The Anatomy of Story (40 page)

The Matrix

(by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski, 1999)

Network

(by Paddy Chayevsky, 1976)
If you place your story in something as large and complex as a society or an institution, a symbol is almost required if you want to reach an audience. Both
The Matrix
and
Network
owe much of their success to the symbol that represents the story and the social world in which they occur. The terms "matrix" and "network" suggest a single unit that is also a web of enslaving threads. These symbols tell the audience up front that they are entering a complex world of many forces, some of which are hidden from view. This not only warns them to stop trying to figure everything out immediately but also assures them that fun revelations are on the way.

SYMBOLIC ACTIONS

A single action is normally part of a larger sequence of actions that comprise the plot. Each action is a kind of car in the long train of the hero and opponent competing for the goal. When you make an action symbolic, you connect it to another action or object and so give it charged meaning. Notice that making an action symbolic makes it stand out from the plot sequence. It calls attention to itself, in effect saying, "This action is especially important, and it expresses the theme or character of the story in miniature." So be careful how you use it.

Wuthering Heights

(novel by Emily Bronte, 1847; screenplay by Charles MacArthur and

Ben Hecht, 1939)

When Heathcliff pretends to fight the black knight for Cathy at their "castle" on the moors, he is expressing their make-believe world of romance and Cathy's determination to live in a world of riches and nobility. Heathcliff is also playing out, in miniature, the overall story in which he fights the well-born Linton for Cathy's hand.

Witness

(by Earl W. Wallace & William Kelley, story by William Kelley, 1985)
By helping build a barn with the other men while trading glances with Rachel, John is signaling his willingness to leave the violent world of the cop and build a loving bond in a community of peace.

A Tale of Two Cities

(by Charles Dickens, 1859)
Like Christ on the cross, Sydney Carton willingly sacrifices his life to the guillotine so that others may live. "It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

Gunca Din

(poem by Rudyard Kipling, story by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur,

screenplay by Joel Say re & Fred Guiol, 1939)
Indian "coolie" Gunga Din wants more than anything to be a soldier in the regiment like the three British soldiers he reveres. In the final battle, with his soldier friends badly wounded and captured, Din blows his bugle, thereby exposing himself to certain death and saving his regiment from walking into a trap.

SYMBOLIC OBJECTS

Symbolic objects almost never exist alone in a story because alone they have almost no ability to refer to something else. A web of objects, related by some kind of guiding principle, can form a deep, complex pattern of meaning, usually in support of the theme.

When creating a web of symbolic objects, begin by going back to the designing principle of the story. This is the glue that turns a collection of individual objects into a cluster. Each object then not only refers to another object but also referto and connects with the other symbolic objects in the story.

You can create a web of symbolic objects in any story, but they are easiest to see in certain story forms, especially myth, horror, and Western. These genre's have been written so many times that they have been honed to perfection. That includes objects that have been used so often that they have become recognizable metaphors. They are prefabricated symbols whose meaning the audience understands immediately at some level of conscious thought.

Let's look at the web of symbolic objects in some stories that best represent these highly metaphorical genres.

Myth Symbol Web

Myth is the oldest and to this day the most popular of all story forms. The ancient Greek myths, which are one of the foundation pillars of Western thought, are allegorical and metaphorical, and you should know how they work if you want to use them as the basis for your own story.

These stories always present at least two levels of beings: gods and humans. Don't make the common mistake of thinking that this was necessarily the ancient Greeks' view of how the world really works. The two levels in these stories don't express the belief that gods rule man. Rather, the gods are that aspect of man by which he can achieve excellence or enlightenment. The "gods" are an ingenious psychological model in which a web of characters represents character traits and ways of acting you wish to attain or avoid.

Along with this highly symbolic set of characters, myths use a clearly prescribed set of symbolic objects. When these stories were originally told, audiences knew that these symbols always represented something else, and they knew exactly what the symbols meant. Storytellers achieved their effects by juxtaposing these key symbols over the course of the story.

The most important thing to understand about these metaphorical symbols is that they also represent something
within the hero.
Here are some of the key symbols in myth and what they probably meant to ancient audiences. Of course, even with these highly metaphorical symbols, there is no fixed meaning; symbols are always ambiguous to some degree.

■ 
Journey: The life path

■ Labyrinth: Confusion on finding the path to enlightenment

■ Garden: Being at one with the natural law, harmony within oneself and with others

■ Tree: Tree of life

■ Animals (horse, bird, snake): Models on the path to enlightenment or hell

■ Ladder: Stages to enlightenment

■ Underground: Unexplored region of the self, land of the dead

■ Talisman (sword, bow, shield, cloak): Right action

The Odyssey

(by Homer)

I believe that the
Odyssey
is the most artistic and most influential Greek myth in storytelling history. Its use of symbolic objects is one reason. To see the symbol techniques, you must begin, as always, with the characters.

The first thing you notice about the characters is that Homer has moved from the powerful warrior who fights to the death (the
Iliad)
to the wily warrior who searches for home and lives. Odysseus is a very good fighter. But he is much more a searcher, a thinker (schemer), and a lover.

