We speak student!
Power in Literature: Plot
a la Shmoop.
We've thought through symbols, settings, and themes.
so one of the words that
we've used a couple times is plot
What is plot?
Plot is, plain and simple the narrative arc
of the story it's what happens
there's a very famous way to map the plot which was called Freytag's Pyramid
it's that the plot always starts with exposition
which is the narrator or the author
kind of setting up the story and getting you ready for what's about to come
then we move into the rising action and you kind of see the
pyramid-building like this the rising action is
you know the plot has begun but it hasn't quite reached the boiling point
then we get to the top of the pyramid and we're at the climax
a lot of people think of the climax as
the most exciting part of the story and often it is, but
in reality what the climax is is the turning point of the story
once we reach the climax there's no going back
then we have the falling action this is where things like kind of start to
wrap-up a few loose ends get to be tied up
and then we end up back down at the resolution or the denouement, which is
basically just the conclusion of the story, sometimes we find out what
happened to the character
and sometimes it's ambiguous, but regardless of how a story ends
there's always that conclusion whether or not we like it or not
What does a plot look like?
I'm gonna try to do this for The Veldt which is a Ray Bradbury short story
one my favorites
okay so the exposition of that story is it starts with
the mother kinda of expressing her concern
to the father about what is happening and we find out a little bit about this world
she's saying she's worried about the nursery because XY and z.
and so we're able to see oh, okay
here's what's happening we're in a dystopian world,
the kids are playing with lions
okay we got that that's the exposition then the rising action happened
as we see the kids kind of playing in the
African veldt and we see the lions get a little bit feisty
things start to get a little bit
concerning the tone of the story is super spooky
so you know that builds up to
the climax when the mother and father
realize something in very very wrong and they bring in
the psychologist who kind of confirms this and says you have to turn the
nursery off you have to turn the entire house off
that's when you know there's a turning point and we realized it's too late
it's not going back they can't turn the house off
then the falling action happens when the parents go to try and get the kids out
and the kids are like, "yeah Mom and Dad, come on in!"
and the parents you know go on into the into the nursery into the veldt
and then
the conclusion is when the psychologist walks into the nursery and
sees the lions eating something
which is the parents so you can kind of see the arc of the story
where it's always
there some explanation some tension build
then there's the point of no return and then we get the conclusion of the story
and this works whether it's a six hundred-page novel
or like The Veldt which is like three page story
What is plot?
What does a plot look like?
"Run away!"