(Adapted

 from  Perrine’s  Literature:  Structure,  Sound,  and  Sense)  

 
Section  2:  Plot  and  Structure  
 
What  is  plot?  
 
-­‐the  sequence  of  incidents  or  events  through  which  an  author  constructs  a  story  
 
-­‐When  described  in  isolation,  the  plot  bears  about  the  same  relationship  to  a  story  that  a  
map  does  to  a  journey.          
 
-­‐A  plot  summary  may  include  what  characters  say  or  think,  as  well  as  what  they  do,  
but  it  leaves  out  description  and  analysis,  concentrating  primarily  on  major  
events.    
 
-­‐Plot  should  NOT  be  confused  with  the  content  of  the  work.    The  plot  is  NOT  the  
action  itself,  but  the  way  the  author  arranges  the  action  toward  a  specific  end.  
 
-­‐In  commercial  fiction,  the  plot  may  include  many  surprising  twists  and  turns  and  a  
culminating,  climactic  incident.  
 
-­‐Because  the  primary  goal  is  to  keep  the  reader  turning  the  pages,  a  
commercial  author  is  likely  to  use  a  fairly  conventional  structure  in  arranging  
the  plot  elements.  
 
(Structure:  the  sequential  arrangement  of  plot  elements  in  fiction  and  drama)  
 
-­‐The  story  may  follow  a  standard  chronology,  for  instance,  and  may  employ  
familiar  structural  patterns.    
 
“The  Most  Dangerous  Game”  
 
-­‐chronological  structure  
 
-­‐three-­‐part  sequence  in  narrating  Rainsford’s  attempts  to  entrap  general  Zaroff:  
 
-­‐first  he  tries  the  Malay  man-­‐catcher,  and  fails  
-­‐the  he  tries  the  Burmese  tiger  pit,  and  fails  
-­‐but  on  the  third  try,  with  the  “Native  trick”  he  learned  in  Uganda,  he  manages  
to  kill  Ivan  and  ultimately  outwit  Zaroff.      
 
This  is  a  structural  tactic  as  old  as  the  story  of  Goldilocks  and  the  Three  Bears.  
 
 
 
 In  contrast.  .  .  
 
“Hunters  in  the  Snow”  
 
-­‐  plot  structure  is  more  experimental  and  unpredictable,  taking  unexpected  
excursions  into  the  minds  of  all  three  characters  
 
-­‐for  a  literary  writer,  a  complex  structure  is  often  required  to  convey  complex  
meanings  
 
-­‐In  Wolff’s  story,  the  significance  of  the  action  is  more  important  than  the  
action  itself,  and  subtle  exchanges  of  words  among  characters  may  be  just  as  
significant  as  the  more  action-­‐oriented  sequences  of  the  hunting  expeditions.    
 
 
Defining  Conflict  
 
Generally  speaking,  both  the  surface  excitement  required  in  commercial  fiction  and  the  
significant  meaning  found  in  literary  fiction  arise  out  of  some  sort  of.  .  .  
 
.  .  .Conflict  –  a  clash  of  actions,  ideas,  desires,  or  wills.  
 
-­‐conflict  of  person  against  person  (when  characters  are  pitted  against  some  
other  person  or  group  of  persons)  
 
-­‐conflict  of  person  against  environment  (some  external  force  –  physical  nature,  
society,  “fate”)  
 
-­‐conflict  of  person  against  himself  or  herself  (some  element  in  their  own  
nature)  
 
In  any  of  these  cases,  the  conflict  may  be  physical,  mental,  emotional,  or  moral.      
 
The  central  character  in  a  conflict,  whether  sympathetic  or  unsympathetic  as  a  person  is  
called  the  protagonist  (preferable  to  the  popular,  but  ambiguous  terms  “hero”  and  
“heroine”  –  the  protagonist  is  simply  the  central  character,  whereas  the  other  terms  imply  
that  the  character  has  heroic  qualities,  which  is  often  not  the  case)  
 
Any  force  arranged  against  the  protagonist  –  whether  persons,  things,  conventions  of  
society,  or  the  protagonist’s  own  character  traits  –  is  the  antagonist.      
 
