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!"