The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [518]
Inevitably, in attempting to open up such a wide and complex field to scientific study, this book uses a good many `technical terms'. This is a brief guide to the more significant of those referred to in the text. Some are adapted from Jungian psychology, others are new.
Archetypes: Jung's term to identify the structures programmed into the unconscious levels of our psyche, related to our core instincts, and which shape much of our response to the world.
The main archetypal complexes centre round the key roles played by human beings in the `archetypal family drama' (see below) - Father, Mother, Son/Hero, Daughter/Heroine and Child. Stories are centred round these archetypes, along with those representing the ego and `the Self' (see below).
The patterns shaping stories, as this book shows, are themselves archetypal.
Archetypal Family Drama: term used in this book to describe the process, central to storytelling and to human life, whereby each generation grows up to succeed to that which came before. Each person begins life as a child, created by the pairing off of a father and mother. A central preoccupation of stories is the process whereby their hero or heroine learns to pair off with their right `other half', thus continuing the chain of life.
The ego/Self split: the key to why evolution has given human beings the capacity to imagine stories. This stems from the division in our psyche, unique in the animal kingdom, between the ego and `the Self' - and the need to reconnect the two.
Ego: the centre of our consciousness, that part of our psyche through which we perceive the world and our own part in it. Due to the `ego/Self split, human beings, unlike other animals, can think and act egocentrically.
Self: term used by Jung and others to identify that deeper centre of the human personality which connects us with our selfless core instincts. It is the Self which links us with the totality of life outside the demands of the ego. The underlying purpose of our ability to imagine stories is to show how the two can be re-integrated.
Dark and Light: the means whereby stories distinguish whether a character is centred on the ego or the Self.
`Dark figures' in stories (exemplified most obviously in the `monster') are egocentric, heartless and in some way blind to the reality of the world around them. This symbolises the power of the ego to distort perception and limit understanding.
The `light' in stories symbolises the power connecting a character to the Self. All the archetypal figures have both `light' and `dark' aspects.
Fantasy: make-believe or wishful thinking originating from the ego, essentially different in character from imagination.
Fantasy cycle: the five-stage pattern which shapes the attempt to live out an ego-based fantasy when pressed to its conclusion (Anticipation - Dream Stage - Frustration - Nightmare Stage - Destruction). The basis of Tragedy.
Nyktomorph: literally a'night shape: Term used to describe the way in which fantasy feeds on incomplete images, which exercise their suggestive power over the mind from the fact that it lacks enough information fully to resolve them. This is helpful to understanding the psychological mechanism behind the appeal of fantasy-based storytelling, e.g. horror stories, pornography.
Masculine and Feminine: terms used in this book in a specific sense, unconnected to whether someone is outwardly male or female. A man or a woman can display both `masculine' and `feminine' attributes (or the lack of them).
The `masculine values' relate to power or strength, and to the ordering or `rational' function of the human mind. These can most naturally become allied to ego-consciousness.
The `feminine values', rooted in the Self, represent selfless or sympathetic feeling and intuitive understanding, the ability to `see whole.
Anima: Jung's term to define the feminine component in a man's psyche which shapes his response to the opposite sex and his relationship to the `feminine values'. Anima-figures personifying the feminine value (such as the heroine or a 'Princess') play a