This character shift dictates a change in symbolic theme as well, from matriarchy to patriarchy. Instead of a story where the king must die and the mother remains, Odysseus returns to retake the throne. As in most great stories, Odysseus undergoes character change. He returns home the same man but a greater person. This we see by his biggest moral decision: by returning home, Odysseus chooses mortality over immortality.

One of the central oppositions of symbolic character in storytelling is man versus woman. Unlike Odysseus, who learns by journeying, Penelope stays in one place and learns through dreams. She also makes decisions based on her dreams.

Homer builds the web of symbolic objects in the
Odyssey
based on the characters and the theme. This is why the web is based on male objects: ax, mast, staff, oars, and bow. For the characters, these objects all represent some version of directionality and right action. In contrast to these symbols is the tree that supports Odysseus and Penelope's marriage bed. This is the tree of life, and it represents the idea that marriage is organic. It grows or it decays. When the man wanders too far or too long in his quest for glory (the ultimate warrior value), the marriage and life itself die.

Horror Symbol Web

The horror genre is about the fear of the inhuman entering the human community. It is about crossing the boundaries of a civilized life—between living and dead, rational and irrational, moral and immoral—with destruction the inevitable result. Because horror asks the most fundamental question—what is human and what is inhuman?—the form has taken on a religious mindset. In American and European horror stories, that religious mind-set is Christian. As a result, the character web and symbol web in these stories are almost completely determined by Christian cosmology.

In most horror stories, the hero is reactive, and the main opponent, who pushes the action, is the devil or some version of the devil's minion. The devil is the incarnation of evil, the bad father, who will lead humans to eternal damnation if not stopped. The moral argument in these stories is always couched in simple binary terms: the battle between good and evil.

The symbol web also starts with a binary opposition, and the symbolic, visual expression of good versus evil is light versus dark. The primary symbol on the light side is of course the cross, which has the power to turn back even Satan himself. The dark symbols are often different animals. In pre-Christian myth stories, animals like the horse, stag, bull, ram, and snake were symbols of ideals that would lead a person to right action and a higher self. In Christian symbolism, those animals represent evil action. That's why the devil is horned. Animals like the wolf, ape, bat, and snake represent the lifting of sanctions, the success of passion and the body, and the path to hell. And these symbols exert their greatest power in darkness.

Dracula

(novel by Bram Stoker, play by Hamilton Deane & John L. Balderston,

script by Garrett Fort, 1931)
The vampire Dracula, one of the "undead," is the ultimate creature of the night. He lives off the blood of humans whom he kills or infects to make them his slaves. He sleeps in a coffin, and he will burn to death if he is exposed to sunlight.

Vampires are extremely sensual. T'hey gaze longingly at the hare neck of a victim, and they are overwhelmed by their lust to bite the neck and suck the blood. In vampire stories like
Dracula,
sex equals death, and the blurring of the line between life and death leads to a sentence far worse than death, which is to live in an unending purgatory, roaming the world in the dark of night.

Dracula has the power to turn into a bat or a wolf, and he usually lives in ruins that are crawling with rats. He is a uniquely European character in that he is a count, a member of the aristocracy. Count Dracula is part of an aging, corrupt aristocracy that parasitically feeds on the common people.

Dracula is extremely powerful at night. But he can be stopped if someone knows his secret. He shrinks at the sight of the crucifix and burns when sprayed with holy water.

Other classic horror stories that play with this symbol set are
The Exorcist
and
The Omen. Carrie
uses the same set but reverses its meaning. Here the Christian symbols are associated with bigotry and closed-mindedness, and Carrie kills her evangelical mother by teleporting a crucifix into her heart.

Western Symbol Web

The Western is the last of the great creation myths, because the American West was the last livable frontier on earth. This story form is the national myth of America and has been written and rewritten thousands of times. So it has a highly metaphorical symbol web. The Western is the story of millions of individuals journeying west, taming the wilderness, and building a home. They are led by a lone-warrior hero who can defeat the barbarians and make it safe for the pioneers to form a village. Like Moses, this warrior can lead his people to the Promised Land but not enter it himself. He is doomed to remain unmarried and alone, forever traveling the wilderness until he and it are gone.

The heyday of the Western genre was from about 1880 to 1960. So this story form has always been about a time and place that was already past, even when it first became popular. But it is important to remember that as a creation myth, the Western was always a vision of the
future,
a national stage of development that Americans had collectively decided they wanted, even though it was set in the past and could not be created in fact.

The vision of the Western is to conquer the land, kill or transform the "lower" "barbarian" races, spread Christianity and civilization, turn nature into wealth, and create the American nation. The designing principle of the Western story form is that the entire process of world history is being repeated on the clean slate of the pristine American wilderness, so America is the world's last chance to regain paradise.

Any national story becomes a religious story, depending on its definition of certain rituals and values and the intensity with which it is believed. Not surprisingly, such a national religious story produces a highly metaphorical symbol web.

The symbol web of the Western begins with the horseman. He is both hunter and warrior, and he is the ultimate expression of the warrior culture. He also takes on certain features of the English national myth of King Arthur. He is the natural knight, a common man of pure and noble character who lives by a moral code of chivalry and right action (known as the Code of the West).