The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [157]
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 universal plot
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,