Plot Structure in Short Stories

Paper Summary:

The author points out that David Michael Kaplan's "Doe Season" makes use of dream sequences to add dramatic intensity to its plot; V.S. Naipaul's "B. Wordsworth" makes use of dream-like qualities of narration and character to create a dream-like narrative texture to its episodic plot structure. The author points out that dreams do not afford either short story a sharply delineated plot structure; Kaplan chooses to give his story a strong plot line; whereas, Naipaul does not. The paper concludes that, in both tales, the use of dream's symbolism gives an added quality and intensity to the psychology of the developing protagonists, which the stories would lack if dreams were not included into the narrative sequence.

From the Paper:

"Andy, of David Kaplan's "Doe Season," is a young woman who has killed a deer. In her dreams, she encounters the murdered deer, where she touches the heart of the animal she helped hunt and kill. Despite the fact that the action of touching the heart occurs in her mind, it is equally as potent for the young woman as the actual act of killing the deer, psychologically. Unlike Naipaul's story, however, "Doe Hunting" has a real-life external structure and narrative that has a more concrete verbal and narrative texture to it, although it is also true that some of the dramatic, real-life events of Kaplan's story have a dream-like intensity. For instance, over the course of the hunting vacation, when she is swimming in the sea, the young girl Andy, whom will kill the doe of the title, sees her mother lose her bathing suit by accident."

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