The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [213]
The Winter's Tale
Such is the universality of the Comedy plot that, in ways like these, it can be used to reflect every nuance of the archetypal drama. In the four examples we have just looked at, the key figure of the story has been, in turn, the hero, the motherfigure, the father-figure and the heroine: each of the four figures making up the family drama, and each presented as playing his or her part in bringing it to its proper conclusion in a way that is unusual. But some of the most complete versions of Comedy are those which show the intermingling of both the basic forms of the plot unfolding at the same time: so that the story ends not just on the image of a young hero and heroine joined together, surrounded by joyful parents and friends, but on that of two couples brought together out of the shadows, one representing the younger generation, the other the older.
In The Winter's Tale we begin with a King/Father, a Queen/Mother and their young son, representing the promise of new life. But at once Leontes falls into the state of darkness, grievously wronging his wife (and turning his best friend King Polixenes, by the tragic `dark inversion, into an imagined Dark Rival). In the Tyrant's shadow everything now goes as wrong as could be. First he throws his feminine `other half' Hermione into prison, where she gives birth to a daughter, Perdita, whom Leontes promptly orders to be abandoned to die. Then his son, representing the next generation, dies of grief for his mother's plight. Finally it seems Hermione has died also. At this point, where Leontes is stricken with remorse, we see him taking the first step towards recognising what a monster he has become. Sure enough we learn that little Perdita, the `lost feminine' as her name implies, is not dead after all; she is just far away, in an `inferior realm'. We then follow the psychological essence of the drama entirely in terms of her growing to maturity, the feminine value secretly developing, to the point where she falls in love with young Prince Florizel, representing a potential new centre of wholeness. Although the young lovers then fall under the shadow of the Dark Father, Polixenes - the dark masculine still holds some sway over the story at this stage - they flee to the sorrowing Leontes, whom we find already well on the way to complete inward transformation. He and Polixenes are then reunited in blessing the union of the young lovers. Finally, as the last piece of the jigsaw falling into place, Leontes is reunited with his lost `other half' Hermione, so that the story can end on the ultimate four-cornered symbol of wholeness, father, mother, hero and heroine, all brought out of the shadows and joyfully united. Turned from darkness into light, the archetypal family is complete.
The crucial transforming role in The Winter's Tale is played by the shining figure of Perdita, originating when the darkness is at its height as a little new-born baby, growing secretly in strength until she can at last emerge triumphantly into the `upper realm' of Leontes's court, to flood everyone with light. She is a perfect symbol of the feminine value, around whom everyone else in the story is ultimately drawn up into a state of wholeness. In this respect The Winter's Tale is as much a Rebirth as a Comedy. And, as we have seen, one of the outstanding features of the Rebirth plot is the centrally important role it gives to the redeeming figure, drawing the hero or heroine out of the shadows into light.
So far in looking at the symbolic figures who are central to storytelling we have concentrated on their dark aspects. It is finally time to turn to their opposites: those whose purpose is to lead and inspire the hero and heroine to their goal, the great figures of light.
`While I was quietly thinking these thoughts over to myself and giving vent to my sorrow... I became aware of a woman standing over me. She was of awe-inspiring appearance, her eyes burning and