Stories are composed of plot and character, among other elements. In fiction, the response of events demonstrates character and propels plot. This means that for a story to be believable, the character must take a single drive to explore what the author intends to achieve. Aristotle in The Poetics states that tragedy is “an imitation of an action, and the persons employed in that action being necessarily characterized by their manner and their sentiments, since it is from these that actions themselves derive their character, it follow that there must also be manner and sentiments as the two causes of action”(part2:14). Hence a study of a literary text reveals the proximal symbiotic relationship between plot and character as one can not exist without the other. This study sets out to evaluate the interrelationship of plot and character in Guy de Maupassant “The Necklace”.
Plot maybe described as a sequential arrangement of the events of a story which forms the structure in which other elements such as language, setting, spectacle, music, and character are contained therein. Klarar defines plot as “the logical interaction of the various thematic elements of a texts which leads to a change of the original situation as presented at the onset of the narrative”(15). On his part, Abrams sees plot as “a dramatic narrative work; it is constituted by its events and actions which are rendered toward achieving a particular artistic emotional effect” (233). Hearwrite is of the view that “plot is the problem that the character has to solve, followed by further obstacle as he begins to solve section of plot”(par3). Neil and Sarah state that “plot is the writer’s organization of interconnected events in a play, a story which build up the overall storyline” (127). Wikipedia on the other hand, defines plot as “a literary term for the events a story comprises, a sequence, through cause and effect or by coincidence” (par1). To Aristotle, of the elements of drama “the most important is the combination of incidents or the fable” (15). He referred to the fable as plot. Thus, plot is the melting pot of other elements in a story because the plot brings other elements to reality.
Characters are the living entities, humans or animals that an author employs to convey the events of a story. Events, happenings and actions do not just happen on their own; they must be propelled by a force which comes from the living entities undertaking them. This means that conventionally and in normal circumstance every action and event is the handy work of a particular person engineering it. Therefore, it is the human person or such animal characters that an author may decide to use like in Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell. The characters used are animals that bring the story to life. Abrams sees character as “the persons who are interpreted by the reader as possessing a particular moral, intellectual and emotional qualities by inferences from what the persons say and their distinctive ways of saying it-the action”(33). Neil and Sarah on their part define character as “a created person in a play or story whose particular qualities are reveal by actions, descriptions and conversations” (68).
Consequently, if plot is the arrangement of event in a story, characters are the instigators of the actions of the story. This is because plot and character must work in harmony for the story to be brought to life. Plot and character development in a story are totally entwined and each is rap around the other. If the two terms are divorced from each other, there is bound to be serious problem since plot which represents the framework of the whole story in which everything hinges on can not come to reality except it is acted out by the characters. Thus, characters bring the events, situations in the plot by their use of voice and body and it is these activities of the characters by way of dialogue and action that tell the story which is imbued in the plot. What this implied is that there is a symbiosis between plot and character which is difficult to separate. Therefore, the plot can not exist without the character just as the character can not exist without the plot.
‘The Necklace’ is about the materialistic nature of human beings represented in the character of Mathilde. The plot of the story narrates her rise and fall. Through Mathilde’s action, the plot which runs in a linear order from beginning where her personality is reveal to the middle where she is engulfed in a web of problems and finally to the end which costs her entire family’s fortune is showcase.
In this story, the entire plot structure is undertaking by the actions, activities and dialogues of Mathilde alongside other characters such as her husband and madame Forestier. Without the plot, the characters above could not have been known and without the characters the events and every other thing contained there in, could not have been brought to existence or reality. We are able to understand the story through the characters. The thematic content of the story is made possible by the characters acting them out. Likewise, every character in the story is disclosed as the story unfolds, which is the plot. In the beginning she is portray as one who is not happy with where life places her “she was as unhappy as if she has really fallen from a higher station…She was distress at the poverty of her dwelling” (111). At the middle, her unsatisfied desires lead her to borrow a necklace from Madame Forestier to attend the ball. In the end, the necklace gets missing and her entire family’s fortune is gone.
Finally, plot and character are interdependently and mutually related to each other. Hence it is not possible to have a plot without a character just as it is not possible to have a character without a plot. According to Aristotle, “the action and the ‘fabal’ (plot) are the end of tragedy; and in everything, the end is of principle importance”(15 -16). Adams hence points to this fact when he states, “the verbal discourse is physical action (plot) is perform by a particular character who engineers the movement of the story” (233). To this end therefore it can be said that plot is character and character is plot and this has aptly being demonstrated by Guy de Maupassant in his highly ironic story.
WORKS CITED.
Aristotle. Poetics on Style Demetrius. London and New york: J.M. Dent and Sons LTD, 1934.
Guy de Maupassant. A day in the Country and Other Stories. Trans. Coward, David. London and U.S.A: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Hearwrite. Plot versus Character. http://hearwritenow.com|writing|plot-vs-character/.
http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/plot-(narrative).
Mario, klarer. An Introduction To Literary Studies. 2nd.ed.London and New york : Routledge, 2004.
M.H. Abrams. A Glossory of Literary Terms. 8th.ed. U.S.A: Thomson Wads Worth, 2005.
Neil King and Sarah King. Dictionary of Literary in English. London and Chicago: Fitroy Deaborn,2001.
by Peace Kyauta Solomon
Good work man
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