from heretics, but from those who “know too much.” He also casts suspicion on Adelmo’s intellectual pride. It’s all suggestive, but not quite evidence.

This is the inciting incident. The mystery has been posed. William is on the case. But even in this early stage, Eco loads the narrative with monastic factionalism and esoteric history. These threads appear meaningful. Whether they are is something we’ll have to wait and see.

Initial Investigation

William begins his investigation with a tour of the abbey’s key figures and working spaces. He speaks with Severinus, the herbalist, who confirms that Adelmo had close ties to those with access to the library—particularly Berengar, the assistant librarian.

In the scriptorium, William examines Adelmo’s final manuscript—full of strange and fantastical images. Lions are hunted by deer. People have animal heads. The natural order is reversed in every scene. Adso laughs at the absurdities, prompting a sharp rebuke from Jorge of Burgos, an elderly blind monk, who declares laughter a tool of the Devil. This sparks a debate between Jorge and William—one that will echo through the rest of the novel. Jorge sees inversion and humor as corrosive to divine truth. William sees laughter as a necessary part of human inquiry.

William continues gathering impressions: Malachi, the severe librarian, guards access to the library with religious zeal; Nicholas, the glazier, mentions rumors about the Aedificium; and the abbot avoids answering key questions about locked doors and secret passages.

No real leads yet—just atmosphere, contradictions, and signs to be interpreted. But already, the case is being absorbed into a broader philosophical inquiry. The dead monk may have fallen, jumped, or been pushed—but what really concerns these men is knowledge: who has it, who hides it, and whether it should be shared.

Point of no return

The second day begins with a second death. Venantius of Salvemec is found murdered, his body stuffed upside down in a barrel of pig's blood. William confirms the body was dragged there from the Aedificium. Suspicion falls on Berengar, who appears guilt-ridden and evasive. William learns that Berengar likely coerced Adelmo into a sexual act by offering access to a secret within the library—possibly a forbidden book. Adelmo, ashamed, seems to have confessed to Jorge, whose reaction may have driven him to suicide. That same night, Venantius spoke to Adelmo and may have learned the secret himself. This raises the possibility that Venantius’ murder was an attempt to silence him.

In a mystery, the point of no return represents more of an intensification of the stakes rather than a moment when the protagonist becomes “stuck” in the story. Until Venantius’ death, the case could still be an unfortunate accident or isolated transgression. But the second corpse confirms a pattern. This is definitely murder. And not just murder, but murder tied to something larger—secrecy, knowledge, perhaps doctrine itself. From this point, William has no choice but to pursue the truth, even as the abbey closes ranks.

The theme of laughter also resurfaces here, with Jorge railing once more against the perils of humor and heretical texts. The mysterious reference to the “finis Africae” underscores the suggestion that a dangerous book is hidden in the library.

Key Clues:

• Berengar’s guilt: Berengar claims to have seen a ghost (likely Adelmo’s) but is clearly lying; he wants to confess but won't speak openly.
• Secret book: This is possibly the second volume of Aristotle's Poetics, a treatise on laughter. Considered dangerous by Jorge.
• Sequence of events: Benno’s testimony links Berengar to both Adelmo and Venantius; all three were possibly pursuing the same secret.
• A hint of motive: Those who seek the secret book are being silenced.

Gathering Evidence

William and Abo argue over the Church’s suppression of heretical sects. Abo tries to bar William from re-entering the library. William deflects and plans to break in anyway. That night, William and Adso access the library through the ossarium. They find that Venantius had a hidden book, now missing. Someone returns to the scene and steals William’s eyeglasses.

Inside the library, William and Adso become hopelessly lost. The place is a confounding maze. They finally escape after Adso hallucinates from some drugged incense.

The next morning, Berengar is missing. Bloodstained cloth is found in his cell, but no body.

William works to decode a cryptic page left behind by Venantius. It points to the finis Africae—a name, a location, or a key to the labyrinth’s deeper secrets.

Key Clues:

• The coded parchment left by Venantius includes a riddle: “For the secret of the finis Africae, place the hands over the idol on the first and seventh of the four.”
• Salvatore’s history supports William’s growing theory: the abbey’s response to heresy may be rooted in fear of rebellion, not doctrinal purity.

