Episode

An episode is a relatively complete, independent part of the plot of a literary work — a separate event or scene that has its own inner content but is at the same time a link in the general chain of the action and subordinated to the whole. An episode depicts a certain moment in the development of events, revealing characters, conflict, or idea through a concrete situation. From a sequence of episodes joined by cause-and-effect, temporal, or associative connections the plot is built. The analysis of a key episode often makes it possible to understand the whole work, for in it the work's problematics is concentrated. For example, the episode of Ivan Didukh's farewell to the village in Vasyl Stefanyk's novella The Stone Cross is the climactic one and concentrates the whole tragedy of emigration; separate episode-novellas make up the montage structure of Yurii Yanovsky's novel The Horsemen. The ability to construct expressive, weighty episodes and to join them organically into a plot whole is an important component of a writer's mastery.