-­‐In  some  stories,  the  conflict  is  single,  clear-­‐cut,  and  easily  identifiable.    In  others,  it  is  
multiple,  various,  and  subtle.  
 
 -­‐A  person  may  be  in  conflict  with  other  individuals,  with  social  norms  or  nature,  
and  with  herself  or  himself  all  at  the  same  time,  and  sometimes  may  be  involved  
in  conflict  without  being  aware  of  it.  
 
“The  Most  Dangerous  Game”  illustrates  most  of  these  kinds  of  conflict.  
 
-­‐Rainsford,  the  protagonist,  is  pitted  first  against  other  men  –  against  Whitney  
and  General  Zaroff  in  the  discussions  preceding  the  manhunt,  against  Zaroff  and  
Ivan  during  the  manhunt.  
 
-­‐Early  in  the  story,  he  is  pitted  against  nature  when  he  falls  into  the  sea  and  
cannot  get  back  to  the  yacht.      
 
-­‐At  the  beginning  of  the  manhunt,  he  is  in  conflict  with  himself  when  he  tries  to  
fight  off  the  panic  by  repeating  to  himself,  “I  must  keep  my  nerve.    I  must  keep  my  
nerve.”  
 
-­‐The  various  conflicts  illuminated  in  this  story  are  physical  (Rainsford  against  the  
sea  and  Zaroff),  mental  (Rainsford’s  initial  conflict  of  ideas  with  Whitney  and  his  
battle  of  wits,  with  Zaroff  during  the  manhunt,  which  Zaroff  refers  to  as  “outdoor  
chess”),  emotional  (Rainsford’s  efforts  to  control  his  terror),  and  moral  (Rainsford’s  
refusal  to  “condone  cold-­‐blooded  murder,”  in  contrast  to  Zaroff’s  contempt  for  
“romantic  ideas  about  the  value  of  human  life”).  
 
-­‐Excellent  literary  fiction  has  been  written  utilizing  all  four  of  these  major  
kinds  of  conflict.    
 
Much  commercial  fiction,  however,  emphasizes  only  the  confrontation  
between  man  and  man,  depending  on  the  element  of  physical  conflict  to  supply  
the  primary  excitement.  
 
For  instance,  it  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  western  story  without  a  fistfight  or  a  
gunfight.      
 
Even  in  the  most  formulaic  kinds  of  fiction,  however,  something  more  will  be  found  
than  mere  physical  action.      
 
-­‐Good  people  will  be  arrayed  against  bad  ones,  thus  making  the  conflict  also  between  
moral  values    
 
-­‐In  commercial  fiction,  this  conflict  is  often  clearly  defined  in  terms  of  moral  
absolutes:  the  “good  guy”  versus  the  “bad  guy”    (see  Dracula).  
 
 
 
 -­‐In  literary  fiction,  the  contrasts  are  usually  less  distinct.      
 
-­‐Good  may  be  opposed  to  good,  or  half-­‐truth  to  half-­‐truth  
 
-­‐There  may  be  difficulty  in  determining  what  is  good  or  bad,  causing  internal  
conflict  rather  than  physical  confrontation.  
 
In  the  real  world,  of  course,  significant  moral  issues  are  seldom  sharply  defined  –  
judgments  are  difficult,  and  choices  are  complex  rather  than  simple.      
 
Literary  writers  are  more  concerned  with  displaying  its  various  shadings  of  moral  values  
than  with  presenting  glaring,  simplistic  contrasts  of  good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong.  
 
