HOW TRUE

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Yesterday I read a fascinating lecture by Dr. Joseph Dongell titled, “How Bad Is It Doc?” In his lecture he talks about an interesting book, The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. Booker examines such stories as, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, King Kong, Oliver Twist, Treasure Island, The Three Little Pigs, and many more. He concludes that nearly every story we tell will fall into one of seven basic plot types; he calls these Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth.

The part of his lecture I found most interesting is this: Booker goes on to describe one particular character appearing in most of the 7 plot types: a character he calls “the Monster.” He claims that the one supreme characteristic of every Monster that has ever been portrayed in a story is this: he or she is egocentric. This ego-centrism makes the Monster (in his inner soul) heartless and unable to feel for others, although this may sometimes be disguised beneath a deceptively charming, kind or solicitous exterior. The Monster’s real concern is to look after its own interests, at the expense of everyone else in the world. The Monster sees the world through the tunnel vision of its egocentric desires, meaning that most of the time, the monster is blind to its own perversion and blind to true reality. So fixated is the Monster upon itself, that it has difficulty belonging to anything greater than itself.

I ask along with Dr. Dongell, “How bad are we Doc?”