• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 5572 0

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