 
Suspense,  Mystery,  and  Dilemma  
 
Suspense  is  the  quality  in  a  story  that  makes  readers  ask  “What’s  going  to  happen  
next?”  or  “How  will  this  turn  out?”  –  It  is  part  of  what  can  compel  us  to  keep  reading.  
 
Suspense  increases  when  a  reader’s  curiosity  is  combined  with  anxiety  about  the  
fate  of  a  likeable,  sympathetic  character.      
 
  See  old  serial  movies  (“cliff-­‐hangers”)  and  murder  mysteries  (“whodunits”)    
 
In  more  literary  forms  of  fiction  the  suspense  often  involves  not  so  much  the  
question  what  as  the  question  why  –  not  “What  will  happen  next?”  but  “Why  is  the  
protagonist  behaving  this  way?  How  is  the  protagonist’s  behavior  to  be  explained  
in  terms  of  human  personality  and  character?”  
 
Forms  of  suspense  range  from  crude  to  subtle  and  may  involve  not  only  actions  
but  psychological  considerations  and  moral  issues  as  well.    
 
Writers  use  two  common  devices  to  create  suspense:  
 
(an  element  of)  mystery  –  an  unusual  set  of  circumstances  for  which  the  reader  
craves  an  explanation  
 
or  they  place  the  protagonist  in  a  
 
dilemma  –  a  position  in  which  he  or  she  must  choose  between  two  courses  of  action,  
both  undesirable  
 
In  “The  Most  Dangerous  Game,”  the  author  initiates  suspense  in  the  opening  
sentences  with  Whitney’s  account  of  the  mystery  of  “Ship-­‐Trap  Island,”  of  which  sailors  
have  “a  curious  dread.”  
The  mystery  grows  when,  in  this  out-­‐of-­‐the-­‐way  spot,  Rainsford  discovers  an  enormous  
chateau  with  a  leering  gargoyle  knocker  on  its  massive  door  and  confronts  a  bearded  
giant  pointing  a  long-­‐barreled  revolver  straight  at  his  heart.    
 
Connell  introduces  a  second  mystery  when  General  Zaroff  tells  Rainsford  that  he  hunts  
“more  dangerous  game”  on  the  island  that  the  cape  buffalo  
 
He  then  frustrates  Rainsford’s  (and  the  reader’s)  curiosity  for  some  thirty-­‐six  
paragraphs  before  revealing  what  the  game  is.      
 
Meanwhile,  by  placing  the  protagonist  in  physical  danger,  Connell  introduces  a  second  
kind  of  suspense.      
 
Initiated  by  Rainsford’s  fall  into  the  sea  and  his  confrontation  with  Ivan,  this  second  
kind  becomes  the  principal  source  of  suspense  in  the  second  half  of  the  story.      
 
  Simply  put,  the  issues  of  whether  Rainsford  will  escape  and  how  he  will  
escape  are  what  keep  the  reader  absorbed  in  the  story.  
 
The  manhunt  itself  begins  with  a  dilemma.    Rainsford  must  choose  among  three  
undesirable  courses  of  action:  he  can  hunt  men  with  Zaroff;  he  can  let  himself  be  
hunted;  or  he  can  submit  to  a  presumably  torturous  death  at  the  hands  of  Ivan.    
 
During  the  hunt  he  is  faced  with  other  dilemmas:  
 
On  the  third  day,  pursued  by  Zaroff’s  hounds,  “Rainsford  knew  he  could  do  
one  of  two  things.    He  could  stay  where  he  was  and  wait.    That  was  suicide.    
He  could  flee.    That  was  postponing  the  inevitable.”  
 
Suspense  is  usually  the  most  important  criterion  for  good  commercial  fiction;  unless  
a  story  makes  us  want  to  keep  reading,  it  can  have  little  merit.    
 
In  literary  fiction,  however,  suspense  is  less  important  than  other  elements  the  
author  uses  to  engage  the  reader’s  interest:    such  a  story  may  be  amusing,  well  
written,  morally  penetrating,  peopled  by  intriguing  characters;  or  it  may  feature  
some  combination  of  all  these  elements.    
 
