‘The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.’
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
So far in this book we have really been doing two things.
On one level we have been looking at hundreds of different stories, including many of the best-known tales in the world, seeing the remarkable extent to which these are formed round one or another of seven basic plots. What we have been exploring are seven of the central ways in which, when the human imagination conjures up a story, its contents naturally take shape. This does not mean, of course, that every story in the world falls neatly and exclusively into one of these categories. At this stage it would be easy to point to countless individual stories which in one way or another do not correspond precisely to any of these plots. Indeed a whole section of this book will later be devoted to looking at such stories and why they vary from the basic patterns. There are even a handful of other, more specialised plots – such as that behind ‘creation myths’ explaining how the world came into being, or the Mystery plot which underlies detective stories – which we have not yet touched on at all.
On another level, however, we have also through these past eleven chapters been building up a picture of something much deeper and more general than just a catalogue of story-types. We have been gradually laying bare a hidden landscape of figures, situations and images which run through stories of all kinds, regardless of which type of plot may on a more superficial level be directing our interest in the story. We have seen such motifs as ‘the thrilling escape from death’, the overthrow or redemption of the dark figure, the final union or separation of hero and heroine, appearing again and again, in one plot after another. And however far we continue our exploration of stories we shall find that they always return in one way or another to these same basic patterns and images. What we have been uncovering, in short, is the essential core of the way stories are made, how they work and what they are about. In this sense the real value of examining the seven central plots is that, between them, they provide a comprehensive introduction to all the fundamental elements from which a story can be made up.
The significance of this can hardly be exaggerated. For what it means is that whenever any of us tries to create a story in our own imagination, we will find that these are the basic figures and situations around which it takes shape. We cannot get away from them because they are archetypes. They are the elemental images around which the whole of the storytelling impulse in mankind is centred. And the reason for this is that these underlying patterns and images are somehow imprinted unconsciously in our minds, so that we cannot conceive stories in any other way.
This is why, when we are first introduced to stories in early childhood, we instinctively recognise what they are on about. The small child being told a story may be confronted with the images of all sorts of things which it has never seen in the real world, or which have never existed: bloodthirsty giants; animals which talk; dragons breathing fire. But the child can immediately accept and relate to such mythical beings, because the symbolic language in which stories are dressed up meets with an instinctual pattern of response which is already programmed into the child’s own unconscious.
We have virtually no idea how this miraculous process works in neurological terms. We cannot explain physically how it is that we are able to conjure up these images in our ‘mind’s eye’. We cannot even locate precisely in which parts of our brain this hugely complex activity takes place. But what we can perceive is how, in the way these images present themselves to us, certain patterns persistently recur. The very fact that they do recur in this way means that, below the level of our conscious awareness, there is some shaping mechanism in the human psyche which not only assembles the images together into these patterns, but does so in a way which shows them unfolding according to entirely consistent rules. The only way we can uncover why evolution should have developed in us this capacity to imagine stories is to subject those patterns to systematic analysis: to decipher just what is the meaning of the symbolic language they embody, and what this can tell us about the real underlying purpose storytelling serves in our lives.
This is what we have begun to do in exploring the sequence of plots. And in doing so, we see how the central preoccupation of our need to conjure up the imaginary world of stories comes clearly into view.
The most important thing we recognise from looking at the hidden structures of the basic plots is the extent to which they all revolve round the same fundamental conflict. This is the central problem posed by that component in human nature which we have seen symbolically represented in stories of all kinds as the ‘dark power’. There is no better starting point from which to explore the underlying purpose of storytelling than to observe what is happening when a child is introduced to stories early in its life. If we watch carefully the types of story to which a child can first instinctively relate, we see how many of these tend to take shape round a remarkably similar pattern.
In its simplest form, some of these early nursery tales, such as Peter Rabbit, Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks and the Three Bears, show us a little hero or heroine who begins the story living at home with mother. They then go out into the mysterious outside world – Mr McGregor’s garden, a great forest – where they encounter a terrifying and threatening figure (in the case of Goldilocks, three acting as one). This threat comes inexorably closer until it seems that, as in a nightmare, they are trapped, facing death. But then, at the story’s climax, comes the ‘thrilling escape’, when they can run safely home to mother.
