The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [62]
Similarly, little Goldilocks ventures out from home into the forbidden world of the great forest, where she eventually comes to the mysterious house belonging to the three bears. Again the initial excitement of exploring the empty house, with its steaming porridge bowls and inviting beds, gives way to a sense of growing menace as the bears return. As they begin to suspect her presence, the sense of threat comes nearer and nearer until finally they discover the little heroine asleep upstairs: at which moment Goldilocks wakes up, makes a `thrilling escape' by jumping out of the window, and runs back to the safety of her mother and home.
But of course the Voyage and Return theme has shaped stories a good deal more complex than these simple versions of childhood. Here we move on to the second category in which such stories are most immediately familiar to us, those which involve a journey to some undiscovered realm beyond the confines of the known world.
We can find versions of this form of the Voyage and Return plot at almost every step along the history of storytelling. There were well-known Greek, Roman, Norse and mediaeval versions. There is even a strong Voyage and Return element in the closing episode of the earliest story ever recorded, the Epic of Gilgamesh, in the hero's journey to the far-off and mysterious land of Utnapishtim (although this is also a form of Quest, since he is seeking the secret of immortality). But this kind of tale became noticeably more evident in Western literature after the Renaissance, during the age of the great European voyages of discovery to every corner of the globe: and this was particularly true from the eighteenth century onwards.
Again these stories fall generally into two main types: those where the hero is marooned on some more or less deserted island; and those where the land he visits is the home of some strange people or civilisation.
In the early eighteenth century, two of the most famous of such stories were published, within a few years of each other: one in each category.
The first, in 1719, was that paradigm of all `desert island' stories, Robinson Crusoe.1 The plot of Defoe's novel follows the now familiar pattern. As a young sailor whose ship is wrecked, the hero suddenly finds himself all alone on a seemingly deserted tropical island. The first half of the story, after Crusoe has recovered from the initial shock, is dominated by his growing confidence as he comes to terms with his plight and with the simple wonders of his unfamiliar new world (e.g., discovering his ability to grow corn and bake bread). Then a shadow intrudes, when he sees the imprint of a strange human foot (not, as is popularly mis-recalled, that of Man Friday). As Crusoe realises that he may not be alone on the island, he begins to experience a sense of threat, which grows progressively more acute as he finds that his little kingdom is in fact regularly visited by bands of cannibals to pursue their horrid practices. The second half of the story is dominated by the measures Crusoe takes to protect himself; by his gradual recruitment of a little army of runaways (Friday being the first); and finally, as the climax of the tale, by leading his followers into a successful battle against the mutinous sailors on a Portugese ship which has anchored offshore. This culminates in his