The cure is built directly into the narrative structure; the mechanism of change is dramatized, not described. Because the plot of The Painted Drum is undertold, because the process of Faye's transformation is not narrated, the reader has to do work ordinarily accomplished by plot; to understand the change that takes place in Faye, a reader has to imagine the effect of Bernard's storytelling on Faye through making his or her own associative links between Bernard's stories and Faye's situation.