What all these stories are doing is to awaken the child’s mind to the same basic message. As it is introduced to the central figure of each story, it sees and identifies with a child like itself, who begins surrounded by the security of home, living with a loving, protective mother. It then sees this little hero or heroine venturing out alone into the great world, beyond the protective setting of home, where they encounter a terrifying presence, so hostile that it spells death. In symbolic fashion, the listening child is being introduced to the idea that, somewhere in this unfamiliar new world it has come into, there is a mysterious and deadly dark power, far more frightening than anything it has ever outwardly encountered in real life. But in the end, the reassuring message of the story runs, it is possible to escape from this fearsome enemy. With a mighty sense of relief, the child identifying with the story can thus imagine returning to the safest place it knows, back home with mother.
Such is the simplest version of the story, and it is no accident that we associate it with tales intended to be told to very young children. But we then see a development of the pattern, in stories such as Jack and the Beanstalk or Hansel and Gretel. Again the child is introduced to a hero or heroine living dependently at home. Again they venture out into the mysterious outside world, where they fall under the shadow of a terrifying figure, the giant, the witch. Again the story builds to a climax, where it seems they are about to be killed. But the significant thing the child now sees is that it is up to the hero or heroine themselves to overcome the dark power. They must actually slay the giant or witch by their own efforts. And their reward in doing so, the message runs, is not only escape from death, but that they win a fabulous treasure.
Even now, however, because these are still only tales intended for young children, their heroes and heroines still return at the end to the familiar security of home. Only with a third step in the unfolding pattern does the story add a further important ingredient to the general message. In tales such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff or The Three Little Pigs, we again begin with little heroes living at home with mother: in each of these examples, three young brothers. Again, as they grow up, the heroes go out into the great world, where they encounter a terrifying dark figure: a fearsome troll guarding the bridge, a big bad wolf. Again, through courage and ingenuity, they themselves eventually manage to destroy this monstrous figure (even though, in the case of the little pigs, two are eaten). But we no longer see the victorious heroes having to retreat back home at the end of the story. The important thing now is that they can move forward rather than back. Having crossed the bridge, the goats can begin their new life feasting on the meadow of sweet grass up on the mountainside. The third little pig can live happily ever after in his home made of bricks, which has successfully with-stood the wolf’s assaults because, unlike his brothers, he has built it soundly, out of strong, secure materials. Thanks to their victory over the dark power, they have now established a secure new home for themselves in the outside world, where they are free to live their own independent life.
Finally we come to all those stories which show this pattern unfolding to its fullest state of development. In stories like Aladdin or Snow White, we again see the young hero or heroine going out into the world and being drawn into a struggle with the same dark power, which lasts through most of the story. Again they finally emerge triumphant. But their ultimate reward now takes a much more specific form, as we see them brought together in loving union with a beautiful Princess or handsome Prince, and in some way succeeding to rule over a kingdom.
We thus see them having completed perhaps the most fundamental transition in any human life. They have begun in the secure but dependent state of childhood. They have gone out into the great world, to face all sorts of ordeals and adventures. But they end up having established an entirely new secure base of their own, united to a loving partner and presiding over their own little kingdom. The transition from childhood to maturity is complete. And the key to reaching this goal has been to emerge victorious from a series of battles with the dark power.
Indeed what we also come to recognise from such tales are those essential elements making up what Aristotle identified as the beginning, middle and ending of a story which, expressed in more sophisticated outward forms, remain central to our experience of storytelling for the rest of our lives.
The ‘beginning’ of almost any type of story shows us a hero or heroine who is in some way undeveloped, frustrated or incomplete. This establishing of their unhappy, immature or unfulfilled state sets up the tension needing to be resolved which provides the essence of the story.