Midpoint: Sex and More Murder

William again presses the abbot for full access to the library, but Abo refuses. Despite mounting deaths, he sees no connection between the murders and the labyrinth. William disagrees but is dismissed.

Meanwhile, he devises a method for navigating the library: mapping its structure by counting rooms and analyzing its architectural symmetry from the outside. By tracking the phrases above each arch and their starting letters, William believes he can crack the library's logic.

Adso, sleepless and distracted, sets out on his own to explore the library, where he browses strange books filled with lurid images. On his way back through the kitchen, he finds a frightened peasant girl. Without any conversation, she decides that today is this boy’s lucky day. Doesn’t matter that she’s scared and abused by crusty old monks. She tosses her dress aside, throws herself into Adso’s arms, and before he knows what’s happening, his clothes are off, and they are having sex. Afterward, Adso is wracked with guilt, collapses, and passes out.

When William finds him, the boy confesses. William absolves him. No big deal. Women aren’t entirely evil, he says. What happened was understandable. Apparently.

They move on to the church and speak with Alinardo, who insists the murders match the trumpets of Revelation. He predicts the next death will involve water. Adso wonders about the abbey baths, and the idea clicks. They rush to the balneary and find Berengar's corpse submerged in a tub.

The next morning, Severinus confirms Berengar drowned but also notes blackened fingers and tongue. William connects these signs to Venantius’ corpse and suspects poison. Severinus mentions a rare toxin, once stored in the herbarium, that may have been stolen.

This represents a midpoint for both William and Adso. For William, this is where he begins pushing the investigation forward. Prior to this, he was merely collecting evidence and reacting to events.  Now he is decoding the library. He is testing his theories. As for Adso, when he has sex with the peasant girl, he’s pulled bodily into the chaos of the abbey. He’s no longer a detached narrator; he’s implicated. The guilt and confusion that follow break his naive trust in order and authority. From here, he begins to grasp the full weight of what’s at stake—not just bodies and books, but souls, power, and control.

Red Herrings and New Evidence

The abbey grows more volatile as tensions mount. William presses on with the investigation, but the noise of theological factionalism and political maneuvering makes it harder to find clarity. The mystery is still unsolved, and multiple side plots compete for attention, each one promising significance but leading nowhere.

Severinus, the herbalist, tells William he has found something important—likely the mysterious book that has already left a trail of corpses. Before he can share details, he is murdered. His body is found in the scriptorium, his skull crushed with an astronomical instrument. The setting, the method, the timing—it’s symbolic, theatrical, and pointed. Another monk silenced.

Shortly after, Inquisitor Bernard Gui arrives at the abbey. His presence escalates the stakes. Where William seeks understanding, Gui seeks a quick conviction. He isn’t interested in subtle interpretations or incomplete theories. He’s there to root out heresy, and the growing list of dead monks gives him political cover to act with force.

Gui first targets the abbey’s outcasts. Salvatore is caught performing a folk ritual intended to seduce the peasant girl. She is arrested alongside him and condemned almost immediately for witchcraft. Adso is devastated, not by her fate exactly, but by the realization that she is beyond his reach, permanently removed from his world.

Remigio is next. Gui interrogates him brutally, using both psychological and physical pressure to force a confession. Remigio admits to heresy and to procuring girls from the village, but when Gui steers the questioning toward murder, Remigio begins to break. He confesses to avoid torture. Thus, the mystery, in Gui’s view, is solved.

But pretty much everyone else knows the murderer is still at large.

Structurally, this section functions as a cascade of red herrings. Gui’s arrival, the public confessions, the theological debates—all of it points in the wrong direction. The monks’ infighting builds to a chaotic climax, but it has no bearing on the actual motive. Heresy is not the cause of the murders. Neither is ambition, nor sexual misconduct, nor theological pride. Eco loads the narrative with noise. The reader, like William, must sort through it.

The Case is Nearly Lost

Amid false confessions, misdirection, and fanaticism, William struggles to distinguish truth from red herrings. Gui's persecution, Jorge’s zealous warnings, and the chaos of competing theological dogmas obscure the real mystery. His pursuit of truth through reason, a major theme of the novel, teeters dangerously on the brink of failure.

