The occurrences that arise in a story are arranged into an ordered series called the plot, as we saw earlier (blog-2). Whether the plot of a novel or short story is straightforward or complicated, its source is typically some sort of conflict: the characters may be hostile to each other or to the situations they find themselves in, or they may have to overcome internal disputes. This is the creation of the confrontation they are dealing with that pushes the characters along from one event to the next, which decides the role they play in the plot.
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| In this typical comic episode from the Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio, an errant wife outwits her husband, who has locked her out of the house, by dropping a stone into a well. The splash makes him think she has jumped in. The Decameron consists of 100 tales (many based on folk stories) which vary from high tragedy to broad satire. They are set in a narrative framework: Seven Florentine ladies and three men, fleeing the plague of 1348, retire to the country and pass the time by telling stories. Similar devices link tales in such collections as the Arabian Nights. |
The simplest kind of story describes events in the order they occur. For eg, there are episodic plots of this kind in both the French novel Gil Blas by René Lesage (1668-1747) and Robinson Crusoe by the English writer Daniel Defoe (around 1659-1731); they describe a series of adventures experienced by one main individual.
The concept of cause and effect is the basis of more complex plots: when one thing happens, another is done, not one thing does, and then another. In Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1876) (blog -6), a philandering brother of the married heroine invites her to Moscow to help reconcile his wife with him. Ironically, Anna's arrival precipitates her own disastrous love affair.
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| Map from the first edition of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719). It shows some of the most important episodes in the plot-how Crusoe is shipwrecked on the desert island, clashes with cannibals, and is rescued after being marooned for 28 years. |
Instances with very complicated narrative constructs are presented in stories with the main plot and one or more subplots, both adding to the story's outcome. For example, in Vanity Fair (1848) by the English writer William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63), the heroine Becky Sharp's life is tied to Amelia Sedley's fortunes and her family.
During the 19th century, as novelists mostly published in newspapers for serial publishing, their stories had to be formed into different installments. Each had to be complete in its own right, and preferably end with the kind of climax that suggests further excitement for the next chapter to come. In this way, English novelists such as Dickens (blog-6), Wilkie Collins (1824-89), and Charles Reade (1814-84) have written several novels; the rambling, involving a plot of Dickens' Bleak House (1852-53), for example, shows strong indications.
Short-story plots (blog -6) are typically distinct from those in novels as they only have one central point in concern. So the plot has to relate all of the stories to this level. The Russian author Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) in his popular short story, The Queen of Spades, tells of a poor gambler who seeks to learn the key of success from an elderly countess at cards. While the narrative spans a long span of time, the whole tale is kept within a narrow structure, as the storyline mainly focuses on the fixation of the gambler and removes any unnecessary activity.
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| The cover of one 1864 installment of Charles Dickens's famous novel Oliver Twist. The hero's adventures are traced from his release from the workhouse to the downfall of the various criminals who exploited him. |
Modern novelists have always considered the construction of a plot irksome because its requirements can lead to a distortion of character and undermine the impression of fact. Some of the most detailed efforts yet made to dispense with conventional narrative types are to be found in Ulysses (1922), by James Joyce (blog 6); and in Mrs. Dalloway (1925), by the English writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). Both deal within a single day with the lives of a very limited number of characters. Yet while the "normal" storyline has largely vanished, and the "stream-of-consciousness" flow of the feelings, moods, and emotions of characters still remains the most significant aspect, form, and pattern. For instance, Joyce creates the structure of his novel by basing every single episode, albeit remotely, on a similar episode in Homer's Odyssey (blog-10). Virginia Woolf establishes a kind of pattern by sharing common experiences with her characters, such as watching the same airplane in the sky or hearing a city clock chiming.
But for the conventional plot, as found in novels from the 18th and 19th centuries, there is still plenty to be said, simplistic and tedious as it always was. In the works of Fielding, Scott, Balzac, and Dickens we can see how these plots — sometimes far fetched when analyzed closely — allowed the novelist to display a broad comparison of a setting, social status, and ways of living in a single tale.
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