Chapter 5: Study Project on Plot

Many critics begin their interpretation of a story by outlining the story's plot. Plot can mean several things—the cause/effect relations between events, the general shape of a story's actions in time. It is useful, however, to work first with the most basic concept of plot as the events in a story in the order in which they appear. Listing events in their story order enables you to see how the story has used the difference between the chronology of events—how they would have taken place in time—and the order in which events are presented in a story. Rearrangements of events constitute part of a story's art.

Another important aspect of plot is what events are actually included as opposed to the material that the story implies. Because everything that appears in a story is a choice—is important in some way—it is useful to consider why the events that appear in a story appear.

Finally, plot does relate to our expectations about what happens in stories—expectations upon which stories play. We all have notions about what the proper course—or narrative—of events should be. We understand, for example, such plot shapes as poetic justice (someone gets what he/she deserves), irony (things are they opposite of what we expect them to be), or tragedy (something or someone is sacrificed for the greater good or because of an indifferent culture). Most stories are variations of these basic plot shapes and it is useful to see how stories alter and elaborate such plots.

Looking at plot, then, might begin with three activities:

1. listing events as they are presented in a story
2. determining the purposes for which plot elements are present
3. considering how the plot aligns with basic plot patterns with which we are familiar

1. Listing Plot Events

Plot consists of everything that happens in a story, including elements that are not part of other world of the story (diegesis). Let us use Mark Twain's "Story of the Bad Little Boy" as an example.

List the plot elements of the story and number them. Here are some hints about what might constitute a "plot element":

1. Any fact introduced by itself, such as a title.
2. Any event described in the story.
3. Any commentary or discussion of an event.

In Twain's story, listing plot elements is more difficult than we might think because the narrator includes much commentary on the shape of the story he narrates. In addition to listing plot elements, it is also useful to consider where each element occurs in time. To do this, it is a good idea to draw a time line:

Place a mark in the middle of the line to indicate the point in time where the narration of the story begins. Then locate each plot element in relation to the others on the story's time line. You will be able to see how the location of events in time may be different from the order in which events are told.

For example, in Twain's story, we might list the first few plot elements as follows:

1. Bad boys are always called "Jim"
2. Most bad boys have sick mothers (in all other stories)
3. Jim's mother was not sick and she spanked Jim to sleep and never kissed him good night and boxed his ears. This action is habitual, which means that it happens over and over again. 
4. Jim steals jam
5. Jim fills jar with tar
6. Jim doesn't feel remorse like all other bad boys in stories

Notice that the beginning point of the story is after the actions described, which means that the events of the story are in the past. This story has two kinds of past: the past of habit and convention (the way stories usually go) and the past of Jim's actions. Because habit and Jim's specific behavior are recounted together, they provide comparisons. Unlike most stories, however, Twain's story does not provide a sustained set of events through time. Instead the story consists of a series of smaller examples whose position in time is vague. What is important is not that there is no sustained cause/effect plot, but that the plot is as it is—a series of examples that contain comparisons between habit or convention and Jim's behavior. This tells us how this story works.

The relations among the elements of plot in Twain's story show us graphically why the elements are arranged as they are: to provide a comparison between convention and Jim's behavior in the telling of a story. Most stories are a bit easier than this one. Try listing the plot elements and locating them on a time line from one of the two London stories in this chapter.

In many stories events are recounted through flashback (analepsis) or flash-forward (prolepsis). It is important to note on your time line when these events occur out of the order of occurrence. You might then ask the following questions:

1. What did I learn from the analepsis or prolepsis?
2. Why was this shift in time included at this point in the plot?
3. What was the effect of this information?

2.

Purposes

Because stories present both expressed events (plot) and the conditions and events these imply, it is important to consider why the elements included are included. Why, for example, does Twain include several different examples of Jim's bad behavior?  Why doesn't the story include other events in Jim's life?  Answering these questions provides clues about what the story is interested in telling.

3.

Plot and Convention

Twain's story is about the difference between events and convention. It describes what we expect to happen and what "really" happens with Jim. Both sets of events are part of the story, and neither is more "real" than the other. But we do recognize Jim's behavior as more realistic and less "story"-like than other "bad" boys.

Twain's story itself plays on our expectations about the conventions of a story. We expect a story not to be conscious of story conventions, nor to make open comparisons between its observations and what we might expect.

Seeing the relation between what is recounted in a story and the ways we expect stories to go also tells us something important about what this story is doing. To discern this we might ask the following questions:

1. What do we expect to happen at the beginning of the story?  Why?
2. How does what happens in the story vary from what we expect?
3. What are the effects of that variation?

Putting It All Together

Considering all of the aspects of plot, what would you say "The Story of the Bad Little Boy" was about?