Question

Justify the title shady plot.

Answer 1

The name of the story is ‘A Shady Plot’. The word ‘shady’ here means ‘quiet, dark, or concealed; hidden’. The word ‘plot’ here means ‘storyline- the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work, as a play, novel, or short story’. The story deals about author’s unintentional involvement with the ghost ‘Helen’, who was the source behind all the plots of his spooky stories. Since the plot of the story is about author’s secret involvement with the ghost, Helen, which his wife comes to know about a little at the end. The entire plot of the story has a ghostly (shady) element. So the title ’A Shady (ghostly) Plot (story) is aptly justified.

Hope this helps.✨

Answer 2

Shady plot 'means a storyline which may be full of mystery, ghosts, supernatural elements, murder etc. The present story is about a ghost of Helen with human qualities. So it is both a shady story having mystery, complexity and uncanny occurrences. So the title is most appropriate.

It is called shady plot since Hallock does not get the plot of the ghost story by himself or by his own creativity. He gets it from someone that is from the ghost . All the consequences which occured with Hallock was itself the plot for his story .And this all he got because of the arrival of the ghost .

Since he gets a plot from someone else it is called a shady plot.