The plot in literature - what is it? Development and plot elements in literature

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Modern literary theory offers several definitions of the concept of "plot". According to Ozhegov, the plot in literature is the order and connection of events. Ushakov's dictionary proposes to consider them a set of actions, the sequence and motivation for the deployment of what is happening in the work.

Relationship with the plot

In modern Russian criticism, the plot has a completely different definition. The plot in the literature is understood as the course of events, against which the confrontation is revealed. The plot is the main artistic conflict.

However, in the past there have been and continue to be other points of view on this issue. Russian critics of the middle of the 19th century, supported by Veselovsky and Gorky, considered the compositional side of the plot, that is, how the author communicates the content of his work. And the plot in literature is, in their opinion, the very development of the action and relationships of the characters.

This interpretation is directly opposite to that in Ushakov's dictionary, in which the plot is the content of events in their sequential connection.

Finally, there is a third point of view. Those who adhere to it believe that the concept of "plot" of an independentdoes not matter, and in the analysis it is quite enough to use the terms "plot", "composition" and "plot scheme".

Types and variants of product schemes

Modern analysts distinguish two main types of plot: chronicle and concentric. They differ from each other in the nature of the connections between events. The main factor, so to speak, is time. The chronic type reproduces its natural course. Concentric - no longer focuses on the physical, but on the mental.

The concentric plot in literature is detectives, thrillers, social and psychological novels, dramas. Chronicle is more common in memoirs, sagas, adventure works.

Concentric plot and its features

In the case of this type of course of events, a clear causal relationship of episodes can be traced. The development of the plot in the literature of this type is consistent and logical. Here it is easy to distinguish the tie and the denouement. Previous actions are the causes of subsequent ones, all events seem to be pulled together into one node. Writer explores one conflict.

Moreover, the work can be both linear and multilinear - the causal relationship is preserved just as clearly, moreover, any new storylines appear as a result of events that have already happened. All parts of a detective, thriller or story are built on a clearly expressed conflict.

Chronicle Story

It can be contrasted with concentric, although in fact there is not an opposite, butcompletely different principle of construction. These types of plots in literature can interpenetrate each other, but most often either one or the other is decisive.

Change of events in a work built according to the chronicle principle is tied to time. There may be no explicit plot, no strict logical causal relationship (or at least this relationship is not obvious).

Speech in such a work can be about many episodes, which have in common only that they happen in chronological order. A chronicle plot in literature is a multi-conflict and multi-component canvas, where contradictions arise and go out, one is replaced by another.

Start, climax, denouement

In the works, the plot of which is based on conflict, it is essentially a scheme, a formula. It can be divided into constituent parts. Plot elements in literature include exposition, opening, conflict, rising action, crisis, climax, falling action, and denouement.

Of course, not all of these elements are present in every work. More often you can meet several of them, for example, the plot, the conflict, the development of the action, the crisis, the climax and the denouement. On the other hand, how exactly the work is analyzed matters.

Exposition in this respect is the most static part. Her task is to introduce some of the characters and the setting of the action.

The opening describes one or more events that trigger the mainaction. The development of the plot in literature goes through conflict, growing action, crisis to climax. She is the peak of the work, playing a significant role in revealing the characters of the characters and in the development of the conflict. The denouement adds the finishing touches to the story told and to the characters of the characters.

In the literature, there is a certain scheme for constructing a plot, psychologically justified from the point of view of influencing the reader. Each element described has its place and meaning.

If the story does not fit into the scheme, it seems sluggish, incomprehensible, illogical. For a work to be interesting, for readers to empathize with the characters and delve into what is happening to them, everything in it must have its place and develop according to these psychological laws.

Plots of Old Russian literature

Ancient Russian literature, according to D. S. Likhachev, is "the literature of one theme and one plot." World history and the meaning of human life - these are the main, deep motives and themes of the writers of those times.

The plots of ancient Russian literature are revealed to us in the lives, epistles, walks (descriptions of travel), chronicles. The names of the authors of most of them are unknown. According to the time interval, the Old Russian group includes works written in the XI-XVII centuries.

Variety of contemporary literature

Attempts to classify and describe the plots used have been made more than once. In his book The Four Cycles, Jorge Luis Borgessuggested that there are only four types of them in world literature:

• about search;
• about the suicide of god;
• about a long return;
• about the assault and defense of the fortified city.

Christopher Booker identified seven: rags to riches (or vice versa), adventure, back and forth (this is where Tolkien's The Hobbit comes to mind), comedy, tragedy, resurrection, and victory over the monster. Georges Polti reduced the entire experience of world literature to 36 plot collisions, and Kipling singled out 69 of their variants.

Even specialists of another profile did not remain indifferent to this question. According to Carl Gustav Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, the main plots of literature are archetypal, and there are only six of them - the shadow, the anima, the animus, the mother, the old man and the child.

Folk Tale Index

The Aarne-Thompson-Uther system is perhaps the one that "highlighted" writers the most - it recognizes the existence of approximately 2500 options.

Speech, however, is about folklore. This system is a catalog, an index of fairy-tale plots known to science at the time of the compilation of this monumental work.

There is only one definition for the course of events. The plot in the literature of such a plan is as follows: “The persecuted stepdaughter is taken to the forest and thrown there. Baba Yaga, or Morozko, or Goblin, or 12 months, or Winter, test her and reward her. The stepmother's own daughter also wants to receive a gift, but she does not pass the test and dies.”

ActuallyAarne himself established no more than a thousand variants of the development of events in a fairy tale, however, he admitted the possibility of the emergence of new ones and left a place for them in his original classification. It was the first pointer that came into scientific use and was recognized by the majority. Subsequently, scientists from many countries made their additions to it.

In 2004, an edition of the handbook appeared, in which the descriptions of fabulous types were updated and made more accurate. This version of the pointer contained 250 new types.