The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [221]
The numinosity of the Self may be symbolically evoked in many different ways as the distant life-renewing goal the central figure is heading for. We may see it symbolised for instance, as a treasure, a jewel or some other mysterious priceless object (e.g., the `Golden Fleece', the `Holy Grail', the silver rose in Der Rosenkavalier). It may be presented as a far-off shining city, as when the young Dick Whittington is told about faraway London, `where the streets are paved with gold'; or Christian is told of the `Celestial City; or the hero of Jude the Obscure sees the distant vision of `Christminster, the Self he will never attain. It may be symbolised as a great mountain, with its roots in the earth and its peak in the heavens, as in the opening stanzas of The Divine Comedy or in Aladdin where, in the shadow of such a mountain, the hero first goes down into the cave to fetch the lamp; itself a symbol of the Self.
More personally, the power of the Self may be seen in all the light figures who appear round the hero or heroine during the course of the story, inspiring or assisting them on to their goal. Each of these light figures represents a different aspect of the Self, the mysterious power which is drawing the central figure and the story towards the point where it can become fully realised. And, as we have seen, all the main characters in stories - both light and dark - represent different aspects of the four central roles in the family drama. Each of these roles can be split into its ego-centred dark aspects, which give rise to the dark figures, that negative version which the hero or heroine must overcome or transcend; and its light aspects, standing for the powers of life and wholeness.
In fact we can now draw up a cast list of all those archetypal figures who provide the key to the main characters in storytelling:
In the negative version of the archetypal drama, the supreme image of darkness triumphant is the image of the `light feminine', the anima, held prisoner in the shadow of the `dark masculine', the Tyrant or Dark Father, representing the power of the human ego. We can now see why the image which stands at the opposite pole is that of the Wise Old Man and the Anima; because they represent the state of fully-realised masculinity and femininity, transcending the ego in perfect lifegiving conjunction.
The `helpful animal'
To complete the list of archetypal figures in stories, two other, more specialised figures must be added: each of which serves also to underline an important general principle governing the way stories work.
One of the more familiar figures in the folk tales of the world is the `helpful animal'. We meet a little hero who is very much alone in the world, and may well have fallen under the shadow of a Dark Father, Dark Mother or Dark Rivals. Just when he seems most alone he runs into a mysterious creature or creatures with strange powers who become his friend or ally. Dick Whittington and the hero of Puss in Boots meet their cats, Aladdin meets the genies, and so forth. Often the hero shows some significant act of kindness to this creature. There are innumerable folk tales where the hero gives a share of his food to a frog, a fox, a bird, a mysterious little man in the forest, usually when others, such as the hero's two brothers, have conspicuously failed to show such generosity. This action is significant because it shows that the hero has a good heart, a capacity for selfless feeling. From then on this creature becomes a powerful ally and proves in the end to be the key to the hero's salvation.
The point about these figures is that they only appear when the hero is young and undeveloped, before he has won real understanding of the world. But he has shown the vital prerequisite of his potential for eventual wholeness in the act of generosity