The plot structure in any novel is an important literary technique that can differ significantly from one novel to another . While the actual story tells the reader the events that happen to the characters, plot is the technique used to form a timeline of the story, whether the events are arranged chronologically or not. The novels Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coetzee and A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro have plot structures that do not conform to the basic idea of ​​a story in chronological order over time, but their structures are nevertheless very different.Say no. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay In the novel A Pale View of Hills, Ishiguro uses a very unique strategy to tell the story of Etsuko and her life . Instead of telling the story in the present, he goes back into Etsuko's memory to find the story. He structures the plot around his thoughts and memories to bring the story of his life together in a way that makes the reader pay close attention to details in order to understand where the characters are in time throughout the book . Ishiguro uses Etsuko to introduce the novel, but Etsuko cannot necessarily be relied upon. The author uses memory to distort the timeline of events that take place in the novel, making the plot of the novel one that jumps through time and blurs the lines between fiction and reality. The very beginning of the novel takes place in the past when Niki, Etsuko's daughter, comes to visit her. “She came to see me earlier this year, in April, when the days were still cold and rainy” (Ishiguro 9). The only time Etsuko's memory always seems accurate is when she is with Niki. In the novel Waiting for the Barbarians, the plot structure differs greatly from that of Ishiguro's work. Instead of looking back to the past and letting the main character, the magistrate, recount the events of the past, Coetzee structures the novel in a very simple way. Events come to the magistrate, as well as the reader, as they occur. This gives the reader a tone of mystery and intrigue that is not apparent as much in A Pale View of Hills. Both authors of these novels use unique strategies to shape the plot. In A Pale View of Hills, Ishiguro uses Etsuko's memory, or lack thereof, to counterbalance the plot and make the reader wonder what is going on in the character's life. “It is possible that my memory of these events has become fuzzy over time, that things did not happen exactly as they remember me today” (Ishiguro 41). Ishiguro also begins the novel by telling the reader about the most important event in the main character's life, the suicide of Etsuko's daughter Keiko. This not only sets the tone for the entire novel, but also allows the reader to connect the events in Etsuko's memory to this life-changing and scarring event. “Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; it is often strongly colored by the circumstances in which one remembers, and this undoubtedly applies to some of the memories I have collected here” (Ishiguro 156). Ishiguro also uses plot structure to repeat important events in Etsuko's life. “It was around the beginning of summer – I was then in my third or fourth month of pregnancy – when I first saw this big, battered, white American car making its way through the ground,.