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2. Complication 4. Falling action
______________ ______________
1. Exposition 5. Resolution
Beginning Middle End
In some novels this five-stage structure is repeated in many of the individual chapters, while the novel as a whole builds on a series of increasing conflicts and crises. Such a structure is found both in such classics of fiction as Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” and in the adventure thrillers of Alistar MacLean.
EXPOSITION: The exposition is the beginning section in which the author provides the necessary background information, sets the scene, establishes the situation, and dates the action. It may also introduce the characters and the conflict, or the potential for conflict. The exposition may be accomplished in a single sentence or paragraph, or, in the case of some novels, occupy an entire chapter or more. Some plots require more exposition than others. A historical novel set in a foreign country several centuries ago obviously needs to provide the reader with more background information than a novel with a contemporary setting.
COMPLICATION: The complication which is sometimes referred to as the rising action, breaks the existing equilibrium and introduces the characters and underlying or inciting conflict (if they have not already been introduced by the exposition). The conflict is then developed gradually and intensified.
CRISIS: The crisis (also referred to as the climax) is that moment at which the plot reaches its point of greatest emotional intensity; it is the turning point of the plot, directly precipitating its resolution.
FALLING ACTION: Once the crisis has been reached, the tension subsides and the plot moves toward its appointed conclusion.
RESOLUTION: The final section of the plot is its resolution; it records the outcome of the conflict and establishes some new equilibrium or stability (however tentative and momentary). The resolution is also referred to as the conclusion or the denoument, the latter a French word meaning “unknotting” or “untying”.
Although the terms exposition, complication, crisis, falling action and resolution are helpful in understanding the relationship among the parts of some kinds of narrative, all plots, unfortunately, do not lend themselves to such neat and exact formulations. Even when they do, it is not unusual for critics and readers to disagree among themselves about the precise nature of the conflict – whether, for example, the protagonist is more in conflict with society than he is with himself – or about where the major crisis, or turning point of the narrative actually occurs. Nor is there any special reason that the crisis should occur at or near the middle of the plot. It can, in fact, occur at any moment. In James Joyce’s “Araby” and in a number of the other companion stories in “Dubliners” the crisis – in the form of a sudden illumination that Joyce called an epiphany – occurs at the very end of the story, and the falling action and the resolution are dispensed with altogether. Exposition and complication can also be omitted in favour of a plot that begins in medias res (“in the midst of things”). In much modern and contemporary fiction the plot consists of a “slice of life” into which we enter on the eve of crisis, and the reader is left to infer beginnings and antecedents – including the precise nature of the conflict – from what he or she is subsequently able to learn. Some stories are sometimes referred to as “plotless” in order to suggest that the author’s emphasis and interest have been shifted elsewhere, most frequently to character or idea.
Understanding a plot on a schematic level becomes even more difficult when dealing with works, usually novels, that have more than one plot. Many novels contain one or more subplots that reinforce by contrast or parallel the main plot. Some novels even contain a double plot, as in Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair”, where we are asked to follow the careers of both the selfish adventuress Becky Sharp and the innocent, good-hearted Amelia Sedley. As Amelia’s fortunes sink, Becky’s rise; then follows a reversal in which Amelia’s rise is paralleled by Becky’s slow but inevitable decline.
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