Structure
Zaya Tumur & Tania Hines
Structure
Structure: is the basic framework of the principles and the
patterns on which it is organized.
Example: The structure of a play may fall into logical divisions
and also a mechanical division of acts and scenes. Like Romeo
& Juliet is divided into acts and scenes. Groups of stories may
be set in a larger structure or frame, like The Canterbury
Tales, The Decameron, or The Arabian Tales.
In Medias Res
In Medias Res: the narrative relation of a story begins either
at the mid-point or at the conclusion, rather than at the
beginning, establishing setting, character, and conflict.
Example:
A murder story that starts after the person is murdered. The
story then gradually reveals how and why the murder took
place.
The effect of starting in the middle is that significant
questions and tension is created as the audience wonder
about what happened before. This also allows the
presentation of the story to start in the middle of exciting
action without having to explain why it happens beforehand.
Exposition
Exposition-allows the reader to understand the characters
and the events that have been introduced.
Example:
In the play the Piano Lesson, August Wilson uses
exposition by introducing the characters and events. He
introduces Boy Willie by his name, relation to the family,
and the scene he enters.
Flashback
Flashbacks: are scenes that takes the narrative back in time
from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are
often used to recount events that happened before the story's
primary sequence of events.
Example:
1. In the movie Twilight when Bella goes to her first day of
school, she compares it to her school in Scottsdale. The
movie flashes back to her attending school in Scottsdale.
2. In the novel Song of Solomon, when the novel flashes back
to the scene where Freddie catches Ruth breastfeeding Macon
Jr, we then find out how he developed his nickname Milkman.
Flashbacks are used to create suspense in a story, or develop
a character.
Narrative Pace
Narrative Pace: is when the author behind the characters
makes choices about the pace at which they tell a story
speeding/slowing down parts of a story.
Example: In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the narrator
devotes the first nine chapters to recounting her
childhood- her emotional abuse at the hands of her cruel
aunt and cousins, then the novel leaps over her remaining
years at the school. (slow narrative pace)
Parenthetical Observation
Parenthetical Observation: is a temporary interruption which
the character or the narrator reflects on a minor point that
seizes his attention.
Example: Hamlet’s love letter to Ophelia:
“ ‘To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most beatified
Ophelia’ – that’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase, ‘beautified’ is a
vile phrase. But you shall hear –”
Subplot
Subplot: are the secondary stories that parallel or contrast
with the main action.
Example: In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main
plot consists of Gatsby's attempt to gather the admiration of
his old love, Daisy but a subplot develops concerning the
romance of their friends, Nick Caraway and Jordan Baker.
In Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth, the main plot consists
of the romance between Neil, a twenty-something slacker,
and Brenda, a suburban princess, but a subplot develops
around an African-American child who loves art books and
who Neil observes at his job in the public library.
Shift in Style
Shift in Style: is a marked change in style of a work, usually
accompanied by an alteration in tone.
Example: “Lapis Lazuli,” William Yeat’s poem about the
consolation of art in the midst of tragedy, shifts style and
tone in each of its five stanzas. It begins with a mocking echo
of “hysterical women” then shifts to Shakespearean tragedy.