Another death deepens William’s crisis. Malachi collapses during Matins, poisoned like the previous victims, whispering cryptic last words about a book with "the power of a thousand scorpions." Despite all of Gui’s accusations and arrests, the murders continue.

William realizes each poisoned monk was capable of reading Greek—a pattern that narrows the field of suspects and potential victims. At this point, he still believes the secret book is a Greek manuscript, likely the lost second volume of Aristotle’s Poetics. This assumption guides much of his thinking, though it later proves to be another misdirection. The real book is in Arabic—a fact William only uncovers after cross-referencing library records. But the Greek clue still matters structurally: it shows that the victims shared privileged access to restricted knowledge, and it marks William’s growing suspicion that the library itself—not heresy, not theology—is at the heart of the mystery. Nicholas of Morimondo wonders if the killings aim to prevent certain monks from becoming future abbots, further complicating possible motives.

In a grotesque and chaotic dream, Adso witnesses a surreal banquet attended by biblical figures, heretics, and historical philosophers, blurring distinctions between sin, holiness, and heresy. Images of violence, feasting, and religious contradiction reflect Adso’s anxieties about faith, desire, and truth. He awakens disoriented—a reflection of the broader confusion engulfing the investigation.

The Final Puzzle Piece

William returns to the scriptorium catalogue and finally locates the entry for the mysterious book—a text recorded with titles in Arabic, Syriac, and Latin. Cross-referencing handwriting, dates, and abbey records, William discovers a suspicious ten-year gap during which no librarian is listed. He wonders about this missing decade and suspects the abbot knows far more about these matters than he admits. When confronted, Abbot Abo flaunts his symbols of authority and angrily expels William and Adso from the abbey, demanding they leave by morning. Now the investigation has a ticking clock!

Certain that another catastrophe looms, William revisits Venantius’ cryptic parchment. He finally deciphers the clue "the first and seventh of the four," applying it to the Latin verse above the library’s mirrored door. The mirror swings open. William and Adso step at last into the hidden chamber—the finis Africae.

Climax—Nabbing the Culprit

Inside the finis Africae, William and Adso confront Jorge of Burgos, who awaits them calmly with Aristotle's lost manuscript—a treatise praising laughter. Jorge admits orchestrating the deaths to protect Christianity from this perceived threat. For Jorge, laughter represents blasphemy, undermining faith through irreverence and mockery. William counters, accusing Jorge of pride and arrogance, a "faith without smile."

Cornered, Jorge desperately eats pages from the poisoned book. In a violent struggle, Jorge extinguishes their lamp and flees, trying to trap William and Adso inside the secret chamber. They escape and pursue him through the labyrinth. In the chaos, Jorge knocks over another lamp, igniting a blaze among the priceless manuscripts. Despite frantic efforts, the fire spreads quickly, destroying the library and eventually consuming the entire abbey. Jorge perishes, as does the abbot whom he locked in yet another secret room.

Helplessly watching the flames, William remarks that with the destruction of Christendom’s greatest library, knowledge itself has failed to stop the Antichrist—embodied ironically in Jorge’s fanatical piety. William admits he was wrong to seek patterns and conspiracies; the murders arose from chance events, not divine plans or deliberate designs. Shaken, William and Adso gather what they can and leave the smoldering ruins behind.

Resolution—Reviewing the Evidence

The elderly Adso recounts the aftermath. The abbey burned for three days until only ruins remained. Survivors scattered, and William and Adso traveled briefly together before parting ways forever. Years later, Adso revisited the charred abbey, collecting fragments of burned manuscripts scattered in the rubble. Now an old monk at Melk, he has spent decades attempting to decipher these fragments, trying in vain to find order or meaning. In the end, Adso acknowledges defeat—truth eludes him, and his manuscript remains an unresolved collection of fragments. Awaiting death, he leaves behind only empty names and an echo of yesterday's rose—stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.

How Many Heresies Does It Take to Kill a Monk?

One of the most divisive elements of The Name of the Rose is its immense historical scope. The book clocks in at over 700 pages, and large chunks of it are devoted to intricate theological arguments, monastic rivalries, and medieval politics. Critics have been split: some praise it as a masterpiece of layered meaning, others dismiss it as intellectual showmanship.