One  test  of  a  literary  story  is  to  determine  whether  it  creates  a  desire  to  read  it  
again.      
 
-­‐Like  a  play  by  Shakespeare,  a  successful  literary  story  should  create  an  even  
richer  reading  experience  on  the  second  or  third  encounter  –  even  though  we  
already  know  what  is  going  to  happen  –  than  on  a  first  reading.    
 
-­‐By  contrast,  when  an  author  creates  suspense  artificially  –  by  the  simple  
withholding  of  vital  information,  for  instance  –  readers  will  feel  that  the  
 author’s  purpose  is  simply  to  keep  them  guessing  what  will  happen  next,  not  to  
reveal  some  insight  into  human  experience.    
 
Either  a  commercial  or  a  literary  story  could  be  written,  for  example,  
about  a  man  on  the  seventeenth-­‐story  window  ledge;  but  the  literary  
story  would  focus  less  upon  whether  the  man  will  jump  than  upon  the  
psychological  factors  and  life  experiences  that  brought  him  to  the  ledge  
in  the  first  place.    
 
The  commercial  story  will  keep  us  asking  “What  happens  next?”    but  
the  literary  story  will  make  us  wonder  “Why  do  things  happen  as  they  
do?”  or  “What  is  the  significance  of  this  event?”  
 
Types  of  Endings    
 
1.    the  surprise  ending  
 
The  element  of  surprise  is  very  closely  related  to  suspense.  
 
If  we  know  ahead  of  time  exactly  what  is  going  to  happen  in  a  story  and  why,  
there  can  be  no  suspense;  as  long  as  we  do  not  know,  whatever  happens  
comes  with  an  element  of  surprise.      
 
The  surprise  is  proportional  to  the  unexpectedness  of  what  happens.    It  
becomes  pronounced  when  the  story  departs  radically  from  what  we  expect  
to  happen  in  the  story.      
 
A  surprise  ending  is  one  that  features  a  sudden,  unexpected  turn  or  twist.  
 
See  Kate  Chopin’s  The  Story  of  an  Hour  for  an  example  of  this.        
 
 
Commercial  fiction  tends  to  more  frequently  feature  a  surprise  ending  than  does  
literary  fiction.    In  either  type,  however,  there  are  two  ways  by  which  the  legitimacy  
and  value  of  a  surprise  ending  may  be  judged:  
 
1.    By  the  fairness  with  which  the  surprise  is  achieved  
 
2.    By  the  purpose  that  it  serves  
 
If  the  surprise  is  contrived  through  an  improbable  coincidence  or  series  of  
coincidences,  or  by  the  planting  of  false  clues,  or  through  the  arbitrary  
withholding  of  information,  then  we  may  well  dismiss  it  as  a  cheap  trick.    It  may  
be  judged  as  trivial  if  it  exists  for  its  own  sake  –  to  shock  the  reader.  
We  will  consider  the  surprise  ending  justified,  however,  when  it  serves  to  broaden  or  
to  reinforce  the  meaning  of  the  story.  
 
In  literary  fiction,  the  surprise  is  one  that  furnishes  meaningful  illumination,  
not  just  a  reversal  of  expectation.      
 
2.    the  happy  ending  
 
  -­‐one  in  which  events  turn  out  well  for  a  sympathetic  protagonist  
 
    Everyone  lives  “happily  ever  after”  (see  Dracula)  
 
A  common  obstacle  confronting  readers  who  are  making  their  first  attempt  to  enjoy  
literary  fiction  is  that  such  fiction  often  (though  certainly  not  always)  ends  
unhappily.  
 
Two  justifications  may  be  made  for.  .  .    
 
