The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [234]
At last the young Son-Hero and Daughter-Heroine, Ferdinand and Miranda, can step to the centre of the stage, truly united, with the blessing of their fathers Alonso and Prospero. The royal road to the future is open and assured. And now that the real hero of the story, Prospero himself, has become whole, his kingdom fully redeemed, even the gross, drunken Caliban, the animal-man who has understood nothing (the very opposite of a Wise Old Man, and therefore Prospero's other `dark opposite' in the play) has been swept up in the general redemption and says `I will be wise hereafter and seek for grace'. Prospero ends alone in the middle of the stage, having completed his great spiritual work, which has all been ultimately concerned with the putting right of his own `inner kingdom'. He is utterly drained and left in a state of complete religious humility: ,now my charms are all o'erthrown ... and my ending is despair, unless I be relieved by prayer.
Thus in effect did Shakespeare conclude his own immense inner journey, reflected stage by stage through all the unfolding sequence of his plays. He could now retire from the world to end his days quietly in Stratford where he had begun. Like Prospero, he had reached his goal.
The Magic Flute
There is no more appropriate story to conclude this summing-up of the principles which guide stories to a happy ending than the magical opera which Mozart wrote in the closing months of his own life in 1791, to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. No story in the world lays out the essence of the archetypal family drama more completely or economically than The Magic Flute.
The plot is dominated by four characters: a Father-figure, Lord Sarastro; a Mother-figure, the Queen of the Night; a Son-Hero, Tamino; and a DaughterHeroine, Pamina. Dressed in symbolic terms, The Magic Flute portrays all the key stages of a man's inner psychological development, from the moment of his birth, through his gradual enlightenment, to the point where he is at last consciously whole.
The opera begins with the young hero, Prince Tamino, being propelled violently onto the stage by a terrifying serpent. He falls helpless and unconscious to the ground. The serpent is killed by three ladies who look down at the boy adoringly and leave to tell their mistress, the Queen, of his arrival. Tamino then wakes up and finds himself in a wholly unfamiliar world. The first person he meets is the strange figure of the bird-catcher Papageno, covered in feathers. Tamino discloses that his father is a great king who rules over `many lands and peoples'. But all this now seems very far away, and he is baffled by Papageno who seems to know nothing of who his own parents are, or where he comes from; merely that he lives `by eating and drinking' and that he obtains his food by catching birds and presenting them to the mysterious ruler of this country, the Queen of the Night, whom he has never seen but who rewards him by giving him all he needs.
What we have seen so far is Tamino, as Everyman, enacting his birth into the world. Initially unconscious, like any newborn baby, he is surrounded, like any baby at its birth, by the joyful female presence of those who have assured his safe arrival. He then emerges to consciousness to find, again like any baby, that this new world he has entered is dominated by nature and instinct. To personify this is the role of Papageno, who describes himself as `a child of nature'. Throughout the story he represents the unthinking, instinctive existence of someone very little different from the birds and animals, and who aspires to no higher state of consciousness or understanding. He simply depends on `the Queen' to supply all his needs, as an animal depends instinctively on `Mother Nature'. But Tamino's destiny is to be very different.
At this point the three ladies return to tell Tamino that their mysterious Queen is pleased with him and has a great task for him to perform. She has a beautiful daughter, the Princess Pamina. They show Tamino her picture, and he is at once smitten with love