Topic Four (1.4): Plot

Introduction Icon.png Introduction

If ‘narrative’ refers to a story, then ‘plot’ refers to the structure of that story, i.e. how events are arranged and delivered by the writer. The story itself may be chronological, but the plot of the text may not be. A writer may start at the end, or halfway through and then use flashbacks or flashforwards to draw the reader in. They may use multiple plot strands and link them together later on or may follow a simple, linear plot. In this topic, you will consider the various elements of structure that make up the plot of a text. This will be useful for analysing unseen texts, but also when you study Small Island in the next module.

Read & Make Notes Icon.png Read and Make Notes

  • Read Chapter Four, ‘Plot’ on pages 43 to 54 in Mastering English Literature and make careful notes.
  • Note that when you are analysing an unseen passage, you will not have access to the whole of a prose text, so cannot always comment on all of these elements, but you may still be able to comment on some of these features.
  • This material will be useful when studying Small Island later on, so you may wish to return to this topic.

Skills Icon.png Task

The following website breaks down plot in more detail and gives examples from a range of texts. Read it and add to your notes.

READ – Plot (Literary Devices) Links to an external site.

Glossary Icon.png Terminology

Make sure you understand any new literary terminology covered in this topic. You may like to make flashcards of key terms now, to help you with revision later on.