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Booker's Seven Plot Types 367448 Views
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Description:
Who knew every book ever written could be slotted into one of seven plot types? Christopher Booker, that's who. J.R.R. Tolkien probably has a few things to say about the theory—but what do you think?
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak Bookers Seven plot types a lot
- 00:08
in jenny's opinion there's no book in the world that
- 00:11
could possibly compare to jane eyre So imagine how surprised
- 00:14
jenny would be if she were to learn that charlotte
- 00:16
bronte's masterpiece actually has a lot in common with other
Full Transcript
- 00:19
rags to riches stories Well it goes like this According
- 00:22
to author and journalist christopher booker there are seven basic
- 00:25
plot types that a story could follow Overcoming the monster
- 00:30
rags to riches the quest voyage in return comedy tragedy
- 00:38
and rebirth Now this whole seven basic plot thing may
- 00:42
seem totally incredible Think of all the books ever written
- 00:45
in the world than all the stories ever told Can
- 00:48
we really some every plot ever conceived in one of
- 00:52
seven simple ways Well let's break it down in the
- 00:56
overcoming the monster plot the protagonist sets out to defeat
- 00:59
the bad guy or girl or thing that's threatening the
- 01:03
protagonist protagonist home protectionist hot date You get the idea
- 01:08
An excellent example of the overcoming the monster plot in
- 01:12
literature is the tale of dayal where a scandinavian hero
- 01:15
does the king of the danes a huge favor by
- 01:18
killing the monstrous grendel Then they will help the brother
- 01:21
out again by killing grendel's mother well in the rags
- 01:26
to riches plot the penniless protagonist gets everything here She
- 01:30
has ever wanted money fame maybe a nose job before
- 01:33
losing it all growing as a person and then gaining
- 01:37
everything back in jane eyre After our heroine comes within
- 01:42
And i do of getting hitched to a wealthy big
- 01:45
amiss she takes off and proved she doesn't need a
- 01:47
man or even a miraculously obtained fortune to make it
- 01:51
on her own Mr rochester changes for the better too
- 01:54
it's kind of required of him After all he does
- 01:56
lose his house his eyesight His hand is crazy for
- 02:00
why and his beloved fiance all because he tries to
- 02:03
marry jane when he still got bertha in the attic
- 02:07
So everyone loses everyone grows and everyone ends up happy
- 02:11
Except bertha Because she's dead right in the quest plot
- 02:15
the protagonist and his or her buddies set out to
- 02:18
find any important object or reach a certain place facing
- 02:22
grave peril along the way Take the odyssey Odysseus just
- 02:27
wants to get home to his loving wife But first
- 02:30
he has to survive A cyclops and the wrath of
- 02:33
the cyclops dad and cannibals and some very dangerous women
- 02:37
All in all it takes odysseus years to get home
- 02:40
but what a story he has to tell when he
- 02:42
reaches ithaca Of course the suitors don't get to hear
- 02:45
it because they're all dead then there's the voyage in
- 02:49
return plot where the protagonist goes somewhere exotic survived everything
- 02:53
thrown at him or her and comes home wiser for
- 02:56
the experience in lewis carroll's adventures in wonderland alice follows
- 03:01
the white rabbit down a hole into a world populated
- 03:04
by talking creatures You talking to me things that cause
- 03:07
alice to change size multiple times on a homicidal point
- 03:11
of hearts At the end of this story alice awakens
- 03:14
and realizes that her journey in tow wonderland was actually
- 03:17
a dream The comedy plot follows protagonist destined for love
- 03:22
although they have to overcome a lot of obstacles before
- 03:24
they get their happy ending in shakespeare's twelfth night for
- 03:28
example viola disguises herself as a dude knew corsino sends
- 03:32
a hell of a guy to talk to the woman
- 03:34
he wants to marry olivia into getting hitched Olivia however
- 03:39
falls for violet the guy while viola falls for the
- 03:42
duke we haven't even touched on violas presumed dead twin
- 03:46
brother sebastian Eventually the play ends happily once all the
- 03:50
cases of mistaken identity or cleared up But of course
- 03:53
we expected this because twelfth night follows the comedy plot
- 03:57
The tragedy plot on the other hand doesn't have a
- 04:00
happy and instead the protagonist is a villain who bites
- 04:03
it In the finale shakespeare's macbeth involves a protagonist who
- 04:08
takes some really bad advice from his power hungry wife
- 04:11
macbeth consequently murders a monarch and becomes king of scotland
- 04:15
Not that rains for long after everyone figures out he's
- 04:18
a regicide well he loses his head and yeah he
- 04:21
totally deserved it The rebirth plot features a protagonist who
- 04:26
is kind of a jerk but redeems him or herself
- 04:28
over the course of the story on charles dickens A
- 04:31
tale of two cities Way meet sydney carton and english
- 04:35
barrister sydney's hard to like Well he drinks a lot
- 04:38
he's really depressed and cynical and he's in love with
- 04:41
lucie manette who we all know belongs with sydney's doppelganger
- 04:45
charles darnay At the end of the novel however sydney
- 04:48
brakes charles out of a french prison and is executed
- 04:51
in charles place thus proving that sydney is in fact
- 04:55
the king of all that is awesome So here we
- 04:58
have it seven basic plots to describe every story in
- 05:01
existence now it's entirely possible for an author to take
- 05:04
elements of these seven basic plots and mix him up
- 05:07
a little For example think of the lord of the
- 05:10
rings trilogy There are multiple monsters overcome chief of which
- 05:14
is sorrow on there's an overarching quest to destroy the
- 05:17
ring and the hobbits undertake avoids that leads them all
- 05:20
over the map before they eventually return to the shire
- 05:24
Or what about victor hugo's les miserables You see the
- 05:27
rebirth plot type in the story arc of jeeva and
- 05:30
a thief turned nice guy overcoming the munster plot type
- 05:33
in val jean's eventual triumph over his nemesis java and
- 05:38
the comedy plot type in the romance between cosette and
- 05:41
marius Of course benin doesn't get a happily ever after
- 05:46
because she's dead and that's the story of booker's seven
- 05:49
plot types Now that jenny's learned something new she's going
- 05:52
to re read jane eyre for the millionth time and
- 05:55
see how many plot types she confined You better watch
- 05:58
out for overcoming the monster with bertha mason though jenning
- 06:01
that lady's a firebug Good luck with that You talking 00:06:11.562 --> [endTime] to me
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