Yeah, it's a waste of time, space and effort to mention the plot. However, my teacher says give one or two sentences about what the main idea of the story is about and thus, do not presume that the marker knows the story. For instance, when I did My Place for Journeys, I summed up the story by saying it was an "emotional pilgrimage exploring individual and cultural reconciliation through reflecting on the protagonist's Aboriginal culture and essentially, their hardships..." etc. Your main argument and contextualised analysis is from your techniques, quotes, your explanation and ultimately your synthesis of your texts.