The Seven Basic Plots

Introduction and historical notes

PART ONE: THE SEVEN GATEWAYS TO THE UNDERWORLD
1 Overcoming the Monster
2 The Monster (II) and the Thrilling Escape from Death
3 Rages to Riches
4 The Quest
5 Voyage and Return
6 Comedy
7 Comedy (II): The Plot Disguised
8 Tragedy (I): The Five Stages
9 Tragedy (II): The Divided Self
10 Tragedy (III): The Hero as Monster
11 Rebirth
12 The Dark Power: From Shadow into Light
Epilogue to Part One: The Rule of Three (the role played in stories by numbers)

PART TWO: THE COMPLETE HAPPY ENDING
Prologue to Part Two
13 The Dark Figures
14 Seeing Whole: The Feminine and Masculine Values
15 The Perfect Balance
16 The Unrealised Value
17 The Archetypal Family Drama (Continued)
18 The Light Figures
19 Reaching the Goal
20 The Fatal Flaw

PART THREE: MISSING THE MARK
21 The Ego Takes Over (I): Enter the Dark Inversion
22 The Ego Takes Over (II): The Dark and Sentimental Versions
23 The Ego Takes Over (III): Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy
24 The Ego Takes Over (IV): Tragedy and Rebirth
25 Losing the Plot: Thomas Hardy - A Case History
26 Going Nowhere: The Passive Ego. The Twentieth-Century Dead End - From Chekhov to Close Encounters
27 Why Sex and Violence? The Active Ego. The Twentieth-Century Obsession: From de Sade to The Terminator
28 Rebellion Against 'The One': From Job to Nineteen Eighty-Four
29 The Mystery
30 The Riddle of the Sphinx: Oedipus and Hamlet

PART FOUR: WHY WE TELL STORIES
31 Telling Us Who We Are: Ego versus Instinct
32 Into the Real World: The Ruling Consciousness
33 Of Gods and Men: Reconnecting with 'The One'
34 The Age of Loki: The Dismantling of the Self

Epilogue: The Light and the Shadows on the Wall

Author's Personal Note

Glossary of Terms
Bibliography
Index of Stories Cited
General Index

Christopher Booker was a founding editor of Private Eye, to which he regularly contributed, and also wrote a longstanding column for the Sunday Telegraph. His bestselling books include The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, The Real Global Warming Disaster, The Great Deception, The Mad Officials, Scared to Death and The Neophiliacs. Booker died in July 2019.