The ‘middle’ of the story shows them sooner or later falling under the shadow of the dark power, the conflict with which constitutes the story’s main action. In the types of story we come to early in life this threatening presence is invariably personified as outside the central figure, although later we come to the type of story in which those same dark qualities are shown as lying in the hero or heroine themselves. Through most of the story we see its little world divided into an ‘upper’ realm, where the dark power holds sway, and an ‘inferior’ realm, where the forces of light remain in the shadows.
The ‘end’ of the story provides its resolution. The action eventually builds to a climax, when the forces making for threat and confusion rise to their highest point of pressure on everyone involved, and this paves the way for the ‘reversal’ or ‘unknotting’, the moment when the dark power is overthrown.
The nature of the story’s ending then depends entirely on how its hero or heroine have aligned themselves to the dark power. If the central figure has remained or ended up in opposition to the dark power, we see that, in this final act of liberation, there is a prize of infinite value to be won: a treasure to be won from the darkness; a captive ‘Princess’ or ‘Prince’ to be freed from its clutches; a community to be redeemed from its shadows. We see that the hero or heroine have ended up fulfilled and complete, in a way which through most of the story would have seemed unthinkable. They have reached some central goal to their lives.
If, on the other hand, the hero or heroine have become irrevocably identified with the dark power, the story will end in their destruction. But even this comes about according to the same rules which govern stories with a happy ending. So much have the central figures of Tragedy become the chief source of darkness in their story that only when they are removed by death can the light again emerge from the shadows. For all those forced to live in that shadow, this in itself can end the story on the familiar note of liberation. The wider community is restored to wholeness. Just as in a story which comes to a happy ending, it is a victory for life.
Thus in any story which is completely resolved, the basic pattern remains the same. In the end, darkness is overcome and light wins the day. In fact what ultimately distinguishes each of the basic plots is simply that each looks at this common theme from a different angle. Each lays emphasis on a particular aspect of that universal plot which lies behind them all.
The Overcoming the Monster story is in a sense the most basic of all the plots because it focuses attention on this conflict with the dark power to the exclusion of almost everything else. The word ‘monster’ comes from the Latin monstrum, meaning ‘something put on show’, as in our word ‘demonstration’. It also came to mean ‘a freak of nature’, as in all those abnormal, deformed or just unfamiliar human beings or animals which in former times were put on show in fairgrounds, circuses or zoos. Whatever outward form it takes, the one thing the monster in stories can never be, as we have seen, is a whole, perfect human being. It is, by definition, a representation of human imperfection: and in no respect more than the way it is wholly egocentric, prepared to sacrifice anyone and everything else in the world to its own interests.
The essence of the monster, in short, is that, dressed up in symbolic form, it is a hugely magnified personification of the human capacity for egotism, which is invariably shown as immensely powerful, unfeeling for others but also in some crucial respect blind, lacking in understanding. Since this monster is invariably shown in a story as posing a deadly threat to a whole community of people, it is presented as a mortal enemy to the human race. As soon as we are made aware of the monster’s existence, we know the only way the story can reach a satisfactory resolution is that it must be destroyed. That is why it is so important that, when the hero emerges, we are never left in any doubt as to why he is set in complete opposition to the monster, the positive to everything in which the monster is negative. He is not egocentric. He is always battling on behalf of the wider community. He is thus shown as representing the forces of life against death.
Yet at the same time it is crucial that, as the action of the story unfolds, we should see the hero himself growing in stature. When he first appears it might seem unthinkable that he should be able to confront the monster’s awesome power. This is only reinforced when he finally confronts his opponent, even falling into its clutches. Towards the end, however, when the hero has worked out how to get the measure of his antagonist, we begin to see him in a new commanding light. Even James Bond invariably rises from his seemingly helpless position as the underdog who stumbles halfway through the story into the villain’s clutches, to the moment where he is finally able by some superhuman feat to turn the tables. This transformation is still more obvious in those deeper versions of the story, set over a longer period of the hero’s life, which, as the action unfolds, show him gradually emerging as an ever more masterful figure. Although we see young David, the disregarded little shepherd boy, winning the great victory over Goliath quite early in his story, we then see how this was merely a prelude to the transforming process which eventually qualifies him as the natural leader of his people, fit to succeed as a great king. We see Perseus gradually maturing from the young, untried boy who wishes to defend his mother’s honour against the tyrant Acrisius into the mighty hero who, having slain the Medusa, then achieves his final victory by saving the Princess from the clutches of the sea-monster. It is this personal transformation which has qualified him, like David, to succeed to the kingdom.
