The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [192]
Finally, in Fidelo, we see the unusual case of a hero who, because of his special circumstances, has become stunted in his masculinity while remaining strong in his inner feminine. Florestan's imprisonment at the hands of the Tyrant reduces him outwardly to a weak, passive dependence. But he retains his secure link to the feminine in his unshakeable love for Leonore, and it is precisely this situation which her own balance of qualities is best equipped to redeem. Leonore is not only fully developed in her own femininity. She is also, in her fearless courage, irradiated with `masculine' strength, as is conveyed by her donning a man's disguise. In this respect she brings to Florestan in his dungeon the very strength and spirit he has lost. She is able to defy and to outwit the Tyrant, and thus to make the equation complete whereby Florestan can be freed again to become a proper man. Like Ariadne, or Portia, or Jane Eyre, she is the `active' heroine who is so often needed when the hero himself is for some reason rendered in masculine terms weak and lacking in power. The `active' heroine is always a strong, independent figure, alive to the positive inner masculine qualities in herself, which is why she so often disguises herself as a man, or is associated with manly weapons (Ariadne bringing the sword to Theseus) or `masculine' skills (Portia showing her mastery of the law). She is needed to redress the balance of the overall equation, where the hero has been reduced to impotence, by helping to pull him out of his imprisonment and restoring him to masculine strength. Because for any true, triumphant union to take place between the hero and heroine of a story, a complete balance of all four masculine and feminine qualities has somehow to be available between them: to bring about the final flowering which can enable both, in each other, to become whole.
We can now see the nature of the equation which lies at the heart of stories coming clearly into view.
Ulysses in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, i.iii
'All happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' The famous dictum with which Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina might well be adapted to apply to stories. All stories which come to a happy ending are alike...: And certainly, as we shall see when we come to look at what happens when stories fail to reach a proper happy ending, there is a sense in which each does so in its own way and for its own individual reasons. But what is remarkable when we consider the vast range of stories which do come to a complete happy ending is how much they have in common. We can now, in this chapter, sum up what that is.
If we consider any of the examples we have looked at which do reach such a positive resolution - from Cinderella to the Odyssey, from The Marriage of Figaro to Crocodile Dundee - we can see how what has been going on in each of them is fundamentally the same. In order to reach a full happy ending, the story must culminate in an act of liberation from the dark power which produces a final image of integration with life. This great prize can only be wrested from the darkness when the hero or heroine, or both together, have been transformed in such a way that they are potentially whole. This means that, between them, they must represent a balance of certain specific qualities: those qualities we can identify as `masculine' and `feminine'.
In fact what we have seen emerging in the last chapter is how stories present us with an ideal picture of human nature. What we see endlessly recurring is that same equation: how, to reach the fully happy ending, hero and heroine must represent the perfect coming together of those four values: strength, order, feeling