Exposition (literary)-- As applied to drama and to other forms of fiction, "exposition is the introductory material that creates the tone, gives the setting, introduces the characters, and supplies other facts necessary to understanding" (Harmon 201). In short, it orients the reader for the pursuant action by giving him the essential facts necessary to understand what is going on. Like the opening paragraph of a newspaper article, the exposition of a work of fiction answers the reporter's questions: who, where, when, why, and how.

Accordingly, the exposition is usually thought of as occurring at the beginning of a literary work as shown in Freytag's Pyramid. This is a diagram representing the dramatic structure of a play as a pyramid that begins on the left bottom with exposition, develops through the rising action to the apex, or climax, decends on the right with the falling action, and ends at the base with the catastrophe. Many well known plays illustrate this convention, as for example Sophocles' Antigone or Shakespeare's Mcbeth. But this convention is not always followed in short stories or novels where the facts about time, place and character are revealed gradually as the plot unfolds.

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