Attached Link: McGraw-Hill Learning Center - Glossary of Fiction Terms

French for "an untying." The denouement of a novel or story follows the climax; it represents the unraveling of the complexities of a plot, and the clarifying of the story's details and misunderstandings. For example, the "... denouement of Hamlet takes place after the catastrophe, with the stage littered with corpses. During the denouement Fortinbras makes an entrance and a speech, and Horatio speaks his sweet lines in praise of Hamlet."