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 : Tragedy
Anticipation
Everything is going really well for Arthur. He’s come up seemingly from nowhere to become the most powerful king Britain has seen in a long time. His energies have found a focus in his dedication to building an ideal society based on principles of justice and fairness.
Dream Stage
King Leodogran agrees to marry his daughter, Guinevere, to Arthur. Arthur idealizes his union with Guinevere as a relationship that will enable him to turn his ideals into action. Without her, he feels lonely and useless.
But united with her in “one will,” he imagines having “power on this dark land to lighten it, And power on this dead world to make it live” (“Coming of Arthur,” 92-93). His marriage to Guinevere marks his commitment to create an ideal society based on principles of truth, justice, and fairness.
Frustration Stage
Balin’s belief in Guinevere’s infidelity causes him to go mad. Balin’s madness marks the beginning of the destruction that Guinevere’s infidelity wreaks on the Round Table. At first, this destruction manifests only as hints of doubt about the purity of Arthur and his knights and the truth of their vows.
But as the Idylls progress, the consequences of Guinevere’s affair become more and more serious, culminating in Pelleas’s total disillusionment with the Order of the Knighthood. His creation of an inversion of Arthur’s court, peopled with prostitutes and criminals, signals that the forces of destruction are almost complete.
Nightmare Stage
As long as Lancelot and Guinevere’s affair remained only a rumor, Arthur could look the other way. Mordred’s exposure of it forces him to confront Lancelot, and the ensuing unrest gives Mordred the opportunity to instigate a rebellion that will end in Arthur’s death and the complete collapse of his kingdom.
Destruction or Death Wish Stage
The entirety of “The Passing of Arthur” deals with the circumstances of Arthur’s death. In his speech before the battle with Mordred, Arthur confirms that the world he created has now completely collapsed thanks to Guinevere’s affair with Lancelot. But the doubts of characters like Tristram—w ho question the right of a mortal man to require vows of other men and scoff at the basic honesty of mankind that Arthur believes in—suggest that the seeds of the Round Table’s destruction may have been present in Camelot from the very start.