4.3. Plot

Plotis a sequence of interlinked events in which the characters are involved, the theme and the idea revealed [3, p. 10; 5, p. 39]. The plot of any story involves character andconflict, which imply each other.Conflictin fiction is the opposition (or struggle) between forces or characters [3, p. 11].

L.V. Borisova [3] classified conflicts into externalandinternal.

Different types of externalconflicts 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 Establishment;

4. The conflict between two different sets of values

Internalconflicts, often termed “man against himself”, take place within one character. They are localized in the character’s inner world and are rendered through his thoughts, feelings, intellectual process, etc.

The plot of a literary work may be based on several conflicts of different types, and may involve both an external and an internal conflict [3, p. 11]. Accordingly short stories are subdivided into: a plot(oraction) short story and a psychological (orcharacter) short story (i.e. the conflict of the inner world).

The events of the plot are usually set in particular place and time, which are called the setting. In some stories (novels) the setting is scarcely noticeable, in others it plays a very important role. L.V. Borisova determines the following functions of the setting [3, p. 12]:

1. helping to evoke the necessary atmosphere (or mood), appropriate to the general intentions of the story;

2. reinforcing characterization by either paralleling or contrasting the actions;

3. reflecting the inner state of a character;

4. placing the character in a recognizable realistic environment (by including geographical names and allusions to historical events);

5. revealing certain features of the character (especially when his domestic interior is described);

6. becoming the chief antagonist whom the character must overcome.

The setting may perform one or several functions simultaneously. Characters, actions, conflict and setting work together to accomplish the author’s purpose [3, p. 13].

Each and every event that represents the gist of the plot has a beginning, a development and an end. The plot, accordingly, consists of exposition,story,climaxanddenouement[5, p. 39].

• The expositionorintroduction[завязка] contains the necessary preliminaries to the action, such as the setting and the subject of the action; it also may point out the circumstances that will influence the development of the action.

• The story[5, p. 39] orcomplications [3, p.13] [развитие] is that part of the plot which represents the beginning of the collision and the collision itself, i.e. the development of events.

• The climax[кульминация] is the highest point of the action.

• The denouement[развязка] is the event or events that bring the action to an end, when everything is explained.

Novels may have two more components of plot structure: the prologue(facts from beyond the past of the story) and theepilogue(additional facts about the future of the characters if it is not made clear enough in the denouement) [3, p. 14].

The sequence of the plot elements may be different. Thus a literary work may begin straight with the action (the conflict) without any exposition, or a story may have no denouement, which invites the reader to reflect the circumstances and imagine the outcome of all the events himself [3, p. 14]. Accordingly, there are two types of plot structure [3, p. 40]:

1. A work of narrative prose that has all the elements mentioned above has a closed plot structure

2. A literary work in which the action is represented without any obvious culmination, which does not contain all the above mentioned elements has an open plot structure.