Researchers analysed over 1700 novels to reveal six story types – but can they be applied to our most-loved tales? Miriam Quick takes a look.
“My prettiest contribution to the culture” was how the novelist Kurt Vonnegut described his old master’s thesis in anthropology, “which was rejected because it was so simple and looked like too much fun”. The thesis sank without a trace, but Vonnegut continued throughout his life to promote the big idea behind it, which was: “stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper”.
1. Rags to riches – a steady rise from bad to good fortune
2. Riches to rags – a fall from good to bad, a tragedy
3. Icarus – a rise then a fall in fortune
4. Oedipus – a fall, a rise then a fall again
5. Cinderella – rise, fall, rise
6. Man in a hole – fall, rise
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.
Overcoming the monster
Definition: The protagonist sets out to defeat an antagonistic force (often evil) that 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, Naruto.
Rags to riches
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, Moll Flanders, The Red and the Black, The Prince and the Pauper, The Ugly Duckling, The Gold Rush, The Jerk.
The quest
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, The Divine Comedy, Watership Down, The Aeneid, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Voyage and return
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 Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Gulliver's Travels, Peter Pan, The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Comedy
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: The Wasps, Aurularia, The Arbitration, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, The Alchemist, Bridget Jones's Diary, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Big Lebowski.
Tragedy
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, Hamilton, The Great Gatsby.
Rebirth
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 Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations
The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations is a descriptive list which was first proposed by Georges Polti in 1895 to categorize every dramatic situation that might occur in a story or performance. Polti analyzed classical Greek texts, plus classical and contemporaneous French works. He also analyzed a handful of non-French authors. In his introduction, Polti claims to be continuing the work of Carlo Gozzi, who also identified 36 situations.
The 36 situations
Each situation is stated, then followed by the necessary elements for each situation and a brief description.
Supplication
a persecutor; a suppliant; a power in authority, whose decision is doubtful.
The suppliant appeals to the power in authority for deliverance from the persecutor. The power in authority may be a distinct person or be merely an attribute of the persecutor, e.g. a weapon suspended in their hand. The suppliant may also be two persons, the Persecuted and the Intercessor, an example of which is Esther interceding to the king on behalf of the Jews for deliverance from the king's chief advisor.
Deliverance
an unfortunate; a threatener; a rescuer
The unfortunate has caused a conflict, and the threatener is to carry out justice, but the rescuer saves the unfortunate. Examples: Ifigenia in Tauride, Deliverance
Crime pursued by vengeance
Vengeance taken for kin upon kin
Guilty Kinsman; an Avenging Kinsman; remembrance of the Victim, a relative of both.
Two entities, the Guilty and the Avenging Kinsmen, are put into conflict over wrongdoing to the Victim, who is allied to both. Example: Hamlet
Pursuit
Disaster
a vanquished power; a victorious enemy or a messenger
The vanquished power falls from their place after being defeated by the victorious enemy or being informed of such a defeat by the messenger. Example: Agamemnon (play)
Falling prey to cruelty/misfortune
Revolt
Daring enterprise
Abduction
The enigma
Obtaining
(a Solicitor & an adversary who is refusing) or (an arbitrator & opposing parties)
The solicitor is at odds with the adversary who refuses to give the solicitor an object in the possession of the adversary, or an arbitrator decides who gets the object desired by opposing parties (the solicitor and the adversary). Example: Apple of Discord
Enmity of kin
Rivalry of kin
Murderous adultery
Madness
Fatal imprudence
the Imprudent; a Victim or an Object Lost
The Imprudent, by neglect or ignorance, loses the Object Lost or wrongs the Victim.
Involuntary crimes of love
a Lover; a Beloved; a Revealer
The Lover and the Beloved have unknowingly broken a taboo through their romantic relationship, and the Revealer reveals this to them Example: Oedipus, Jocasta and the messenger from Corinth.
Slaying of kin unrecognized
Self-sacrifice for an ideal
Self-sacrifice for kin
a Hero; a Kinsman; a Creditor or a Person/Thing sacrificed
The Hero sacrifices a Person or Thing for their Kinsman, which is then taken by the Creditor. Example: The gospel
All sacrificed for passion
a Lover; an Object of fatal Passion; the Person/Thing sacrificed
A Lover sacrifices a Person or Thing for the Object of their Passion, which is then lost forever.
Necessity of sacrificing loved ones
Rivalry of superior vs. inferior
Adultery
Crimes of love
Discovery of the dishonour of a loved one
Obstacles to love
An enemy loved
Ambition
Conflict with a god
Mistaken jealousy
a Jealous One; an Object of whose Possession He is Jealous; a Supposed Accomplice; a Cause or an Author of the Mistake
The Jealous One falls victim to the Cause or the Author of the Mistake and becomes jealous of the Object and becomes conflicted with the Supposed Accomplice.
Erroneous judgment
a Mistaken One; a Victim of the Mistake; a Cause or Author of the Mistake; the Guilty One
The Mistaken One falls victim to the Cause or the Author of the Mistake and passes judgment against the Victim of the Mistake when it should be passed against the Guilty One instead.
Remorse
a Culprit; a Victim or the Sin; an Interrogator
The Culprit wrongs the Victim or commits the Sin, and is at odds with the Interrogator who seeks to understand the situation. Example: The Bourne Supremacy
Recovery of a lost one
Loss of loved ones
