Читать книгу The Virgin's Promise - Kim Hudson - Страница 11

Introduction

The Virgin’s promise encompasses both the obligations and expectations from her community, and her personal potential that longs to be fulfilled. The Virgin is pulled a part by these forces as she quests to know herself and be herself. The Virgin’s Promise: Writing Feminine Stories of Creative, Spiritual, and Sexual Awakening challenges the assumption that every story is centered on a hero, and proposes that the Virgin has a unique archetypal path. It does this by describing the Virgin structure and showing how the two structures are separate yet work in support of one other. This book is for writers and movie buffs who want to expand their understanding of stories with the addition of a feminine archetypal structure.

Theorist and storyteller Joseph Campbell opens his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces with a chapter on the mono-myth. He states:

Whether we listen with aloof amusement to the dream like mumbo jumbo of some red-eyed witch doctor of the Congo, or read with cultivated rapture thin translations from the sonnets of the mystic Lao-tse;… [the Hero’s Journey] will be always the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find… (3)

But a second model exists: the Virgin’s Promise, which balances the masculine with its feminine counterpoint, as in yin and yang. This book explores the archetypal journey of coming into being. These may be stand-alone Virgin movies as in Ever After; stories where the protagonist grows on both the Virgin and Hero levels simultaneously, as in Mulan; or movies with a fully developed Virgin story alongside a fully developed Hero story, as seen in Shrek.

I began my exploration of the Virgin archetype noticing those elements in movies, myths, and fairy tales that contribute to the theme of being true to yourself. I compared these repeated elements with Jungian theory on the Virgin archetype, which described her as developing the art of Becoming and Being, and found they were remarkably consistent. The result is The Virgin’s Promise, made up of thirteen repeated steps or beats.

The word “beats” can be confusing because it is also used in screenwriting literature to describe pacing elements similar to scene breakdowns with an action and a reaction, and also a momentary pause in the dialogue. Here, the term “beat” is strictly used to describe plot points, which are the key events, decisions, or discoveries made by the Virgin, or Hero, that move the protagonist along on her/his journey.

In this theory, there is an important distinction made between feminine and female. While an archetype may embody a feminine energy, it is not necessarily female. Archetypes are applicable to both genders equally. To make this point, I have used examples of male and female Virgins when I describe the Virgin structure and, likewise, female and male Heroes to demonstrate the Hero structure. I have, however, defaulted to the pronouns “she” for the Virgin and “he” for the Hero to avoid the awkwardness of excessive use of s/he.

Coupling maleness with femininity may feel strange, especially when the Virgin isn’t necessarily gay. Prince can be substituted in your mind for Virgin if it seems more appropriate for a male character, since the Prince too represents a character born to a set of expectations that limit his ability to realize his personal vision for his life. Think of Scott in Strictly Ballroom, Rocky in Rocky or John in Wedding Crashers. They are all Virgins by my definition, dreaming of achieving their inner potential. That’s not to say realization of your authentic sexual orientation doesn’t make a great Virgin story. It does, as shown by Ennis in Brokeback Mountain, Maggie in Better than Chocolate, and Martha in The Children’s Hour.

The bringing of the Virgin’s dream for herself in to the physical world often occurs through the development of the inherently feminine aspects of creativity, sexuality, and spirituality (Murdock, 5). Creative awakening is like an act of alchemy. The artist looks inside and finds a way to express a piece of herself. We all recognize this shining element of self being brought forward when we see an inspiring dancer, are moved by a great pianist or rock band, or view an evocative painting. A person’s essence is communicated and shared by turning it into an art form.

Similarly, sexual awakening is a form of allowing an internal sense of self to flower into physical acts. The recognition of a personal desire that is claimed as one’s own and acted on is a profound act of acquiring personal authority. Coming of Age movies depict the first sexual experience, a metaphor for becoming an independent person by bringing an inner desire to life.

The spiritual awakening of the Virgin is the art of being. It is a multilayered concept that means different things to different people. It may be found in the claiming of one’s goodness. Its enemy is envy which attacks the existence of another and is spiritually deadening. The Virgin archetype heals this effect by guiding the way towards embracing who she knows herself to be. The Virgin may also embody the belief that there is a piece of the divine in all of us such as a dream or a talent which is brought out by the actions of the Virgin. This is expressed when a person has a calling or a natural gift. The expression of spirituality also occurs when a person believes in something greater than themselves such as the Muses, God, or love. Sports movies are examples of spiritual quests where the small town team goes for the cup against all odds. Wish-fulfillment movies also show a belief in something outside of oneself.

The story of the Virgin or Princess has been with us as long as stories have been told (Zipes, 17). However, until now a cohesive theory as to the archetypal structure of the Virgin has not been formulated as it has for the Hero (see Campbell and Vogler). As a result, the Virgin is often reduced to the role she plays within the Hero story. The need for an understanding of the Virgin becomes profound when it is recognized that archetypal stories are roadmaps for life (Stevens, 1999, 38). We need to be more than brave, self-sacrificing Heroes. We also need to be Virgins who bring our inner talents and self-fulfilling joys to life. And we need stories that show us how to do that.

This book is structured in two parts. Part One introduces basics of Jungian theory as a foundation for understanding the archetypes. It also explores the symbolic nature of the twelve key archetypes: the Virgin, Hero, Whore, Coward, Mother/Goddess, Lover/king, Fem me Fat ale, Tyrant, Crone, Mentor, Hag and Miser. It then looks closely at the Virgin and the Hero structures to give clarity to each beat. Examples from a range of movies are used to illustrate various aspects of these structures. Film summaries are provided to highlight the archetypal beats of some of these movies. The summaries are also useful if the movie example is unfamiliar.

An exploration of the Hero structure is included here because the Virgin and the Hero are, in many ways, polar opposites of each other. Understanding one gives a greater understanding of the other, just as white looks sharpest against black. In this way, the Hero structure contributes to an understanding of the Virgin structure. The Virgin structure also focuses the Hero structure. Including the Hero archetype provides a comparative framework for understanding the Virgin and makes it easy to reference the points being made on how the two journeys cross over, support each other, and are distinct.

Part Two of this book opens with a summary of screenwriting structural theory. These sections provide the background within which writers generally work and an introduction to how the Virgin structure fits into existing theory. Screenwriters are then guided through the application of this archetypal theory with a beat-sheet for structuring a screenplay and a discussion on using the beats to identify the story’s central question, create a log line and strengthen the internal connections in the story.

The Virgin’s Promise provides a pathway into the feminine archetypal journey lying dormant in our collective unconscious. The quest to become true to yourself. This theory offers anew way to view movies, and gives writers of all kinds, and particularly screenwriters, the resources to invoke this feminine archetypal magic.