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By Root 5166 0

else around Tara, she is then plunged into the `abnormal' world of the American Civil War when, amid violence, deprivation and defeat, all familiar values and assumptions are turned upside down. Scarlett's story is centred on her love for two men, the weak, effeminate Ashley Wilkes and the `over-masculine' Rhett Butler. As the shadows lengthen over her world, she finally embarks on a stormy marriage to Rhett and they produce a daughter. But the child dies in a riding accident. Scarlett miscarries a second pregnancy, and Rhett, having lost all love for her ('I don't give a damn'), abandons her for the last time. Scarlett returns to the half-ruined family mansion at Tara, where the story began, and forlornly wonders how she can win Rhett back. Anything is possible, she tries to persuade herself, ending the story on her brave declaration `Tomorrow is another day!'. Her words seem to indicate that she is once again looking forward. But in fact, like Orpheus, she is really only looking back, to what she has lost forever. The truth is that, for all her wishful thinking, poor Scarlett is at last `childless, loveless' and alone.5

What all these examples demonstrate is that, just as much in the Voyage and Return story as in the other types of plot we have looked at, the relations between the central figure and some feminine or masculine `other half' may give us the essential key to what is going on in the story: except that here, where the central figure is the plaything of events beyond his or her control, what we see revealed by that relationship is likely to be some fundamental inadequacy in the central figure which is never rectified. In the earlier types of story, nothing more completely confirms the hero or heroine's worthiness to achieve a complete happy ending than the liberation of their `other half' from the grip of darkness. But here the other half remains in the darkness of the `other world'. And even though the hero or heroine themselves emerge from that other world, if their other half remains behind, the story ends on an unresolved, downbeat note which no amount of brave talk about tomorrow being another day can disguise. They have been through the tremendous experience of their confrontation with the mystifying, unknown realm, which has shaken them to the foundations of their previous identity. Yet they have emerged essentially untransformed, having learned or gained nothing. And what we have learned about them is that their understanding of the world is really no greater at the end of the story than it was at the beginning. They have been put to some very fundamental test - and they have failed.

Voyage and Return: Summing up

A fourth way in which a story may take shape in the human imagination shows the hero or heroine being abruptly transported out of their `normal' world into an abnormal world, and eventually back to where they began. The pattern of such a story is likely to unfold like this:

1. Anticipation Stage and fall' into the other world: When we first meet the hero, heroine or central figures, they are likely to be in some state which lays them open to a shattering new experience. Their consciousness is in some way restricted. They may just be young and naive, with only limited experience of the world. They may be more actively curious and looking for something unexpected to happen to them. They may be bored, or drowsy, or reckless. But for whatever reason, they find themselves suddenly precipitated out their familiar, limited existence, into a strange world, unlike anything they have experienced before.

2. Initial fascination or Dream Stage: At first their exploration of this disconcerting new world may be exhilarating, because it is so puzzling and unfamiliar. But it is never a place in which they can feel at home.

3. Frustration Stage: Gradually the mood of the adventure changes to one of frustration, difficulty and oppression. A shadow begins to intrude, which becomes increasingly alarming.

4. Nightmare Stage: The shadow becomes so dominating that it seems to pose a serious threat to the hero