One of the cardinal components of story is exposition. It is employed to introduce the story to the readers in an intriguing way. It acts as the pull weaver that entices readers to connect with characters, absorb the context and continue to participate in the narrative world. The skillful authors use some techniques to meet with the laziest readers from the very beginning.
Definition of Exposition
Exposition is the part of a story that provides essential background information to the reader. It introduces the primary characters, settings, circumstances and situational context that frame the central narrative. Exposition establishes the story’s foundational components such as time, place, relationships, motivations, history and inciting events that trigger the main conflict.
Importance of Exposition
Exposition is the solid foundation that anchors gripping tales. It plays an indispensable role in engaging readers and setting stories up for success in several crucial ways. It captivates the imagination and piques curiosity. Good exposition makes you wonder “What happens next?” and eagerly anticipate revelations to come.
Exposition also expertly paints the scene and constructs the narrative backdrop. It establishes the vital context – time, place, relationships, history – that allows readers to vividly visualize the story world in their mind’s eye. Skilled exposition provides the canvas upon which the tale’s events, dramas, and characters will burst into vibrant motion.
Exposition introduces readers to the protagonists themselves. Personalities, quirks, values and backgrounds – this is how we gain insights into the psyches and motivations driving the characters. Crucially, a story’s exposition also provides the spark that detonates the central narrative conflict. It may subtly hint at the initial inciting incident or overtly reveal the destabilizing event that upends the status quo. This lays the fuse for all explosive plot developments that will follow.
By furnishing this essential foundation, exposition gives readers enough critical background information to understand and make sense of the narrative arc. Without grasping the foundational elements – the who, what, where, when and why – audiences would be adrift, unable to comprehend the story’s deeper meanings. Exposition provides that vital orientation point.
Methods of Exposition
Authors have many different tools and strategies in their storytelling toolbox for skillfully weaving in critical exposition. The writers use multiple creative techniques to robust narrative foundations that hook audiences and propel tales forward.
I- Description and Narration
One common approach is through deft description and well-rendered narration. With artful turns of phrase, creative imagery and focused language, expository information can be conveyed directly to readers in beautiful yet economical prose.
II- Dialogue
Dialogue also allows skillful authors to slip in exposition organically. Background knowledge and important relationships naturally emerge through the conversations characters have with each other. Details are revealed not through clumsy lumps of explanation but via the cadences and exchanges of speech, observation and interaction.
III- Flashbacks
Flashbacks provide yet another impactful method for exposing revealing backstory. These non-linear glimpses into past events furnish critical context in a dramatically compelling manner. Flashbacks compel audiences to piece understanding together from episodic revelations shown rather than merely told.
IV- In Medias Res
Then there’s the bold narrative device of in medias res, also known as opening “in the midst of things.” Stories sometimes charge out of the gate mid-action with little preamble, letting audiences infer exposition from immersed osmosis. Situational context, character traits, and other narrative building blocks rain down indirectly through an unfolding, kinetic experience.
Examples of Exposition in Literature
To better understand exposition, let us examine illustrative examples from renowned literary works:
Example#1
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.’Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
In this opening line from novel, the writer employs exposition through the narrator Nick’s recounting of advice from his father. Nick is directly stating background information to provide context about his upbringing, values and philosophical mindset.
This expository narration introduces readers to Nick’s circumstances growing up and a guiding moral principle that has shaped his worldview. By furnishing these details early on, readers gain critical insights into Nick’s character and the foundational experiences that influence his perspective.
This piece of exposition acts as an important building block, allowing readers to better understand Nick’s voice and behaviors as the main storyteller of The Great Gatsby. Knowing this background makes Nick a more fully realized narrator from the outset.
Example#2
“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”
In the opening lines, Jane Austen utilizes exposition to establish the social milieu and expectations of the Regency era British society in which the novel is set. By baldly stating “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” the writer economically introduces the institution of marriage as a business transaction. Criticizing the view as little known to the eligible bachelor, Austen nonetheless makes clear it remains a widely held assumption among the ambitious mothers seeking a wealthy spouse for their daughters.
With biting irony, the writer elucidates this universal “truth” that renders single men the “rightful property” of whichever local girl should ensnare him. This upfront explanatory insight into the prevailing marital customs and gender roles acts as an expository platform. The reader is oriented to the social framework that shall determine conventions and conflicts as the plot unfolds. Through wry, declarative exposition, Austen outlines the backdrop of the marriage market soon to be negotiated and disrupted over the course of the novel.
Example#3
“Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card
“I’ve watched through his eyes,
I’ve listened through his ears,
and I tell you he’s the one.
Or at least as close as we’re going to get.”
“That’s what you said about the brother.”
“The brother tested out impossible. For other reasons. Nothing to do with his abilities.”
“Same with the sister, And there were doubts enough there too.”
“This is the third,” said Graff. “And he’s working out.”
This brief exchange between Colonel Graff and his subordinate provides expository background on the novel’s central character Ender being the “third” gifted child assessed by the school. It hints at Ender’s abilities, the context of a specialized program evaluating gifted youths, and the relationship between the officials observing him – all crucial information revealed through dialogue.
Example#4
“The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood
“We slept in what had once been the gymnasium…The canvas chairs full of holes, burn marks in the shredding upholstery…We had flannelette sheets, like children’s, and army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S.”
These opening descriptive details, narrated in the first person by protagonist Offred, establish the dystopian setting of an oppressed, institutional environment. This exposition immediately creates an atmosphere of deprivation, harshness and control through simple descriptions of the characters’ living conditions and surroundings.
Example#5
“A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
In this famous opening, Dickens masterfully employs exposition through a series of contrasting statements using parallel syntax. This literary approach concisely yet powerfully establishes the overarching dualities, paradoxes, and conflicts that will permeate the rest of the novel. The exposition here efficiently introduces the philosophical context, thematic undertones and atmosphere through vivid rhetorical flourishes.
Example#6
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte:
“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.”
Bronte’s initial exposition utilizes first-person description of setting and circumstances. She quickly establishes the cold, dreary weather, a character named Mrs. Reed, and that Jane has been restricted from going outside. The narration introduces critical context about Jane’s confinement, her isolation, and hints at a strained relationship with her guardian Mrs. Reed. This carefully selects information that will inform much of Jane’s early backstory and build intrigue for readers.
These examples illustrate how masterful authors wield the tool of exposition through techniques like narration, description, dialogue, and literary devices. The above examples engage the reader’s interest while efficiently providing essential background that will frame and enrich the narrative journey to come.
Read also: Literary Devices That Start with E
