73. Plot and Plot Structure.

The impact of a literary work depends on all its elements. Among them plot and plot structure play an important role. The plot is a series of interlinked events in which the characters of the story participate. The events are arranged in a definite sequence to catch and hold the reader's interest. The writer arranges the events, ordering them as he sees fit. Every plot is a series of meaningful events. They are meaningful in the sense that the writer does not follow all the events in which the characters of his story would participate in real life during the span of time covered by the story. He selects the events which are meaningful to the message contained in the story, and to characterization. Each event in the story is always logically related to the message, the theme, the conflict, and is psychologically related to the development of the characters within the story.

Since the writer selects events that have special meaning in relation to the message of the story, every event in the plot is always suggestive.The reader should discover the role the events of the story play in characterization and in conveying the message.

Any plot involves repetition, but it does not mean mechanical repetition. A plot is comprised of a variety of events, each of which recalls the reader, directly or indirectly, to the central problem. No matter how casual each event might seem to be at first glance, it generally returns the reader to the main problem of the story.

The plot of any story always involves character and conflict. They imply each other. Conflict in fiction is the opposition (or struggle) between forces or characters. Conflicts are classified into external and internal conflicts. Different types of external conflicts are usually termed in the following way:

1. Man against man, when the plot is based on the opposition between two or more people.

2. Man against nature (the sea, the desert, the frozen North or wild beasts).

3. Man against society or man against the established order in the society.

4. The conflict between one set of values against another set of values.

Internal conflicts ("man against himself") take place within one character. The internal conflict is localizedin the inner world of the character and is rendered through his thoughts, feelings, intellectual processes.The plot of a story may be based on several conflicts of different types, it may involve both an internal and an external conflict. Conflicts in fiction are suggested by contradictions in reality. The events of the plot are generally localized, they are set in a particular place and time. The place and time of the actions of a story form the setting.

The functions of the setting:

1. To evoke the necessary atmosphere (or mood), appropriate to the general intention of the story.

2. Reinforce characterization by either paralleling or contrasting the actions.

3. May be a reflection of the inner state of a character.

4. Place the character in a recognizable realistic environment. Such a setting may include geographical names and allusions to historical events.

5. To reveal certain features of the character.

6. When the theme and the main problem involves the conflict between man and nature, the setting becomes in effect the chief antagonist whom the hero must overcome.

Components of plot structure:

1. The exposition is the first component of plot structure. In the exposition the writer introduces the theme, the characters and establishes the setting. The exposition contains the necessary preliminaries to the events of the plot, casts light on the circumstances influencing the development of characters and supplies some information on either all or some of the following questions: Who? What? Where? When?

2. Complications - the second structural component which follows the exposition. Complications generally involve actions, though they might involve thoughts and feelings as well. This structural component consists of several events (or m o m e n t s of complications). They become tenser as the plot moves toward the moment of decision — the climax.

3. The third structural component is the climax, it is the key event, the crucial moment of the story. It is often referred to as the moment of illumination for the whole story, as it is the moment when the relationship among the events becomes clear, when their role in the development of characters is clarified, and when the story is seen to have a structure.

4. The denouement is the fourth structural component of the plot. It is the unwinding of the actions; it includes the event, or events, in the story immediately following the climax and bringing the actions to an end. It is the point at which the fate of the main character is clarified. The denouement suggests to the reader certain crucial conclusions. A story may have no denouement. By leaving it out the author achieves a certain effect — he invites the reader to reflect on all the circumstances that accompanied the character of the story and to imagine the outcome of all the events himself.

Sometimes the author rearranges the components of plot structure. Any rearrangement of the components of plot structure is meaningful. It may affect the atmosphere and introduce the necessary mood. It may increase the tension and the reader's suspense, and in this way affect the reader's emotional response to the story. The intensity of the impression depends on presentational sequencing, the order in which the writer presents the information included into the story. Presentational sequencing is interlinked with plot structure.

The writer may withhold some information and keep the reader guessing. The reader will then be uncertain of some things or suspect certain facts. A number of questions may arise, the answers to which either follow rapidly or emerge gradually in the course of the narrative.

Most stories contain an enigma, which is an important factor in story-telling.

The withholding of information until the appropriate time is called retardation. Retardation is a widely used literary technique of presentational sequencing. Retardation heightens suspense.

The flashback technique is another device of presentational sequencing. A flashback is a scene of the past inserted into the narrative.

Foreshadowing is a look towards the future, a remark or hint that prepares the reader for what is to follow. This device of presentational sequencing heightens suspense.

Presentational sequencing may be traced on different levels. It may involve sequencing of information, it may involve sequencing of literary representational forms, such as narration, description, reasoning, direct speech, interior speech, represented speech, quotations, the author's digressions. It may also involve the sequencing of viewpoints in the story, which form the so-called underlying compositional structure of literary work.