Plot, then, creates temporal expans

Plot, then, creates temporal expanse by imagining a gap between two types of bodies—an overarching and an individual body. This gap is certainly most obvious in very traditional plots, where an initially unruly romantic desire is eventually integrated into social norms and leads to the reproduction of the family body.14 It is clear, however, that such patterns account for a relatively small portion of the plots of modern narrative, and that such narratives frequently treat time in a much more sophisticated way. Having defined what I take to be the basic dynamic inherent in narrative plot, I would like to consider in the remainder of this chapter the ways in which this model is transformed and complicated.