Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : The Quest
The Call
The bourgeoisie is oppressing the proletariat, subjecting them to horrible working conditions in cramped factories. Individual laborers get the idea to rebel, one by one.
The Journey
The rebellion spreads from individual laborers to entire workplaces, and from there to groups of workplaces and eventually labor unions. The proletariat even begins to form political parties.
Arrival and Frustration
The bourgeoisie manages to keep the workers in check, even though the proletariat has some political power. The workers decide that a worldwide violent revolution is the only way to win.
The Final Ordeals
The proletariat kills or otherwise gets rid of the oligarchical authorities, seizes all political power, and sets up a temporary vanguard government to transition society from capitalism to communism. The workers run economic, educational, and other programs aimed at changing society, until the means of production and capital are owned by the community in common.
The Goal
A new society without economic classes has been established. Personal belongings remain privately owned, but the former bourgeois property—the means of production, the excess capital (profit)—is shared in common. The organizing principle (not stated in the Manifesto, but popularized by Marx elsewhere) is: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.