3.    the  unhappy  ending  
 
  -­‐one  that  turns  out  unhappily  for  a  sympathetic  protagonist  
 
First,  many  situations  in  real  life  do  have  unpleasant  outcomes;  therefore,  if  fiction  is  
to  reflect  and  illuminate  life,  it  must  acknowledge  human  defeats  as  well  as  triumphs.      
 
Commercial  writers  of  sports  fiction  usually  write  of  how  an  individual  or  
team  achieves  victory  against  formidable  odds.  
 
Yet  if  one  team  wins  the  pennant,  thirteen  others  must  lose  it.  
 
In  situations  like  these,  success  is  much  less  frequent  than  failure.      
 
Varying  the  formula,  a  sports  writer  might  tell  how  an  individual  lost  the  game  but  
learned  some  important  moral  lesson  (i.e.  the  importance  of  fair  play).  
 
But  here  again,  in  real  life,  people  achieve  such  compensations  only  occasionally.    
Defeat,  in  fact,  sometimes  embitters  people  and  makes  them  less  able  to  cope  with  
life  than  before.    Thus  we  need  to  understand  and  perhaps  expect  defeat  as  well  as  
victory.    
 
Second,  the  unhappy  ending  forces  us  to  ponder  the  complexities  of  life.  
 
The  story  with  a  happy  ending  has  been  “wrapped  up”  for  us:  it  sends  the  reader  
away  feeling  pleasantly  and  vaguely  satisfied  with  the  world,  and  it  requires  no  
further  thought.  
 The  unhappy  ending  on  the  other  hand,  may  cause  readers  to  brood  over  the  
outcome,  to  relive  the  story  in  their  minds,  and  by  searching  out  its  implications  to  
get  much  more  meaning  and  significance  from  it.    
 
We  can  see  deeper  into  life  when  it  is  pried  open  for  inspection.    The  unhappy  
ending  is  also  more  likely  to  raise  significant  issues.      
 
The  ending  of  “The  Most  Dangerous  Game”  resolves  all  our  anxieties,  but  the  
ending  of  “Hunters  in  the  Snow”  forces  us  to  think  about  the  mysteries  and  
contradictions  of  human  nature.  
 
Readers  of  literary  fiction  evaluate  an  ending  not  by  whether  it  is  happy  or  unhappy,  
but  by  whether  it  is  logical  within  the  story’s  own  terms  and  whether  it  affords  a  full,  
believable  revelation.    An  ending  that  meets  these  tests  can  be  profoundly  satisfying,  
whether  happy  or  unhappy.  
 
In  fact,  some  artistically  satisfying  stories  have  no  ending  at  all  in  the  sense  that  the  
central  conflict  is  resolved  in  favor  of  the  protagonist  or  antagonist.    In  real  life  some  
problems  are  never  solved  and  some  battles  never  permanently  won.  
 
A  story  may  therefore  have  .  .  .  
 
 
4.    an  indeterminate  ending  
 
  -­‐One  in  which  no  definitive  conclusion  is  reached  
 
There  must  be  some  kind  of  conclusion,  of  course;  a  story,  which  must  have  artistic  
unity,  cannot  simply  stop.    But  the  conclusion  need  not  be  in  terms  of  a  resolved  
conflict.  
 
We  cannot  be  sure  whether  Tub  and  Frank  in  “Hunters  in  the  Snow”  will  
maintain  their  alliance,  or  what  the  ultimate  fate  of  their  “friendship”  might  
be.    But  the  story  is  more  effective  without  a  definite  resolution,  for  it  leaves  
us  to  ponder  the  complex  psychological  dynamics  that  operate  within  human  
relationships.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Additional  Terms  
 
Artistic  Unity    
 
That  condition  of  a  successful  literary  work  whereby  all  its  elements  work  
together  for  the  achievement  of  its  central  purpose.      
 
In  an  artistically  unified  work  nothing  is  included  that  is  irrelevant  to  the  
central  purpose,  nothing  is  omitted  that  is  essential  to  it,  and  the  parts  are  
arranged  in  the  most  effective  order  for  the  achievement  of  that  purpose.  
 