The complaints are not unfounded. At times, the mystery seems to stall under the weight of long conversations about apostolic poverty or obscure heresies. Whole pages pass with no advancement in the case. Readers expecting a traditional mystery may find their patience tested. But for Eco, these digressions aren’t off topic. They are the topic. The murder plot is a thread through a larger web of epistemological inquiry. Who gets to decide what is true? What happens when that truth is challenged or suppressed? The labyrinthine library is not just a setting; it’s a metaphor for interpretation itself.

In that light, the "excess" becomes thematic. The novel is about the pursuit of knowledge and the instability of meaning. The fact that readers are overwhelmed—uncertain which details matter, unsure what’s real—is by design. Eco's semiotic background comes through with every digression. The signs point everywhere, and nowhere. The reader (and detective) must choose which ones to follow.

Insert Female Character Here

In a novel so saturated with symbols, it’s striking how thoroughly women are excluded. While it’s true that women wouldn’t have had a role inside a monastery, the only female character of note is “the girl”—a nameless peasant who appears suddenly in the abbey kitchen, strips on a whim, and jumps on unsuspecting Adso to have sex with him. Because she thinks he’s pretty? And poor Adso, he doesn’t even know what’s happening. His body takes over and he just… goes along with whatever she’s doing to him.

She vanishes from the plot as quickly as she enters, later executed off-page. Adso reflects on her absence, but not on her suffering. His grief is inward-facing: he mourns the fact that he never learned her name, that he’ll never speak with her again. He doesn’t consider her pain, the grief her family might endure, or even her potential salvation or damnation.

This narrative handling aligns with the “sexy lamp” critique—a term coined by writer Kelly Sue DeConnick to describe female characters who could be replaced with a decorative object (like a lamp) without affecting the plot. “The girl” in The Name of the Rose fits this exactly. Remove her from the book and nothing significant changes. She exists to provoke an emotional moment for Adso, not as a character in her own right.

It’s possible to read this as the fantasy of an old monk looking back on a moment of transgressive pleasure. Maybe Adso has romanticized the memory, stripped himself of agency, and projected sexual initiative onto a silent, nameless woman to absolve himself. If that’s the case, the scene becomes more interesting. But the novel offers no other indication that Adso is unreliable. Elsewhere, his narration is treated as earnest and trustworthy. There’s no frame or subtext to suggest we should question the kitchen scene in particular—just this one implausible moment that goes uninterrogated. For a story that explores so many layers of interpretation, the handling of sex and gender is conspicuously flat.

In Conclusion: Only the Name Remains

For writers of mystery—especially historical mystery—Eco’s debut offers both inspiration and caution. It uses the structure of a detective story, but only as a frame. Not all of the historical material serves the mystery; instead, the mystery serves the history. That inversion is what sets the novel apart—and what makes it risky. The challenge for writers working in this genre is balance. Too much historical detail can bury the tension. Too little, and the setting feels generic. Eco leans fully into the past, but he does so with purpose: the theological debates, the labyrinthine library, the politics of the Inquisition—all of it becomes part of the puzzle.

Ideally, as with all historical fiction, the setting should be inseparable from the story it tells.

In The Name of the Rose, books are physical things—they can rot, burn, or vanish—but they are also labyrinths of meaning. Each reader will find a different path through the text. That idea is reflected not just in the plot, but in the title itself. Eco chose The Name of the Rose for its deliberate vagueness. A rose is overloaded with symbolic meanings, to the point of near-emptiness. All that remains, he says, is the name.

That, too, is the point. Interpretation is never fixed. Meaning is a negotiation between reader and text. Eco builds a mystery to show us how we search for answers. But he doesn’t promise we’ll find them. The library burns. The manuscript itself is a copy of a copy. We hold only names. And that is enough to keep us searching.

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David Griffin Brown is an award-winning short fiction writer and co-author of Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling. He holds a BA in anthropology from UVic and an MFA in creative writing from UBC, and his writing has been published in literary magazines such as the Malahat Review and Grain. In 2022, he was the recipient of a New Artist grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. David founded Darling Axe Editing in 2018, and as part of his Book Broker interview series, he has compiled querying advice from over 100 literary agents. He lives in Victoria, Canada, on the traditional territory of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.