7 Plots Theory
| Author | Christopher Booker |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Published | 2004 |
| Pages | 736 |
| Preceded by | The Great Deception |
| Followed by | Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming |
The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories is a 2004 book by Christopher Booker containing a Jung-influenced analysis of stories and their psychological meaning. Booker worked on the book for thirty-four years.[1]
Summary[edit]
The meta-plot[edit]
Plot Analysis/FAQ. By ShockleyHaynes. Updated: 7 Feb 2013 9:50 pm. Posted: 16 Aug 2005 9:54 pm. Pole-Zero plot and its relation to Frequency domain: Pole-Zero plot is an important tool, which helps us to relate the Frequency domain and Z-domain representation of a system. Understanding this relation will help in interpreting results in either domain. It also helps in determining stability of a system, given its transfer function H(z). T here’s no denying that Harry Potter is one of the most magical series ever written, but even J.K. Rowling herself has admitted that the story has a few plot holes. But while some of these.
The meta-plot begins with the anticipation stage, in which the hero is called to the adventure to come. This is followed by a dream stage, in which the adventure begins, the hero has some success, and has an illusion of invincibility. However, this is then followed by a frustration stage, in which the hero has his first confrontation with the enemy, and the illusion of invincibility is lost. This worsens in the nightmare stage, which is the climax of the plot, where hope is apparently lost. Finally, in the resolution, the hero overcomes his burden against the odds.
The key thesis of the book: 'However many characters may appear in a story, its real concern is with just one: its hero. It is the one whose fate we identify with, as we see them gradually developing towards that state of self-realization which marks the end of the story. Ultimately it is in relation to this central figure that all other characters in a story take on their significance. What each of the other characters represents is really only some aspect of the inner state of the hero himself.'
The plots[edit]
Overcoming the Monster[edit]
Definition: The protagonist sets out to defeat an antagonistic force (often evil) which threatens the protagonist and/or protagonist's homeland.
Examples: Perseus, Theseus, Beowulf, Dracula, The War of the Worlds, Nicholas Nickleby, The Guns of Navarone, Seven Samurai (The Magnificent Seven), James Bond, Jaws, Star Wars, Attack on Titan.
Rags to Riches[edit]
Definition: The poor protagonist acquires power, wealth, and/or a mate, loses it all and gains it back, growing as a person as a result.
Examples: Cinderella, Aladdin, Jane Eyre, A Little Princess, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, The Prince and the Pauper, Brewster's Millions. The Jerk.
The Quest[edit]
Definition: The protagonist and companions set out to acquire an important object or to get to a location. They face temptations and other obstacles along the way.
Examples: The Iliad, The Pilgrim's Progress, The Lord Of The Rings, King Solomon's Mines, Six of Crows, Watership Down, Lightning Thief, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Voyage and Return[edit]
7 Plots Theory Concepts
Definition: The protagonist goes to a strange land and, after overcoming the threats it poses or learning important lessons unique to that location, they return with experience.
Examples: Ramayana, Odyssey, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Orpheus, The Time Machine, Peter Rabbit, The Hobbit, Brideshead Revisited, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Gone with the Wind, The Third Man, The Lion King, Back to the Future, The Midnight Gospel.
Comedy[edit]
7 Plots Theory Examples
Definition: Light and humorous character with a happy or cheerful ending; a dramatic work in which the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion.[2]Booker stresses that comedy is more than humor. It refers to a pattern where the conflict becomes more and more confusing, but is at last made plain in a single clarifying event. The majority of romance films fall into this category.
Examples: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Bridget Jones's Diary, Music and Lyrics, Sliding Doors, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Big Lebowski.
Tragedy[edit]
Definition: The protagonist is a hero with a major character flaw or great mistake which is ultimately their undoing. Their unfortunate end evokes pity at their folly and the fall of a fundamentally good character.
Examples: Anna Karenina, Bonnie and Clyde, Carmen, Citizen Kane, John Dillinger, Jules et Jim, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Madame Bovary, Oedipus Rex, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Romeo and Juliet.