In this sense, the Overcoming the Monster story is about the process of working towards maturity. This is presented even more obviously in the Rags to Riches plot, where the hero or heroine’s personal transformation provides the central theme of the story. Much more often than in any other plot we are likely to meet the hero or heroine when they are still very young; so that what the story explicitly shows us is the pattern of someone growing up from childhood to maturity. So much does it concentrate our interest on their outward and inward development that, from the moment we first see them in their initial lowly, disregarded state, we know the one thing essential to bringing the story to a satisfactory resolution will be to see them finally emerging from obscurity into the light, where their true hidden self will finally become obvious for everyone to see. Yet the key to this transformation still lies in their struggle with the dark power, as we see symbolically represented even in those two very simple versions from early childhood, Dick Whittington and Puss in Boots. Here the crucial battle with the dark power is not even fought by the hero himself, but at arms length, by a ‘helpful animal’ who has become his special ally. In each story it is the cat which achieves the victory over the powers of darkness. However, it is the treasure won from this battle which is the key to the final reversal in the hero’s own fortunes, leading to his union with the ‘Princess’ and his emergence in his true light as someone of exceptional qualities, worthy to rule over a ‘kingdom’.
It is when we come to the fullest versions of the Rags to Riches story, such as Aladdin, Jane Eyre or David Copperfield, that we see most explicitly just how this plot is concerned with the process of developing from immaturity to maturity, and here the counterpoint between the hero or heroine’s struggle with the dark power and their own inner transformation is portrayed much more directly. Each begins at home, as a young, unformed child. Their transformation begins when the shadow of the dark power falls over them, with the arrival of the Sorcerer, Mr Brocklehurst or the Murdstones, and they are sent out into the world to begin that long series of tests around which their inner growth takes place. At first we see them making considerable progress, as they develop through their adolescence to the point where they are ready to go out into the world in a new way, as young adults, searching for the ‘other half’ with whom to establish a permanent new centre to their lives. But just when it seems they might be about to achieve a happy ending, there intervenes that central crisis when the dark power reappears in even more fearsome guise, plunging them into the most desperate plight they face at any time in the story. The purpose of this, corresponding to that moment where the hero of an Overcoming the Monster story falls into his opponent’s clutches, is to emphasise just how exceptional are the qualities they will now have to display to reach their final goal. They must learn to become reliant on their own inner strengths, in a way they have never done before. Only as they achieve this do we see them maturing to the point where they are ready for the decisive confrontation which enables them to throw off the dark power’s grip forever. As they rescue their ‘other half’ from the shadows, they have finally realised everything they had it in them to become. They have at last reached the central goal of their lives.
It is of course this idea of a human life as a journey towards the ultimate goal of wholeness and self-realisation which provides the focus for the plot of the Quest. Our expectation in a Quest story is centred on the sense that somewhere in the world there is a distant, all-transcending prize, worth every effort to reach. As the tale opens, the hero becomes aware that he is in some ‘City of Destruction’, where it will be fatal for him to remain. The only way to escape is to embark on the journey towards that far-off, mysterious goal. In the first part, we see the hero and his companions making their journey, facing a succession of battles with the dark power. Even when their destination at last comes in sight, the hero finds he now faces a new set of challenges, so testing that to meet them will take up the entire second half of the story. It has been one thing to bring the prize into view. The ultimate test lies in knowing how to secure it. Yet when the hero does so, of course, we see how remarkably similar it is to that final goal reached by the hero or heroine in the earlier types of story. When Odysseus secretly advances in his humble beggar’s rags towards his final showdown with the monstrous suitors, he is like the hero of a Rags to Riches story and an Overcoming the Monster story rolled into one. At last he throws off his disguise to reveal himself in all his kingly majesty, as he seizes the bow to put the suitors to rout. Like Cinderella when she throws off her rags for her final glorious transformation, his true self is at last revealed. Just like Aladdin, Jane Eyre, Perseus and so many others, Odysseus liberates his ‘other half’ from the shadows and succeeds to his kingdom. It turns out that the true goal of the Quest was precisely the same kind of ending we saw in the earlier plots.
