The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [235]
So far the imposing figure of the mysterious, kindly Queen seems the most light figure in the story. As a loving Mother she is the chief representative of the feminine in Tamino's life, and she has awoken his own inner feminine by sowing in his heart the desire for the anima-figure Pamina, whom he yearns for more than anything in the world. Like many young heroes, Tamino thus finds himself enjoying a good relationship with `Mother' but aware that, to make him complete, he must one day be united with his own feminine `other half'; and that she languishes in the grim clutches of a tyrannical male. Thus does the Dark Father enter as the main shadow over Tamino's future; and his only talisman in the great ordeal which lies ahead is the magic flute itself, as a symbol of the sovereign power of the Self to turn darkness into light.
Tamino sets off full of resolve to challenge the Tyrant in his lair and is separated from Papageno. We then for the first time see the lovely Pamina, and realise with horror that she is about to be brutally ravished by Sarastro's servant, the shadowy Moor, Monostatos. In the nick of time she is saved by the intervention of Papageno, who tells her about Tamino and his love for her. Meanwhile Tamino himself approaches Sarastro's dark temple and demands entry. `Is this Sarastro's realm of terror?' he demands at the door. He is told that it is a 'temple of wisdom', but does not believe it. He shouts that he hates Sarastro for ever, as `a tyrant and foe of men'.
At this point the shadow of the `dark masculine' over the story reaches its height. We have seen the heroine about to be violated by the `dark masculine' Monostatos, who represents the dark side of `natural man' just as Papageno represents his light aspect. Indeed, for the moment, it is the impulsive intervention of the instinctively good-hearted Papageno which saves her. But Pamina is still a prisoner of Monostatos's far more terrible master Sarastro, and Tamino himself, as he stands at the temple gate, even believes that she must be already dead.
Now comes the dramatic reversal which gives this story its extraordinary psychological profundity. In musically one of the most moving moments of the opera, `mysterious voices' from within the temple assure him that she is still alive. `She lives, she lives' he exclaims in almost disbelieving relief; and the music conveys the sense of life flooding back into him. At his moment of greatest despair we can feel the life-giving anima stirring within him (much as, in Beethoven's Fidelio, we see the despairing prisoner Florestan joyfully returning to life when, in the gloom of his dungeon, he disbelievingly senses the presence of his `angel Leonora'). Gradually the awe-inspiring air of the temple is beginning to sow doubts that Sarastro is quite the figure of total darkness he has been painted. Then, heralded by a solemn chorus in praise of his wisdom, we for the first time meet Sarastro himself. Pamina throws herself at his feet, begging for mercy and to be allowed to return to her mother; but Sarastro firmly explains he cannot release her, for her own good. If he had left her with her mother `what would become of truth and right?' The Queen of the Night is `all too proud. By man your course must be decided. For by herself a woman steps beyond her sphere and is misguided.'
This is the crux of the story. What Sarastro is saying is that, to bring about true human wholeness,