The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [14]
So powerful is the presence of this figure, so great the sense of threat which emanates from it, that the only thing which matters to us as we follow the story is that it should be killed and its dark power overthrown. Eventually the hero must confront the monster, often armed with some kind of `magic weapons, and usually in or near its lair, which is likely to be in a cave, a forest, a castle, a lake, the sea, or some other deep and enclosed place. Battle is joined and it seems that, against such terrifying odds, the hero cannot possibly win. Indeed there is a moment when his destruction seems all but inevitable. But at the last moment, as the story reaches its climax, there is a dramatic reversal. The hero makes a `thrilling escape from death' and the monster is slain. The hero's reward is beyond price. He wins the treasure, or the hand of the `Princess. He has liberated the world - community, kingdom, the human race - from the shadow of this threat to its survival. And in honour of his achievement, he may well go on to become some kind of ruler or king.
There have been few cultures in the world which have not produced some version of the Overcoming The Monster story. But a civilisation we particularly associate with such stories is that of the ancient Greeks, whose mythology was swarming with monsters of every kind, from the original Titans overcome by Zeus or the one-eyed giant Polyphemus blinded by Odysseus to the mighty Python strangled by Apollo or the riddle-posing Sphinx who threw herself over the cliff when Oedipus proved to be the first man who could correctly answer her riddle (for which he was chosen to be king over Thebes).
One of the most celebrated of the Greek monster-slaying heroes was Perseus, who had to overcome not one monster but two, one female, one male. When, as a young boy, he is cast adrift in the world with his beautiful mother, the Princess Danae, the two fall under the shadow of the cruel tyrant Acrisius, who demands that Danae should succumb to his advances. In a desperate bid to save his mother from this fate, young Perseus offers to perform any task the tyrant should set him. The cruel Acrisius therefore sends the boy off to the end of the world to obtain the head of the dreadful Gorgon Medusa, the mere sight of whose face is sufficient to turn a man to stone. Perseus is equipped by the gods with magic weapons, a pair of winged sandals, enabling him to fly, a `helmet of invisibility' and a brilliantly polished shield, in which he will be able to see the Medusa's reflection without having to look at her directly. By remote and pathless ways, as Ovid put it, Perseus reaches the Gorgons' lair at the Western edge of the world, and severs the Medusa's snake-covered head. It might seem that he has triumphantly concluded the task that has been set him; but we now learn that this was merely the essential preparation for a further immense task which awaits him on his journey home. As he flies back with his prize, he looks down to see a beautiful, weeping Princess, Andromeda, chained to a rock by the sea. She has been placed there as tribute to appease a fearsome sea-monster, which has been sent by Poseidon to ravage her father's kingdom. Perseus sees the huge reptile rising out of the deeps to seize Andromeda and swoops down to engage it in battle. He is able to use the trophy of his first victory, the head of Medusa, to turn the monster to stone. He is rewarded with the hand of the Princess, for liberating her father's kingdom from this awful threat. He returns