The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [180]
Through all the closing stages of the story, Odysseus can see - with the help of the goddess of wisdom Athene - exactly what he has to do, and is entirely in control of his actions. Outwardly, `above the line', his kingdom is still triumphantly in the hands of the dark power, the loud-mouthed, swaggering, lecherous suitors, who infest his palace and press closer and closer round the increasingly despairing Penelope. But now, in the `inferior realm, we see Odysseus, disguised as a humble beggar, moving inexorably through the shadows across the island, towards the final confrontation with his Dark Rivals. Again we see the story coming to the familiar three-cornered climax: on one hand, the overbearing 'masculine' power of the suitors, greedy, proud, quarrelsome, drunken, cruel, using their power only to indulge and to assert themselves; on the other, the helpless Penelope, the vulnerable feminine imprisoned in the shadows. Finally into their midst comes Odysseus, now stronger than ever because he is a man completely in charge of himself, who knows exactly what he has to do to take charge of the situation. At the same time his strength is balanced by his openness to the feminine and the fact that he is acting in a cause far greater than just his own. At the climactic moment he reveals himself in his true kingly majesty, as the only man able to bend the mighty bow. He fires his first arrow clean through the twelve axeheads, to symbolise the twelve ordeals he has surmounted: there is no longer anything between him and his goal.3 With contemptuous ease he puts the suitors to rout, dispelling the dark power forever. He liberates his `other half' from the shadows. At last he is whole and can assume his rightful sovereignty over the kingdom.
Such is the essence of the Quest story (although there is no more complete and profound version than the Odyssey). It shows a hero who is initially'all at sea' and at the mercy of events being gradually tempered by his ordeals into learning how to direct and to discipline his strength single-mindedly towards one end. He must develop his awareness and become master of himself until nothing can stand in his way. But at the same time he must show that he is entirely light, by his inward openness to the feminine, so that he is using his strength in the service of life and of the whole. Only when he has finally reached this state of complete balance and become fully himself is he ready to be united with his `other half' and to claim the `kingdom'. Thus does the Quest end at the same point as the earlier plots: because the fundamental impulse behind them all is the same.
Voyage and Return
When the hero or heroine of a Voyage and Return story fall into the mysterious `other realm, they may well find themselves in a landscape peopled by a familiar range of dark figures:
(1) the Dark Father-figure, or Tyrant: e.g., Mr McGregor, the terrifying denizen of the garden in Peter Rabbit, who has earlier killed and eaten the hero's father; Captain Hook, the would-be tyrant over the island in Peter Pan;
(3) the Dark Queen, Witch, or Dark Mother-figure: this is the tyrannical female version: e.g., the Queen of Hearts in Alice In Wonderland or the Red Queen in Through The Looking Glass; the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz; Mrs Best-Chetwynde, the rich older woman who makes a plaything of Paul Pennyfeather, the hero of Decline and Fall;
(3) the Dark Rivals: e.g., the cannibals and the mutineers whom Robinson Crusoe encounters as rivals to his sovereignty of the island; the shadowy Morlocks who eventually capture the hero's little friend Weena in The Time Machine.
But the first thing we recognise about a Voyage and Return story, as we have seen, is how in the early stages, even more obviously than in the Quest, the emphasis is put on the limitations of the hero or heroine themselves. The essence of the deeper versions of this plot, such as Robinson Crusoe, The Golden Ass or the Ancient Mariner, is that we see a young man who falls into his horrific experience precisely because he is feckless, self-centred,