Rebirth[edit]
Definition: An event forces the main character to change their ways and often become a better individual.
Examples: Pride and Prejudice, The Frog Prince, Beauty and the Beast, The Snow Queen, A Christmas Carol, The Secret Garden, Peer Gynt, Groundhog Day.
The Rule of Three[edit]
'Again and again, things appear in threes . . .' There is rising tension and the third event becomes 'the final trigger for something important to happen'. We are accustomed to this pattern from childhood stories such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood. In adult stories, three can convey the gradual working out of a process that leads to transformation. This transformation can be downwards as well as upwards.Booker asserts that the Rule of Three is expressed in four ways:
- The simple, or cumulative three, for example, Cinderella's three visits to the ball.
- The ascending three, where each event is of more significance than the preceding, for example, the hero must win first bronze, then silver, then gold objects.
- The contrasting three, where only the third has positive value, for example, The Three Little Pigs, two of whose houses are blown down by the Big Bad Wolf.
- The final or dialectical form of three, where, as with Goldilocks and her bowls of porridge, the first is wrong in one way, the second in an opposite way, and the third is 'just right'. [3]
Precursors[edit]
- William Foster-Harris' The Basic Patterns of Plot sets out a theory of three basic patterns of plot.[4]
- Ronald B. Tobias set out a twenty-plot theory in his 20 Master Plots.[4]
- Georges Polti's The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations.[4]
- Several of these plots can also be seen as reworkings of Joseph Campbell's work on the quest and return in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Reception[edit]
Scholars and journalists have had mixed responses to The Seven Basic Plots. Some have celebrated the book's audacity and breadth. The author and essayist Fay Weldon, for example, wrote the following (which is quoted on the front cover of the book): 'This is the most extraordinary, exhilarating book. It always seemed to me that 'the story' was God's way of giving meaning to crude creation. Booker now interprets the mind of God, and analyses not just the novel – which will never to me be quite the same again – but puts the narrative of contemporary human affairs into a new perspective. If it took its author a lifetime to write, one can only feel gratitude that he did it.'[5]Beryl Bainbridge, Richard Adams, Ronald Harwood, and John Bayley also spoke positively of the work, while philosopher Roger Scruton described it as a 'brilliant summary of story-telling'.[6]
Others have dismissed the book, criticizing especially Booker's normative conclusions. Novelist and literary critic Adam Mars-Jones, for instance, wrote, 'He sets up criteria for art, and ends up condemning Rigoletto, The Cherry Orchard, Wagner, Proust, Joyce, Kafka and Lawrence—the list goes on—while praising Crocodile Dundee, E.T. and Terminator 2'.[7] Similarly, Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times writes, 'Mr. Booker evaluates works of art on the basis of how closely they adhere to the archetypes he has so laboriously described; the ones that deviate from those classic patterns are dismissed as flawed or perverse – symptoms of what has gone wrong with modern art and the modern world.'[8]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'Terminator 2 good, The Odyssey bad'. The Guardian. 2004-11-21. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
- ^'the definition of comedy'. Dictionary.com.
- ^Christopher Booker, The Seven Basic Plots, Continuum 2006, p 229-233
- ^ abc'The 'Basic' Plots in Literature'. Archived from the original on 2015-08-21. Retrieved 2013-09-11.
- ^'The Seven Basic Plots'. Bloomsbury. Retrieved 2013-03-19.
- ^Scruton, Roger (February 2005). 'Wagner: moralist or monster?'. The New Criterion. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
- ^Adam Mars-Jones 'Terminator 2 Good, The Odyssey Bad', The Observer, November 21, 2004, retrieved September 1, 2011.
- ^Kakutani, Michiko (2005-04-15). 'The Plot Thins, or Are No Stories New?'. The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-09-11.
External links[edit]
There’s no denying that Harry Potter is one of the most magical series ever written, but even J.K. Rowling herself has admitted that the story has a few plot holes.
