The Seven Basic Plots Why We Tell Stories

by Booker, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780826480378
• ISBN10: 0826480373
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-09
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling. But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose. Booker analyses why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years. This seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come.

Table of Contents

Introduction and historical notes	1	(16)
PART ONE: THE SEVEN GATEWAYS TO THE UNDERWORLD
Prologue to Part One	17	(164)
1 Overcoming the Monster	21	(10)
2 The Monster (II) and the Thrilling Escape From Death	31	(20)
3 Rags to Riches	51	(18)
4 The Quest	69	(18)
5 Voyage and Return	87	(20)
6 Comedy	107	(24)
7 Comedy (II): The Plot Disguised	131	(22)
8 Tragedy (I): The Five Stages	153	(20)
9 Tragedy (II): The Divided Self	173	(8)
10 Tragedy (III): The Hero as Monster	181	(12)
11 Rebirth	193	(22)
12 The Dark Power: From Shadow into Light	215	(14)
Epilogue to Part One: The Rule of Three (the role played in stories by numbers)	229	(10)
PART TWO: THE COMPLETE HAPPY ENDING
Prologue to Part Two	239	(2)
13 The Dark Figures	241	(12)
14 Seeing Whole: The Feminine and Masculine Values	253	(14)
15 The Perfect Balance	267	(10)
16 The Unrealised Value	277	(12)
17 The Archetypal Family Drama (Continued)	289	(8)
18 The Light Figures	297	(14)
19 Reaching the Goal	311	(18)
20 The Fatal Flaw	329	(18)
PART THREE: MISSING THE MARK
21 The Ego Takes Over (I): Enter the Dark Inversion	347	(20)
22 The Ego Takes Over (II): The Dark and Sentimental Versions	367	(18)
23 The Ego Takes Over (III): Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy	385	(14)
24 The Ego Takes Over (IV): Tragedy and Rebirth	399	(14)
25 Losing the Plot: Thomas Hardy – A Case History	413	(12)
26 Going Nowhere: The Passive Ego. The Twentieth-Century Dead End – From Chekhov to Close Encounters	425	(30)
27 Why Sex and Violence? The Active Ego. The Twentieth-Century Obsession: From de Sade to The Terminator	455	(40)
28 Rebellion Against 'The One': From Job to Nineteen Eighty-Four	495	(10)
29 The Mystery	505	(12)
30 The Riddle of the Sphinx: Oedipus and Hamlet	517	(26)
PART FOUR: WHY WE TELL STORIES
31 Telling Us Who We Are: Ego versus Instinct	543	(28)
32 Into the Real World: The Ruling Consciousness	571	(22)
33 Of Gods and Men: Reconnecting with 'The One'	593	(52)
34 The Age of Loki: The Dismantling of the Self	645	(54)
Epilogue: The Light and the Shadows on the Wall	699	(4)
Author's Personal Note	703	(4)
Glossary of Terms	707	(4)
Bibliography	711	(4)
Index of Stories Cited	715	(5)
General Index	720