A plot needs a motivating structure to drive the story’s conflict to its decision. There are four types of plot structure; the progressive plot, the episodic plot, the parallel plot and the flashback. Each of these chronological structures establishes the comprehension of the conflict of its story on its own way. In this short story, the plot is structured in a certain chronological way named flashback. This narrative structure leads the reader from the first story into another one within its overall story. In ‘The boat’ by MacLeod, we realize that the author started the story by the present life of a university professor, the narrator, and incorporates the professor’s past life in the overall story to make us comprehend the logical emotion itself. “[...] when I am half out of bed and fumbling for socks and mumbling for words before I realize that I am foolishly alone”, by knowing the actual situation the narrator is going through, we notice that he isn’t having a joyful life and that he looks back on his life, recalling his childhood. In this quotation, we can see that the narrator gets his first recollection of his past: “I first became conscious of the boat in the same way and at almost the same time that I became aware of the people it supported [...].” When the narrator dives in to his childhood, we tend to understand that it’s to fill in the story in a chronological way. The author chooses to start the story where it needs to be started, not at the very beginning, but in the middle of things.
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