The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [220]
By the end of his rise from rags to riches, Joseph has become an immensely powerful figure, but one important thing is missing. Neither he nor the story can end on an image of wholeness until he has mended his old quarrel with his brothers. This is achieved when Joseph orders his brothers to bring back their father's youngest son Benjamin, described as `a child of his old age, a little one. It is through the upwelling of love in his stern heart at the sight of his little brother that Joseph finally comes to forgive the others the great wrong they have done him. He reveals himself at last in his true identity, and he and his contrite brothers are joyfully reconciled. But the curious thing is that although Benjamin is constantly described as `a lad' with emphasis on his youth, although he is almost invariably thought of as `little Benjamin; the internal evidence of the story shows that he cannot be anything of the sort. He was already alive before Joseph left home at the age of 17. Since then at least 22 more years must have elapsed before the brothers first arrived in Egypt (Joseph was 30 when he was released from prison, and subsequently there had been seven years of plenty and two of famine). It is something of a shock to realise therefore that Benjamin cannot be younger than his mid-twenties. Yet such is the unconscious pull of the Child-archetype that the storyteller turns him once again, for symbolic purposes, into a 'little one, in order to convey the awakening of Joseph's love in the most moving and convincing manner.
In considering the archetypal basis for human emotions, it is not for nothing that we are familiar with the phrase `women and children first.
The `Self'
The more we look at stories in this light, the more clearly we see the consistency with which they portray one great fundamental struggle. On one hand there are the forces making for disintegration, confusion, darkness and ultimately death. These are all centred on the ego. On the other are all those forces which are urging both central figure and story towards wholeness and light, to the point where he or she can at last realise their complete identity. What these have in common is that they are centred not on the ego but on something much deeper in the human personality, something all-connecting, something universal. This ultimate state of wholeness and the forces which work to bring it about comprise the archetype of totality which Jung and others have called the Self.2
The most obvious vision of what the Self stands for can be seen in the closing stages of any story which comes to a complete happy ending. It is synonymous with everything we see represented in such an ending. It is the point where everything comes together in perfect balance: power, order, feeling, awareness. It is the point of perfect unity, with no trace of division or egotism. It is the point of perfect light, with no shadow.
More specifically, as such an image of totality comes together, the Self may be represented by four things which happen more or less simultaneously:
(1) the story's central figure at last reaches a state of complete individual selfrealisation;
(2) the hero and heroine come together in perfect union, each making the other whole;
(3) the archetypal family drama comes to its culmination, so that we see hero and heroine momentarily in equipoise between all four central roles. As they become the fully-realised Son/Hero and Daughter/Heroine, so they are simultaneously ready to succeed as perfectly balanced Father and Mother;
(4) the wider community or kingdom is redeemed, under proper sovereignty, at one with itself, with the world and with the power of life.
But it is not only in this closing