The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [329]
Alone among all the grown-ups who are portrayed in such a threatening, unfeeling way through the story, there is one scientist, Keys, who shows real warmth and understanding. And when E.T. dies, and his body is placed on ice in a sealed container, Keys suggests that Elliott, who, now the symbiosis is broken, suddenly feels much better, might like to be alone with him, before E.T. is taken away to be dissected. Elliott looks in through the inspection-window of the container, and sees from his glowing `heart light' that his friend has miraculously returned to life. He recruits help from his brother and, when the container is being taken away, they hi-jack the van, with older brother driving while Elliott releases E.T. from his frozen coffin. They are joined by more young friends with bicycles and head off into the forest in a dramatic `chase sequence', as they are hotly pursued by a horde of police and officials. When their path is blocked by a police barrier, they are saved when, thanks to E.T.s magic powers, their bicycles simply fly up over it. They arrive at the clearing where the spaceship is just descending to take E.T. back home. There is a touching farewell scene, when E.T. says goodbye to his friends. And these now include not just Elliott, his brother and sister and the other children, but also two grown-ups: Elliott's mother and the friendly scientist Keys, standing beside her. The spacecraft then soars away, leaving a rainbow across the sky.
What makes this story different from any other we have looked at in this chapter is that, as it unfolds, we see a genuine process of transformation taking place. The young hero begins, alone and excluded, in a family under the shadow of his father having selfishly abandoned them all. When this weird alien creature arrives, all normal responses dictate that he should be rejected as a terrifying threat. But when the `monster' behaves in a friendly fashion, and Elliott responds likewise, it is like one of those moments in a folk tale when a little hero gives food to the animal or `the little man' he meets in the forest. In establishing that the hero has a kind heart this brings him an ally who is to be the key to his salvation. Indeed we soon see that E.T. is precisely the 'Alter-Ego' Elliott needs to discover himself and to develop a new, deeper sense of his own identity. Everything E.T. does is lifegiving and benign and, in this sense, he is more than just Elliott's Alter-Ego: he represents the integrating power of the Self. Thanks to his influence, Elliott finds new strengths in himself and becomes a leader. His divided family gradually knits together, until finally, when E.T. departs, not only are they all united in their love of him: Elliott's mother is now fully integrated with this unifying process, with a new man by her side, the one grown-up in the story who has not behaved like an officious automaton and has shown true human understanding. Whether or not he will become the new `light' father to replace the `dark' father who has departed, we cannot know. But what is certain is that Elliott and his family have all been changed for the better by this lovable embodiment of the Self which has come into their midst and now vanished again.3
Thus, even though this may only be another example of Hollywood sentimentality, with the ego borrowing the values of the Self, Spielberg's film at least comes to much more of a genuine resolution than Close Encounters or Superman. In archetypal terms, indeed, it provides a more substantial ending than the plays of Chekhov, Proust, Beckett or any other story in this chapter. Because their pseudoendings, going nowhere, are all that stories spun from the ego alone can ever hope to achieve.
'T'will vex thy soul to hear of what I shall speak; For I must talk of murders, rapes and massacres, Acts of black night, abominable