Jack and the Beanstalk: The human plot in narrative traditions and contemporary global culture

Abstract

The narrative tradition, going back to the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh and Homer’s Odyssey, presents itself as a framework for any person faced with taking up their life and making something of it. It works with archetypes, images that seek to resonate with the human psyche. According to Christopher Booker, the central theme underlying the narratives – from quest stories through tragedy and comedy – is one that moves us from egocentricity to the achievement of an authentic and generous self. But the narrative relies on the distinction between an appearance of success or failure (“above the line”), and the personal journey that is, or is not, successfully undertaken, “below the line”. Our global commercially oriented culture has decoupled us from the traditional normative images and roles, but the danger, for example with superhero fantasies, is that the below the line plot is lost, and with it the self-referentiality that is the source of character growth. Against Booker’s negative take on post-moral fiction, I argue, finally, that a more self-conscious self-referentiality is shown in the technique of “free indirect style” discussed by James Wood, calling for a greater degree of co-authoring of the moral of the plot.