The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [163]
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.
Comedy
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.
Tragedy
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