Stylistic functions of setting

„ helps to evoke the necessary atmosphere (mood); (the atmosphere of gloom in "Cat in the rain");

„ may be a reflection of the inner state of a character (similarity between Mr. Davidson's actions and the merciless rain in "Rain");

„ the setting as domestic interiors may serve to reveal certain features of the character. "A man 's house is an extension of himself". Such setting are metonymic/metaphoric expressions of the character;

„ places the character in a recognizable    realistic environment, including geographical names and allusions to historical events (London by Ch.Dickens);

„ reinforces characterization by either paralleling or contrasting the actions:

"He was not interested in the snow. Sergeant never even noticed the snow. But he must have felt it seeping down his neck, cold, wet, sopping in his shoes. But if you had asked him, he wouldn’thave noticed it was snowin g. Sergeant didn’tsee the snow, not even under the bright light of the main street, falling white and flaky against the night. He was too hungry, too sleepy, too tired.

Mr. Dorset, however, saw the snow when he switched on his porch light, opened the front door of his personage, and found standing there before him a big black man with snow on his face, a human piece of night with snow on his face –obviously unemployed. " (Langston Hughes "On the Road").

The author has established not only the mood of the story but the possibility of its main conflict

The common thing for all good stories is the thing that until the resolution of the central problem the situation should steadily get worse, or more difficult for the protagonist and the forces against him grow. If the protagonist picks up a bat, the antagonist should pick up a knife. If the protagonist, picks up a knife, the antagonist should pick up a gun. Until the climatic situation the difficulties should increase as the result of positivechanges made by protagonist. The protagonist doesn't sit by and watch the world fall apart, doing nothing. He takes an active part in destroying the world around him. Every attempt to solve a problem should make it worse and worse and create some new.

Plot of any story involves characters and conflict. They imply each other. The contemporary American poet, novelist, critic Robert Penn Warren said: "Noconflict, no story".

Conflict is at the root of the unstable situation at the start of the plot. Plot itself will pattern this conflict, but it is conflict that translates characters and ideas into action. Without conflict plot cannot exist.

Conflict is a struggle between opposing characters or opposing forces.

There are four general types of conflict:

When the main character (the protagonist) is fighting against someone (the antagonist) or something outside himself we term such conflict external.

There the following types:

„ man against man;

„ man against nature (the sea, the desert, the frozen North, wild beasts);

„ man against society, the established order in the society (a conflict with poverty, racial hostility, injustice, exploitation, inequality); one’s set of the values against another set of values.

When the opposition of forces takes place inside minds of characters this type of conflict is internal (e.g. against opposing forces within themselves; against fate and destiny).

Internal conflicts are termed as "man against himself “ and they take place within the character and are localized in his inner world. The character is torn between opposing features of his personality and rendered through man's illogical thoughts, ambiguous feelings, opposing intellectual processes.

Climax is the key event, the crucial moment of the story, the point of high tension and drama. It is often referred to as the moment of illumination for the whole story because it is the moment when the relationship between the events becomes clear, their role in the development of characters is clarified.

Denouement (resolution) is the unwinding of the actions. It includes the events following the climax that bring the main conflicts of the story to the end. It is the point at which the fate of the main character is clarified.

An interesting denouement should feel inevitable, even if it surprises. A story may have no denouement being open ("open texts"). By leaving it open, unclear the author invites the reader to sum up all the events of the story and work out its ending by himself.

Now being aware with the main elements of plot structure you may answer the questions why the author arrange the story elements the way he did or how he prepares different unexpected plot turnings.