Keep  in  mind  that  the  most  effective  order  does  not  necessarily  refer  to  
chronological  order  (see  Catch-­‐22)  
 
Chronological  or  otherwise,  in  a  carefully  unified  story,  each  event  grows  out  of  
the  preceding  one  and  leads  logically  to  the  next.    The  author  links  scenes  
together  in  a  chain  of  cause  and  effect.    
 
Plot  Manipulation  
 
An  author  who  includes  a  turn  in  the  plot  that  is  unjustified  by  the  situation  for  
the  characters  is  indulging  in  plot  manipulation.  
 
-­‐An  unmotivated  action  is  one  instance  
 
-­‐A  plot’s  overreliance  on  chance  or  on  coincidence  is  another  
 
deus  ex  machina  (Latin:  “god  from  a  machine”)  
 
Named  for  the  practice  of  some  ancient  Greek  dramatists  in  having  a  god  
descend  from  heaven  at  the  last  minute  (presented  in  the  theater  by  means  of  a  
mechanical  stage  device)  to  rescue  the  protagonist  from  some  impossible  
situation.  
 
It  worked  at  the  time  for  its  purpose,  but  is  seldom  convincing  in  fiction.  
 
The  action  should  grow  organically  out  of  the  plot  rather  than  with  an  
arbitrary,  chance  resolution  for  which  the  author  has  laid  no  groundwork  
earlier  in  the  story.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
Chance  and  Coincidence  
 
Chance  cannot  be  barred  from  fiction,  of  course,  any  more  than  it  can  be  
barred  from  life;  the  same  is  true  of  coincidence.      
 
But  if  an  author  uses  an  improbable  chance  event  to  resolve  a  story,  the  story  
loses  its  sense  of  conviction  and  thus  its  power  to  move  the  reader.  
 
Coincidence  may  justifiably  be  used  to  initiate  a  story,  and  occasionally  to  
complicate  it,  but  not  to  resolve  it.      
 
In  life,  almost  any  sequence  of  events  is  possible;  but  in  a  story  the  sequence  
must  be  plausible  in  order  to  convince  and  hold  the  reader.      
 
 
Lastly,  a  word  about  plot  analysis.  .  .  
 
There  are  various  approaches  to  the  analysis  of  plot.    We  can  draw  diagrams  of  
different  kinds  of  plots  or  trace  the  development  of  rising  action,  climax,  and  
falling  action.  
 
Tracing  such  structural  patterns,  however,  if  they  are  concerned  only  with  examining  
the  plot  in  isolation,  will  not  take  us  very  far  into  the  story.  
 
A  more  profitable  approach  is  to  consider  the  function  of  plot  in  trying  to  understand  
the  relationship  of  each  incident  to  the  larger  meaning  of  the  story.    In  literary  
fiction  it  is  important  for  what  it  reveals.  
 
Analyzing  a  story  by  focusing  on  its  central  conflict  may  be  especially  fruitful,  for  this  
quickly  takes  the  reader  to  the  primary  issue  in  the  story.      
 
In  evaluating  fiction  for  its  quality,  it  is  useful  to  examine  the  way  incidents  and  
scenes  are  connected  as  a  way  of  testing  the  story’s  plausibility  and  unity.      
 
In  any  good  story,  plot  is  inextricable  from  other  elements  of  fiction  to  be  considered  
in  upcoming  sections.    It  provides  a  kind  of  map,  or  guide,  but  it  cannot  serve  as  a  
substitute  for  the  reader’s  journey  into  the  author’s  fictional  landscape.    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Works  Cited  
 
Arp,  Thomas  R.,  and  Greg  Johnson.  Perrine’s  Literature:  Structure,  Sound  &  Sense.  11th  

ed.    Boston:  Wadsworth,  2012.  Print.