Adelphiasoplot
But are there really 36 Plots? Georg Polti Plots or Storylines - The 36 Dramatic or Tragic Situations
Abstract
Wise Women Discuss—Plot!
But are there really 36?
Gozzi, the author of Turandot, according to Goethe, had found 36 tragic, by which he meant dramatic, situations, but he never published them. In 1921, George Polti, a French academic in his fifties, claimed to have rediscovered these 36 plots. He maintained they correspond to the no more than 36 emotions, which he believed humans can experience.
To obtain the 36 varieties, the ties of friendship or kinship between the central characters was determined, then their degree of consciousness or free will, and knowledge of the end towards which they were moving.
To alter the degree of discernment between the two adversaries, another character has to enter (introduced by Sophocles), having a subtle role, who makes one of the adversaries his instrument. As the perception of the used adversary diminishes so that of the extra character increases.
Immense dramatic possibilities arise from the third character—
- the unforeseen element, the ideal striven for by the two parties and the other characters
- though sometimes divided or multiplied, always recognisable
- might be fragmented to become instruments, disputed objects or impelling forces
- sometimes beside the protagonist, sometimes, the antagonist.
His part ranges from prophet to porter, and his part modifies powerfully the other parts.
- If for example he is a disputed object then his previous possessors become important, and the relations he had with them, and his own preferences.
- If he is an inspirer or instigator we consider, besides his degree of consiousness, of frankness or dissimulation, the perseverance he brings to his undertaking.
- If he is unconscious the discovery he may make of his unconsciousness.
- If he is a deceiver, the discoveries others might make of his dissimulation.
"A reductionist’s triumph" is how one reviewer describes Polti’s endeavours. Reductionism is a word of abuse which often means that the user is sorry that he hadn’t thought of the idea first. As soon as someone tries to classify something, someone else emerges from the woodwork to say they are being reductionist. The same people attack science as reductionist, which, of course, it often is—to some purpose. These poor souls seem to think that catagorising things loses something of the fine tapestry of life and the reductionists are the cause of it.
The implication of calling someone a reductionist is that they are wrong. It is taken to mean that reality or truth has been falsely simplified. Yet colour comes in infinite varieties all composed of three primary colours and a degree of luminosity. Does anyone dispute this? Are those who say it accused of reductionism because colour is really infinitely variable?
Poor old Polti is at pains to point out that the 36 dramas that he claimed to have rediscovered are infinitely variable through character, situation, psychology, combination and lots more variables, and points out these ways that drama can be varied. Yet his humble effort at categorisation is reductionism. He even points out, perhaps with irony that there are only 1332 ways of dealing with the situations taken one on the other. He seems to mean that the 36 can be used simply or they can be used successively (36 x 36 = 1296) to give 1332 in total, but one can carry on adding additional plots for as long as you or your readers, have patience. Polti simply says that by using the basic situations up to twice in your tale, you have only 1332 variations! The 36 dramatic situations might be reducing the wealth of fictional literature to the absurd, but really Polti is trying to save you wasting your time by thinking up something quite novel by offering you the framework of the usable plots.
Some critics say that Polti is too negative and try to arrive at opposite situations, even though Polti has opposites, of sorts, in some cases already listed. yet Polti was trying to recover tragic situations. He is aware that tragedy can easily become farce, but he was not aiming to cover every human situation, some of which are alone simply not suitable for theatre or the novel.
So, use his categories to paint your own canvas. Like all taxonomies, it is an aid, not a reduction. Use it as such with no fear from the name-callers. The 36 situations are only basic plots and must be varied infinitely for freshness, as Polti knew.
They can be hugely varied by modifying the severity of the central act—a murder in a Greek drama can become simply a slight in a TV soap opera, a wound in a historical romance, a blow in a rights of passage film, an attempt in a tale of a wicked father, an outrage in a story about small town America, an intimidation in a story about an ambitious reporter, a threat in a political drama, a too-hasty word in a kitchen sink novel, an intention not carried out in a play about a neglected parent, a temptation almost anywhere, a thought in a novel about self-loathing, a wish in a teeny-bopper story, an injustice in a story about two friends, a destruction of a cherised object in a story about a boy and a dog, a refusal in a tale of a mogul and his wayward son, a want of pity in a film about a warrior and a peasant boy, an abandonment in a film about a girl left in danger by a cowardly boyfriend, a falsehood in a play about lifelong friends, or any combination and millions more. A murder is a metaphor for a harm done.
- The murder or its lesser form might not be to the adversary but one dear to them. It may be multiple and aggravated in some way.
- Different parts can be combined in one person, playing different parts to different other characters or different times and so on. Or one character can be replaced by a pair acting as mind and body, the mind impelling the body to certain deeds that normally would be decided upon and done by one.
- A single central character can be replaced by a group responding in different ways, to bring out the different aspects of the situation.
- Any situation can be combined with any other, or any combination of others, in sub-plots:
- one after the other in turn;
- in a group amidst which the hero hesitates;
- in a group, each one associated with a particular character, characters or role;
- and combinations of these three, the characters perhaps being precipitated from one combination of situations into another, etc.
Further variations emerge by the relationships of the hero to the reader and to the laws of nature.
- Hero qualitatively superior to the reader or audience and qualitatively superior to the Laws of Nature— Myth.
- Hero quantitatively superior to the reader and quantitatively superior to the Laws of Nature— Legend.
- Hero qualitatively superior to the reader but equal to the Laws of Nature— High Mimetic.
- Hero equal to reader and equal to the Laws of Nature—low Mimetic.
- Hero inferior to the reader—Irony.
So apparently tragic situations can become comic or of another genre by aligning these various elements with respect to each other and particularly the reader. For Polti, the total work as it evolved seemed to be the plot not his 36 situations, so he had no naive illusions. Give him the credit of giving us a useful tool for stimulating our endeavours. delight in the variety of colour we see from three primaries and delight in the variety of storylines you can devise from Polti’s outlines.
As an aside, the popularity of the different plots in different times and cultures could be illuminating. Which ones dominate today and why? If a novel sub-category of one of the 36 were found, will an equivalent sub-category of the other 35 be found to exist? Research might have been done on this and lost in the archives or in obscure academic books, or perhaps there is room for new research on it. Which cultures like violent plots? Do they reflect society or its opposite, as escapism from it? Is a preference for a certain type of plot reflected in other humanities? There are surely differences in the sexes in preference for types of plot. Could it and should it be used for social shaping?