Thus all the first three plots are really looking at a very similar basic story, except that each does so from its own distinctive angle. What we see symbolically represented, as was embryonically foreshadowed in those simple little versions we first hear in childhood, is the idealised pattern of how any human being can travel on the long, tortuous journey of inner growth, finally emerging to a state of complete self-realisation. The underlying impulse behind the three types of story is the same.
Up to this point in the sequence of plots there is never any real doubt that the hero or heroine of the story stands in opposition to this external dark power which is presented as the main obstacle to them reaching their goal. When Cinderella is contrasted with her stepmother and ugly sisters, Jane Eyre with St John Rivers, Perseus with Medusa, David with Goliath, James Bond with Dr No, we never question for a moment that they stand for a different set of qualities to those which characterise their antagonists.
What we do see in the Quest, however, more than in the earlier types of story, are occasions where the hero and his companions themselves display weaknesses, making foolish errors which threaten to prevent them reaching the goal. Indeed one reason why the hero of a Quest is more commonly than in other types of story given companions is precisely that this allows us to see them making fatal mistakes without the hero himself being killed. And these invariably arise from their own lack of awareness, their failure to recognise the full truth of their situation, with the result that they fall into the deadly clutches of the dark power.1
Odysseus and his original twelve shiploads of companions make so many mistakes on their journey – invariably through some selfish act of folly, recklessness or greed – that by the time he arrives back in Ithaca only he himself is left alive. Christian and Faithful in Pilgrim’s Progress fail to recognise the true nature of Vanity Fair, with the result that Faithful is killed and Christian only narrowly escapes with his life. Aeneas for a long time all but abandons his great task of finding a new homeland when he is bewitched by his love for Dido, and eventually has to be sternly recalled to his quest by Jupiter, the king of the gods. The rabbits in Watership Down make a near-fatal mistake when they fail to recognise the true nature of the strange warren in which they consider settling down: it is only in the nick of time that they are saved by Fiver’s intuitive understanding that it is a place of death. Jason’s Argonauts, the children of Israel, many of the knights on the Grail Quest, are similarly led into catastrophic misjudgements on their journeys, always by some appeal to their egocentric appetites, some failure to ‘see whole’. And one of the most important elements in the transformation which allows the hero and those who survive eventually to succeed in a Quest is that they gradually learn from their mistakes, and arrive at a state where they no longer make them.
In general, therefore, although the earlier types of plot show the dark forces which stand between the hero or heroine and the goal as being centred essentially outside them, nevertheless the more they themselves show the weakness and limited awareness of immaturity, the more likely they are to fall prey to the dark power. And of course we are now moving towards those types of story where it is made much more obvious that the dark forces the hero or heroine are having to contend with in fact lie within themselves.
As in the three earlier plots, the Voyage and Return story in its fullest expression is about the maturing process. But where it differs from the earlier plots lies in how it presents the transformation which the hero or heroine must go through if they are going to reach the goal. When we first meet them they are usually young and just on the verge of adult life, like Lucius in The Golden Ass, or Robinson Crusoe or the Ancient Mariner at the start of his fateful voyage. They are immature, feckless and self-centred, and this, directly or indirectly, is why they stumble in the first place into that new world which is so strange to them. They do not fully understand what they are doing or what is happening to them, which is why they become trapped in the shadow of the dark figures they meet in the other world, who eventually threaten them with destruction. What enables them eventually to escape from their thrall to the dark power is that they develop a wholly new understanding. They ‘see the light’ in a way which transforms their attitude; and it is this which eventually allows them to escape from the dark power and to return to the world where they began. But so changed have they been by their encounter with the unknown that their relationship to it is quite different. They have escaped from their original state of limited consciousness and learned to ‘see whole’. They have discovered who they are. They have grown up.
