The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [204]
Then the greatest king of all, Zeus, king of the gods, representing the power of masculine authority at its most numinous because it is serving the cause of life, comes to Danae disguised as a shining shower of gold and she becomes pregnant with the hero of the story, Perseus. When he is born, the fearful, enraged Acrisius turns loose the infant hero and his mother in a chest on the sea, whence they are eventually washed up alone together on a strange shore. The hero thus, like any human child, enters a new world close to his mother - but it is not long before a new presence enters their life in the shape of the king of the land they have come to, Polydectes. He tries to force his attentions on Danae and treats her cruelly, thus redoubling the shadowy image of the Dark King/Father which lies so heavily over the early stages of this story. The boy Perseus grows up to the verge of manhood, loving his mother and attempting to defend her against the tyrannical `dark masculine' of Polydectes, and eventually, to buy him off, he promises the Tyrant he will do anything to save her from his clutches. This courageous declaration of loving unselfishness tells us that Perseus begins with a good relationship to the feminine; but in order to prove its worth he is first going to have to establish his manhood, for without the manly strength to back them up, such declarations are merely empty expressions of sentiment. The king sends him off to kill the dreadful Medusa. The terrible, once-beautiful Gorgon, with her deadly power to turn all who see her to stone, freezing the life and growth of all who fall into her shadow, is one of the most indelible images of the `dark feminine' ever conceived. Eventually, after a long journey and much preparation, with the aid of the goddess of wisdom Athene and the god Hermes, Perseus manages to cut off her head. At the moment he does so, out of her body spring fleeting images of the shining warrior Chrysaor and the winged horse Pegasus, symbols of the bounding power of manhood which Perseus has released from his victorious struggle with the `dark feminine'.
Now he has become a man, the only danger is that he will misuse his new-found power and strength for selfish purposes. He has one more task to become complete: to prove that his power has life-giving balance, by showing that it does not overshadow the `light feminine'. This is precisely the test which awaits him when, on his journey home, he sees the beautiful Princess Andromeda chained to a rock as the terrible sea-monster sent by Poseidon approaches. The shadowy presence of Poseidon, grim king of the inferior realm beneath the sea, is always a sign in Greek mythology that the `Dark Father' of unbalanced masculine power is at work. He is, for instance, the father of Polyphemus, the `dark opposite' to Odysseus. He is the shadowy presence behind King Minos and his creature the Minotaur, the `dark opposite' to Theseus. Here his sea-monster stands as the `dark opposite' or `Dark Rival' of Perseus, the representative of the `dark masculine' with whom he is in competition for the Princess. By using the trophy of his new-found manhood, the head of Medusa, to outwit the monster, Perseus slays it, frees Andromeda and marries her. He returns to kill Polydectes, again using the Gorgon's head, to free his mother Danae. Finally, at a funeral games, he by mistake (and therefore innocently) kills the watching Acrisius, his grandfather - and at this point Perseus at last succeeds to the kingdom. The original oracle has been fulfilled. Perseus has succeeded in every sense. He has unravelled all the intricate series of challenges back to the beginning, turning darkness in each case to light. The story ends, as it began, on the image of a king, a proud, fullgrown bearer of masculine authority, standing with a beautiful woman by his side. The torch has been passed to a new generation. The cycle