Fabula and Sjuzjet
'Fabula' and 'Sjuzjet' are the two terms in Russian Formalism it is used to explain the
distinction between a story and its plot, that is, between the story told and the imaginative
way in which that story is actually narrated. The term 'fabula' refers to the chronological
order in which events in a story occur: the timeline. The'sjuet' refers to the order in which the
author chooses to relate the events, which we can call the storyline or plot. The fabula is a
chronological telling of all the events that might be relevant to the story; on the other hand,
the sjužett is a creation of the author, who can pick and choose and rearrange.
In Fabula the theme is manifested with loose cause-effect relationship, on the other hand,
Sjuzjet is the systematic organization of events. For example, ‘The king died and queen died’
is Fabula but when the writer gives his readers the details of this story in a systematic way
this is its Sjuzjet. In the Sjuzjet the writer links the events and makes it more logical and
complex. For any text both Fabula and Sjuzjet are important the former provides the raw
materials to the later and the later makes a text more logical and psychologically more
complex.