3 Chapter 3: Analyzing Plot Structure

Chapter 3: Analyzing Plot Structure

Plot is the basic skeleton of a work of fiction. It is the events recounted in a narrative and their artful manner of arrangement – their manner of sequencing. Plots can be linear, that is they proceed chronologically from the earliest events narrated to the latest; they can be circular, starting with an event, circling back in time to see how things have gotten to this juncture, and then ending with that same initial narrative event; they can begin in media res, that is, in the thick of the action, with the narrative then moving back in time to show how things got to this juncture and forward in time to take the narrative to its conclusion . . . What’s most important is not being able to slap one of these labels on a plot structure, but to be able to take critical account of how in shaping the narrative in this manner, the plot emphasizes or brings to the surface certain key ideas that the narrative as a whole is dealing with. Because this is what we are doing when we analyze plot: we break down what ideas are “put in play” by the deployment of narrative events. This is very different from simply summarizing (i.e. recapping the main events) of the plot. Summarizing is what one does in middle school when the teacher is trying to make sure the students have a basic level of reading comprehension; analysis entails a higher-order critical consideration of how ideas are implicitly being developed through the unfolding of narrative events. A brief example by way of a very well-known work of fiction will help to further cement this distinction between summary and analysis of plot. A summary of Aesop’s fable “The Tortoise and the Hare” would be: a turtle and a rabbit get in a race and the turtle wins because he tries hard consistently, whereas the rabbit takes a bunch of breaks and doesn’t steadily apply himself to the race. An analysis of how the plot of this story develops theme would be: the fable uses the narrative device of a race to compare the qualities of inherent talent vs. hard work, showing hard work to be the superior virtue because at the climax of the narrative the turtle, our narrative embodiment of hard work, wins the race. The theme (the subject of chapter 7) we derive from this analysis would be hard work and perseverance are better than inherent talent—or you might have learned the proverbial version of this in elementary school: “slow and steady wins the race.”

Another way of thinking about the difference between a summary and an analysis of plot is that a summary recounts what literally happened while an analysis moves from the literal, concrete, and particular to the abstract – it “translates” from narrative events to the ideas they express, from a race to reading the race as a vehicle for comparing two different forms of talent or virtue in the above example.

In order for there to be a plot, for there to be a story at all, there has to be some form of conflict driving the narrative. Narrative conflict is some sort of problem, clash, or issue in the world of the narrative impelling the overall narrative arc that comprises the story. It can be a character struggling with another character, a character struggling with their natural or social environment (such as to survive in a blizzard or to adapt to life in the cold-hearted big city), or a character struggling internally (such as making a decision whether to live for themself vs. sacrifice their needs and ambitions for the good of their hometown community). A conflict can be epic and grandiose, like the dynastic struggle at the heart of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) books or the Trojan War recounted in Homer’s The Iliad, or it can be relatively intimate and small-scale, like the story of a bus driver deciding whether to call in sick to work or not on a snowy day. Narrative conflict does not have to involve actual arguing or fighting between characters and in a longer work there may appear certain sub-conflicts that exist underneath the “umbrella” of the main narrative conflict—for instance, in Game of Thrones there are lots of smaller-scale struggles within and between individuals, armies, and families that comprise parts of the overarching conflict between different houses to rule over the kingdom. And again, conflict is that thing that drives the events of the story; with no conflict (“everything was fine and dandy and nothing transpired”), there is no story. When at a loss for how to begin analyzing a story, ask yourself what the central narrative conflict is and what ideas or issues the story puts out there in presenting this narrative conflict.

Conflict of course leads eventually to resolution – the problem or issue is worked out in some way shape or form. This does not have to be an unambiguous or “happy ending,” as in Hollywood movies. In a narrative of a poor village standing up to an abusive evil king, the conflict could be resolved by the king burning down the village and killing all of the villagers or by a plague sweeping through and killing everyone (everyone is dead, no more conflict). The moment in the narrative where something decisive happens that determines how the conflict will be resolved is the climax of the narrative. The climax does not have to be the most suspenseful or dramatic moments in the narrative—if there is a huge battle in our preceding hypothetical example between the villagers and the forces of the evil king, but the king manages to escape and then quietly poison the villagers in their sleep, the poisoning, not the battle, is the climax of the narrative, because it is the act that determines whether the king will stay in power or be deposed.