But while some of these mysteries — such as that of the entire Time-Turner storyline — will likely remain unsolved, a number of the more frustrating inconsistencies have been explained away in the years since the books were published.
From the presence of Peter Pettigrew to the conspicuously invisible Thestrals, here are five major Harry Potter plot holes with resolutions.
The truth comes out
When Rowling launched her new website in December 2016, she included a FAQ section to clear up some confusion about the first movie in her new wizarding world saga, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as well as a few lingering questions about the Potter series. One of these queries revolved around why Veritaserum — a.k.a. the most powerful truth serum in the wizarding world — isn’t used by the Ministry of Magic to interrogate suspects.
“It is, but skilled wizards can avoid its effects by using antidotes and charms. A gifted Occlumens could also resist Veritaserum,” Rowling wrote, referring to those, such as Severus Snape, who are skilled at shielding their minds from invasion.
Among other details, this explains why Veritaserum couldn’t be used to weed out the real Death Eaters from those who claimed they had only done Voldemort’s bidding under the influence of the Imperius Curse following the First Wizarding War.
What about Wormtail?
Considering Fred and George Weasley nicked the Marauder’s Map from Filch during their first year at Hogwarts, it seems strange that they never noticed Peter Pettigrew — who was still posing as Scabbers the rat — sleeping in Ron’s bed every night once their younger brother arrived at school. However, in a June interview with The Huffington Post, Oliver Phelps, who played George in the movies, provided a (somewhat jokey) answer to this conundrum.
“Maybe it’s a boo in the family that no one talks of. ‘Who’s this Peter bloke?,'” he said. “Maybe it was an unspoken word in the Weasley’s family.”
The case of the missing Thestrals
When Harry arrives at Hogwarts for his fifth year in The Order of the Phoenix, he realizes that the school’s carriages aren’t drawn by magic, but rather a flock of Thestrals. Luna Lovegood — who can also see them — then explains that the Thestrals are now visible to him because he witnessed Cedric Diggory die. “They can only be seen by people who’ve seen death,” she tells him.
However, some fans have pointed out that since Cedric died during the Triwizard Tournament, it seems like Harry should have been able to see the Thestrals when the carriages transported him to Hogsmeade station at the end of The Goblet of Fire.
But in a 2004 interview at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Rowling maintained that this wasn’t an error.
On destroying Horcruxes
Described by Rowling on her website as, “an oldie about Chamber of Secrets that I’ve been asked at least once a week for nine years,” the mystery in question concerned the Horcrux inside Harry surviving his encounter with the Basilisk in the second book of the series. Because Basilisk venom is one of the few substances that can destroy Horcruxes, some readers apparently wondered why the part of Voldemort’s soul residing in Harry wasn’t destroyed when he was bitten by the giant serpent.
Of course, the ever-wise Rowling was able to shed some light on the matter. “A Horcrux can only be destroyed if its container is damaged beyond repair, Harry was healed by Fawkes,” she wrote, referencing Dumbledore’s beloved phoenix. “Had he died, the Horcrux would indeed have been destroyed.”
And when a fan pointed out that the Resurrection Stone still worked for Harry after Dumbledore used Godric Gryffindor’s sword to destroy the Horcrux inside Marvolo Gaunt’s ring, the author provided some further explanation. “The crack in the stone was irreparable,” she tweeted. “Only Dumbledore [could] have extracted the soul fragment but left the original charm intact.”
The corruption of Quirrell
Since Voldemort was reduced to a shell of his former self after attempting to murder baby Harry, some fans were confused as to how he was able to get the young Professor Quirrell under his control in The Sorcerer’s Stone. But in the 2016 Pottermore eBook , Rowling explained that the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was “turned into a temporary Horcrux,” — a possession that showed up in the appearance of the Dark Lord’s face on the back of Quirrell’s head — which made him unable to resist the will of the “far stronger, evil soul inside him.”
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