We even see all this embryonically reflected in the children’s tale of Peter Rabbit, who begins as a feckless, rebellious little child, which is what lands him in the appalling plight of being chased round the garden by Mr McGregor. Eventually, in the familiar nightmare climax, Peter finds himself completely trapped, without a clue as to what to do next. No one else can help him, he is completely on his own. But then he jumps up on a wheelbarrow from which, for the first time, he can see the whole garden. He has moved literally to a higher level of consciousness, which enables him to ‘see whole’. It is this which, by showing him how to reach the gate of the garden without having to pass Mr McGregor, allows him to escape with his life from what had seemed certain death; even if he then, because this is still a tale designed for very young children, returns home to mother.
The Voyage and Return plot thus shows us, much more obviously than any of the previous plots, a hero who, in order to reach the goal, has to go through a complete shift in his psychological centre. Initially ego-centred, with his lack of feeling for other people and his limited vision, he begins with the potential characteristics of a dark figure, and it is precisely this which places him under the shadow of those external dark figures who threaten to kill him. But he then goes through the change of centre which allows him to ‘see whole’, saving his life and bringing him back into life-giving contact with others. It is this move from darkness to light which liberates him, and brings him to his happy ending.
The Voyage and Return is the first plot in the sequence where this fundamental shift of psychological centre is brought out as of central importance. Even more obviously does this shift provide the key to the next plot in the sequence, Comedy.
Again, the underlying shape of the Comedy plot is familiar. We begin with a hero or heroine who are in some way frustrated or incomplete. Usually they are just on the threshold of adult life and looking forward to marriage. But the reason for their frustration is that the little world they inhabit is under the shadow of the dark power, which may be centred either in some dominant figure who has power over the hero or heroine, such as an ‘unrelenting parent’ opposed to their marriage, or in the hero himself (less often the heroine). The essence of Comedy is that it shows how, when one person becomes possessed by egotism, this can place everyone around them in its shadow. No other type of plot so consistently portrays the effect on a whole community of people – a household, a circle of friends, neighbouring families – when one dominant figure in that community falls into the grip of the dark power. As his (or her) blinkered egocentricity imposes a dark pressure on everyone else, this makes it impossible for anyone to be fully themselves. The flow of life is blocked.
This is why everyone in a Comedy may seem to be in a kind of twilight, in which nothing can be seen clearly or whole; in which people are obscured and cut off from one another by pretences, disguises and misunderstandings. This general web of confusion works up to the nightmare climax, when everything seems more bewildering, oppressive and further from resolution than ever, threatening some final disaster. But suddenly comes the unknotting, the moment of recognition when everyone’s true nature and identity is at last revealed. The chief dark figure of the story (if he is not merely exposed and bundled off the stage) goes through the fundamental psychological shift which brings him to himself. As he is liberated from his own dark prison, this also breaks the grip of the darkness which has oppressed everyone else. The heroine, or hero and heroine together, emerge from the shadows in which they have been obscured. Round their central loving union, the whole community is brought to unity and wholeness. Everyone has been freed to become his or her ‘proper self’. Amid universal celebration, the little world of the story has again been connected with life.
As we now see, the rules which dictate the outcome of Tragedy are no different from those which govern the unfolding of the other plots. Tragedy shows us what happens to a hero or heroine who have become possessed by the heartless, blind and egocentric part of their own personality, but cannot go through the inner transformation which could release them. As in the other plots, the story ends with the dark power being overthrown: except that here the hero or heroine have themselves become so completely identified with the darkness that it can only be eliminated by their own death.
In fact the actual shape of Tragedy bears many points of resemblance to that of the other types of story we have been looking at. We begin with a hero or heroine who is in some way dissatisfied, frustrated or incomplete. They then fall under the shadow of the dark power: except that this is not presented as something threatening to them but in the form of a Temptation, which arouses and gives dominance to the dark part of themselves. As in other types of story, the true nature of the dark power is not immediately apparent (the Dream Stage). But as the action unfolds, again as in other types of story, the real horror of the darkness finally comes clearly into view. Amid a mounting sense of threat, the story winds up to the familiar nightmare climax, that decisive confrontation between dark and light which culminates, as in the other plots, in the overthrow of the dark power and the final release which marks the ending of the story.
