Blog post#5

After reading chapter 6, I gain a better understanding about events, plot and discourse of a story. Events are shaped into plot to develop the story. The plot is the basic element of stories, which is presented by discourse (which can from different angels). In a story, I think sometimes the most important part is the plot because it can attract people’s attention by its twists and turns, which can make them continue reading. If the plot at the beginning or the middle part were not appealing, readers would quit reading. This is the reason why I consider narrative is difficult but important.

A movie that I watched before, which contains many interesting plots and it make the ending of the movie quite contrasted with the beginning. A 70 years old retired man, Ben, applied for an intern program in a startup because he found life was quite boring after retirement. After he was admitted, he was assigned to work with the CEO, Jules. But Jules was quite skeptical about him at first and did not assign him the work. There are many plots showing how Jules keep a distance with Ben. At that time, I assumed that Ben would be fired soon. However, with a great personality and observation, Ben took care Jules in a careful way and gave her practical advice in work and life. The relationship between them became ease and they became soul mates at last, which was a great transformation.

In the “What stories do” section, Culler claimed stories can give readers pleasure and teach readers about the world. And  the pleasure of narrative is linked to desire and the movement of narrative is driven by desire. I totally agree with this point. I believe one of the reasons why many people love suspense  movies is that the twists and turns in the plots make people become more eager to know the truth by catching up. And most of the movies end with a satisfying ending, such as criminals are caught and polices’ and lawyers’ efforts pay off. It follows people’s desire and give readers pleasure. After all, if movies end as escaped criminals are at large, these kinds of endings are quite discouraging. Besides, through stories, we can find many different opinions and it can make us think deeply and gain a new view on things.