Student Question
What is the order of the introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement in Marriage Is a Private Affair?
Quick answer:
To find the order of the unified plot in “Marriage is a Private Affair,” it is necessary to identify the literary devices used to form the beginning, middle, and end of the story and put them in chronological order. Those devices are exposition, rising action, climax, crisis, falling action, and denouement.
The elements referred to in this question constitute the order of a unified plot in literature. The unified plot is the continuous sequence of events in a story starting with the beginning and finishing with the conclusion, or end. In the beginning part of a story, the primary action is introduced and is designed to make the reader want to learn more about the story. The middle of the story is based on what takes place in the beginning and sets the stage for more to follow. The end of a story follows the action from the beginning and the middle. Hopefully, by the end, the plot is complete and the reader does not require any more information.
Breaking down the three sections of a plot—beginning, middle, and end—requires the identification of literary devices an author uses to move the story along.
In a typical story like Chinua Achebe ’s...
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“Marriage Is a Private Affair,” the author starts with exposition, or the introduction of the essential matters the reader needs to follow the story plot. After the opening information is revealed to the reader, the tale becomes more complicated. This is called the rising action, where conflict develops among the characters. The conflict grows as the action continues until it reaches a climax, or the highest point of the conflict faced by the protagonist. Once the climax is reached, there is usually a crisis, in which the protagonist must face the conflict head-on. It is "do-or-die" or "win-or-lose time," depending on the actions of the story’s heroes and the antagonists standing in their way. The crisis is the turning point in the story. Its resolution initiates the falling action as the conflict begins to wind down. What is left is the denouement, or the resolution to the story where the protagonist either wins or loses.
Considering the literary devices described above from exposition to denouement while reading the story allows the reader to trace the action of the tale from the beginning, through the middle, and up to the end in chronological order.