But because we are now seeing this familiar drama through the eyes of its chief dark figure, Tragedy focuses more intimately than the other plots on two things. First it shows us how someone is turned into a dark figure in the first place; and secondly we see just why the dark power eventually leads those who have passed under its spell to destruction. As we saw in Chapter Nine, The Divided Self, the tragic hero or heroine possessed by some fantasy of power or passion is trying to achieve something which cannot ultimately resolve into reality. Made heartless and blinded by the force of their egocentric obsession, they become more and more cut off from other people and from the reality of the world around them, until they are so far at odds with the entire context of their existence (including their own deeper selves) that the bubble of make-believe can no longer be sustained. And as we see happening to Othello or Dorian Gray, Stavrogin or Dr Jekyll, Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary, eventually the hero or heroine can tolerate the strain of this irresolution no longer. So disintegrated are they, inwardly and outwardly; so far has their original dream proved an illusion; so far off the rails has their blinkered vision taken them; so horrified has part of them become at what the dark component in their personality has led them to that, in self-disgust, they turn their violence suicidally on themselves. Thus do we see at the heart of Tragedy how the dark power, in rebellion against the whole, in the end works to bring about its own destruction.
In other tragedies we see how the hero possessed by darkness provokes his own destruction at the hand of others. In the early stages, as in other types of story, the chief dark figure seems to be getting his own way, just as does the monster in the early stages of an Overcoming the Monster story. But increasingly this drives the light figures into the shadows cast by his darkness. And as the action unfolds we gradually see a crucial polarisation taking place. ‘Above the line’ in the story is the dark figure, still dominant, but passing further and further into the grip of darkness and increasingly isolated. Meanwhile, in the shadows ‘below the line’, the forces of light are constellating in opposition to this unruly power which weighs so heavily on them all. This is the kind of situation we see so often in other plots, as in Overcoming the Monster stories, or in many comedies, such as The Marriage of Figaro. Eventually this polarisation leads to the climax of the story, the decisive confrontation. Just as in other plots, the power of darkness is finally overthrown, the shadows are lifted. And for those who have won the day and emerged into the light, this is a moment of victory. The irruption of darkness which had blighted all their lives has passed away. Peace and wholeness are restored. Life can begin to flow again. Even though this is a Tragedy, we recognise it as a situation very similar to that which we see at the end of other types of story.
An obvious example of this type of tragedy is Macbeth.2 We see the hero drawn into the grip of the dark power. As he becomes more and more dark, in his ‘upper realm’, so an ever growing number of those around him fall victim to his blind and deadly egotism. But for each of the chief victims he kills, Duncan, Banquo, Macduff’s wife and children, there is another who escapes – Malcolm, Fleance, Macduff himself – and who flees the kingdom into England. Here, in the ‘inferior realm’, beyond Macbeth’s limited field of awareness, the light forces concentrate their own power, until they are ready to invade the ‘upper realm’ and to close in on the monster for the climactic confrontation. When the reversal has taken place and the usurping tyrant has been overthrown, what we see is a kingdom restored to itself, under its rightful king. Indeed the play ends on a note of solemn rejoicing as they all head off to Scone for Malcolm’s coronation. Just as in other types of story, as the kingdom is restored to wholeness, the great prize has been wrested from the grip of darkness. What essentially we are looking at, albeit from an unusual angle, is a version of the familiar happy ending.
It is appropriate that the story of Rebirth should conclude this sequence because, in its simpler forms, it links back so clearly to the types of plot which began it, where the dark power is presented as something wholly outside the central figure. In the fairy tale versions of Rebirth we come across in childhood the chief source of darkness in the story is personified in some mysterious older figure with magical powers, such as the malign witches who in Snow White or Sleeping Beauty place the heroine under an imprisoning spell. Later we come to those versions, like Crime and Punishment or Silas Marner, where the darkness is presented as centred within the hero or heroine’s own personality. And here, since they themselves have become dark, in order to be liberated they have to go through precisely that same psychic shift we see in Voyage and Return stories or Comedy (and even begin to see in some tragedies, like King Lear): the move from the restricted awareness centred on the ego to that deeper centre in the human personality which opens out their understanding and unites them with all the world.
