Plot

The term ‘plot’ (or ‘storyline’) is a literary term used to describe the sequence of events that make up a story. Traditionally, plots are composed of five elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. However, not all the literary works follow this pattern; some may be completely devoid of plot, while others may contain only some of the five traditional elements.

This is how the plot functions in the short story “For Philip, on His Last Night at the Palace” by Stuart Nadler:

Exposition

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Rising action

As Philip eats his dinner and recalls the beautiful evenings he used to spend with his late wife at “The Cantonese Palace”, the moving truck arrives early and disrupts Philip’s thought flow:

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Climax

Han approaches Philip with a gift: a framed photograph of him and his wife, in their young years. The reader is given the hint that Margene has probably died because of a lung disease, as she probably coughed and spilled blood on the lapel of her coat:

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Falling action

Philip’s mood seems to change. He does not receive the ice cream together with the check and Han offers to pay for Philip’s meal himself.

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Resolution

The truck from the retirement home arrives and the driver seems to be afraid, as the restaurant is probably in a dangerous neighborhood: “Every Friday night now it was a different driver. Invariably they seemed afraid to be here. It struck Phillip as impossible that he’d ever thought this was the best street in his city.” (ll. 132-134)

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