The aftermath of the climax, the sorting out or repercussions that occur in its wake as the resolution of the conflict plays out fully, is what we call the dénouement of the narrative. Dénouement means “unknotting” in French—the metaphor here is that a plot is like a complex system of knots and tangles, but something (the climax) occurs that allows for them to be untangled and sorted out in the denouement. Climax and denouement are very important to consider when analyzing plot because they always contain ideas about how individuals and societies (or the natural world or whatever realm or order of being the narrative is dealing with) work. In our example of the evil poisoning king above, the theme conveyed by the climax and denouement would be that what is most important in maintaining or struggling for power is not to be morally virtuous or the best in combat, but to be willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power (the king loses the battle but stays in power by underhandedly murdering his enemies – this is quite a Machiavellian theme and you probably aren’t particularly liking it right now). To give another example, in Kate Chopin’s story “The Storm,” two former flames randomly encounter each other during a thunderstorm and end up having an extramarital sexual encounter. The denouement of the narrative stresses that all of the aftereffects of this encounter are wholly positive –each character is happy and distressed and, as a result, the impact on their families is wholly positive. Thus Chopin’s story is saying that sex, even outside of the institution of marriage, can be a vehicle of liberation and release—it isn’t the bugbear of sin and guilt the conventional morality of Chopin’s late 19th-century world took it to be, especially in regards to women.

Another way to think of the structure of conflict and resolution that drives plots is thinking of narratives in terms of a movement from equilibrium to disequilibrium to equilibrium. There is some status quo, some order of the world, when the narrative begins, and it is thrown out of whack in some way, shape, or form (again, large or small). This state of disequilibrium then gets worked out in some fashion and we return to a state of equilibrium—possibly where we began, but more likely with some change to it, as in the case of the evil king who now has one less village worth of people to rule over. Again, the final equilibrium should not necessarily be equated with a happy ending (those are quite rare in literary fiction for various reasons)—a plague sweeping through, killing all of the characters, creates a new equilibrium, since everyone is dead and all the problems that previously existed in the narrative have been wiped off the table.

Plot is of course intimately bound up with the other formal elements or structures of fiction, particularly setting and character—a story has to take place somewhere and you need characters for most sorts of plot events to happen. The character who is the main center of narrative focus is referred to as the protagonist. Usually this is a single character, though in some instances we might have a collective protagonist, as in the story of a sports team that gives equal emphasis to the experiences of the different teammates. We might also, rarely, encounter a dual protagonist—two characters who lie equally at the heart of the narrative, as in the case of the two brothers whose story and relationship comprises the focus of James Baldwin’s story “Sonny’s Blues.” A protagonist is not necessarily a hero—saying a character is heroic is making a moral distinction, whereas saying they are the protagonist just means the narrative focuses primarily on them. In a novelization of Adolf Hitler’s life or the story of a serial killer, Hitler or the killer is the protagonist, regardless of what moral light the narrative casts on their actions. Most stories also have an antagonist—the narrative figure who causes problems for the protagonist. The antagonist can be another character, though it could also be some aspect of society like a particular social institution (the DMV or the financial industry) or element of the natural world (the ocean is the antagonist of Stephen Crane’s story “the Open Boat”). Again, note that an antagonist is not the same thing as a villain—if our story of the poor village vs. the evil king focuses primarily on the king, making him the narrative’s protagonist, then the village is the antagonist, regardless of how righteous we might take its cause to be.

Analyzing for plot requires us to not passively receive the narrative as recounted, to not get “lost in the story,” but to take a detached, critical approach to how it has been structured, to constantly ask what ideas are being explored through the events that make up the narrative and the ways that they have been arranged. This is obviously a different mode of engagement with narrative from our first experiences with stories in our early days of education and from the largely escapist way that mainstream society engages with narratives. But developing this capacity will make you a more reflective, critically aware consumer of narratives and a deeper thinker in general. To that end, as you read the story assigned in conjunction with this chapter, ask yourself constantly what ideas are being presented through the picture this story paints of its subject matter through its manner of constructing plot.

Suggested Short Story Readings to Accompany this Chapter

                Since all stories feature plot centrally, almost any work could be chosen to put an analysis of plot into practice. My personal preference is for fairly short works with singular, straightforward plot lines. I use Sandra Cisneros’s “Barbie-Q,” but there are many other works that fit the proverbial bill. I could even imagine a work where plot is conspicuous due to its minimalism, like in the work of Samuel Beckett, being pedagogically useful here.