We thus see that behind each of these seven central ways in which stories naturally form in the human imagination lies the same fundamental impulse.
Each begins by showing us a hero or heroine in some way incomplete, who then encounters the dark power. Through most of the story the dark power remains dominant, casting a shadow in which all remains unresolved. But the essence of the action is that it shows us the light and dark forces in the story gradually constellating to produce a final decisive confrontation. As a result, in any story which reaches complete resolution (and of course, for reasons we shall explore later, there are many which do not), the ending shows us how the dark power can be overthrown, with the light ending triumphant. The only question is whether the central figure is identified with the light, in which case he or she ends up liberated and whole; or whether they have fallen irrevocably into the grip of darkness, in which case they are destroyed. But, whatever the fate of the central figure, the real underlying purpose of the process has been to show us how, in the end, light overcomes the darkness. Such is the archetypal pattern around which our human urge to imagine stories is ultimately centred.
At its most basic level, the way we experience the unfolding of this pattern when we are following any story lies in the contrast between the moments when we sense the pressure of the dark power closing in on the central figure and those when we sense that pressure being relaxed. The pressure may be that of an actual threat to their life; or that of some other physical or spiritual imprisonment; or it may simply be the lack of any resolution to their situation, so that they feel lost and confused, cannot make sense of their surroundings and cannot see what do next. The release comes when that pressure is lifted: when the threat to their life recedes; when they escape from imprisonment; when they can again see clearly the way forward. In fact the fundamental rhythm of any story is determined precisely by this alternation between phases of constriction and liberation. And there is a common pattern to these alternations which we have seen in every type of story we have looked at.
Again and again through our sequence of plots we noted how they unfold through a basic structure consisting of five stages. The names given to these stages did not in every instance coincide, because what is happening in them may vary according to the specific demands of each type of plot. But we can now see how, on another level, there is a basic structure underlying them all, which shows the essence of how any fully resolved story takes shape.
(1) This begins with an initial phase when we are shown how the hero or heroine feel in some way constricted. This sets up the tension requiring resolution which leads into the action of the story.
(2) This is followed by a phase of opening out, as the hero or heroine sense that they are on the road to some new state or some far-off point of resolution.
(3) Eventually this leads to a more severe phase of constriction, where the strength of the dark power and the hero or heroine’s limitations in face of it both become more obvious.
(4) We then see a phase where, although the dark power is still dominant, the light elements in the story are preparing for the final confrontation. This eventually works up to the nightmare climax, when opposition between light and dark is at its most extreme and the pressure on everyone involved is at its greatest.
(5) This culminates in the moment of reversal and liberation, when the grip of the darkness is finally broken. The story thus ends on the sense of a final opening out into life, with everything at last resolved.
The essential pattern underlying all this, the pattern of any properly constructed story, is therefore that of a threefold ebb-and-flow, in which the swings between the two poles become more pronounced until the climax is reached. The initial constriction and a first, limited opening out are followed by a new, more serious constriction. This is followed by a phase of preparation which culminates in the most acute constriction of all, the story’s climax. This leads to the final liberation, with the release of the prize.
At such a moment we recognise, again and again, something which lies at the very root of our lifelong experience of storytelling, in all its myriad forms and guises: the sense, at the ending of a story, that only with enormous difficulty and after a long and painful struggle, something of inestimable life-giving value has at last been worked forth from a dark, imprisoning matrix which held it fast.
When we see the essence of stories in this light we are left with three overriding questions. What is this thing of priceless value which has to be won from the shadows? What is it which casts those shadows and creates that imprisonment in the first place? And, just as important as either of these, what is it that is required for this liberation to be successfully achieved?
Such are the questions we look at in the next part of the book. But before that we may pause, in an epilogue to Part One, to take an introductory look at an extraordinarily important element in storytelling which so far we have scarcely touched on.