英美小说要素解析

Plot: A Sequence of Interrelated Actions or Events. Plot, or the structure of action, it generally refers to the scheme or pattern of events in a work of fiction. A plot is a plan or groundwork for a story, based on conflicting human motivations, with the actions resulting from believable and realistic human response.

Types of Conflict:①External Conflict: Man and nature, man and society, and man and man.②Internal Conflict: It focuses on two or more elements contesting within the protagonist’s own character.

Exposition(情节交代): It is where everything is introduced is the beginning section in which the author provides the necessary background information, sets and scene, establishes the situation, and dates the action. It usually introduces the characters and the conflict, or at least the potential for conflict.

Complication(纠葛): Which is sometimes referred to as the rising action, develops and intensifies the conflict. The rising action(起始行动) is when things begin to escalate. It takes the reader from the exposition and leads them towards the climax. This part tends to be dramatic and suspenseful.

Climax(高潮)：When you finally take a breath after holding it in suspense. This is the most emotional part of the book.

Crisis(关子)：It( 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 the resolution. It is the reversal or” turning point”.

Falling action(下降行动)：Once the crisis, or turning point, has been reached, the tension subsides and the plot moves toward its conclusion. It is when everything tends to slow down, and the climax is over.

Resolution(冲突解开)：It is the final section of the plot which records the outcome of the conflict and establishes some new equilibrium. The resolution is also referred to as the conclusion, the end or the denouement. This is the final part of the story when everything is wrapped up. Sometimes the story is finished off completely, answering every reader's question. Sometimes authors leave mysterious, to intrigue the reader. Or sometimes authors leave hints of a sequel.

Catastrophe: Applied to tragedy only.

Denouement：Applied to both comedy and tragedy.

The ordering of plot—Chronological plotting—Flashback: It is interpolated narratives or scenes( often justified, or naturalized, as a memory, a reverie, or a confession by one of the characters) which represent events that happened before the time at which the work opened.

Character：They are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with particular moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by inferences from what the persons say and their distinctive ways of saying it –the dialogue—and from what they do—the action. A character may remain essentially“stable,”or unchanged in outlook and disposition, from beginning to end of a work, or may undergo a radical change, either through a gradual process of development, or as the result of a crisis. Whether a character remains stable or changes, the reader of a traditional and realistic work expects “consistency”--- ---the character should not suddenly break off and act in a way not plausibly grounded in his