Rebirth (Plot #7)
Born again
The plot of rebirth is one of the oldest of all, seen in many of the fairy tales that are part of our childhood and mirroring the very act of growing up and being reborn as an adult after years in childhood.
In The Sleeping Beauty, the Princess has to wait 100 years before she can emerge from her long (death like) sleep and marry her Prince. In Snow White, the heroine is abandoned ending up in a remote cottage with seven mining dwarves. The naive Snow White is poisoned three times by her wicked stepmother, being saved on the first two occasions, but then left in a glass coffin when the dwarves believe she has succumbed to a poison apple on the third attempt. Finally, she is rescued by a Prince who falls in love with her and dislodges the apple on taking her coffin down from its mountain top perch. [Snow White is an interesting fairy tale which subverts some of the conventions of fairy tales with ugly heroic characters (the dwarves) and a beautiful monster in Snow White's stepmother.]
The spirit of Christmas past
A more recent example of the rebirth plot is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, a staple of Christmas TV, stage and film including a Muppets movie and one of the funniest episodes of Black Adder ever made (a fantastic parody of the ‘Rebirth’ story).
As with all rebirth plots, it starts with the hero under a dark shadow (even if they don’t realise that this is the case). Scrooge is in a state of ‘living death’ and the story starts exactly seven years after his business partner, Jacob Marley, died. It is quickly evident that Scrooge is a mean and greedy both personally and in his business. Even on Chistmas Eve, Scrooge has no place in his life for kindness, compassion or charity and he rejects an invitation for Christmas dinner from his cheerful nephew, refuses to give to the poor and turns on his clerk Bob Cratchit refusing to give him any more coal for his fire and complaining about his absence from work on the next day. He returns home and Jacob Marley appears as a ghost, dragging a huge chain, and warning Scrooge that a punishment awaits those like him who are concerned only for themselves. He also warns him that he will be visited by further ghosts, although Scrooge refuses to change his ways.
In the next stage of the story, the poison of the dark shadow gradually reveals its full effects, threatening to completely overwhelm and isolate the hero, and eventually reaching a ‘nightmare’ stage. In A Christmas Carol this develops in three stages.
Scrooge is visited by the first of the ghosts threatened by Marley, the ghost of Christmas Past, who leads Scrooge through a series of flashbacks to his early life, and we see him as a solitary boy although later surrounded by happy family in cheerful Christmas scenes until as a young man his wife to be abandons him because she has ‘been replaced in his heart by an Idol’, obsessed by money above everything.
In the next scene, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Christmas Present, a jolly giant who shows scrooge a series of scenes with happy people enjoying themselves and showing generosity of spirit at Christmas time, including Bob Cratchit and his family. Scrooge begins to be moved at the sight of Bob Cratchit’s crippled son, Tiny Tim. In each of the scenes he is shown, the mention of his name casts a shadow over events briefly dampening the high spirits of those involved.
The third ghost, of Christmas To Come, shakes Scrooge with dire visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has seen. He is shown the death of a man about whom no one cares and without a friend in the world, and relatives fighting over the money he has left, and then a further scene of the Cratchit family with Tiny Tim dead. Finally he is shown the grave of the dead man, and realises that it is his own. He promises the demonic ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, to mend his ways and reform his life.
Scrooge wakes as if from a nightmare believing that he has slept for three days. Happily he realises that it is Christmas morning and he has time to to show his reformed self, and he goes out a new man. He delivers a huge turkey to the Cratchit family, gives a huge contribution to the charity he refused the day before, and joins his nephew and family in their Christmas celebrations. The very next day, Bob Cratchit arrives at work to find that he has a pay rise and from then Scrooge behaves as a second father to Tiny Tim, who, in the words of Dickens, ‘who did NOT die’.
It’s a wonderful life
Another staple of Christmas TV is Franz Capra’s film It’s A Wonderful Life, made in the year after the end of the second world war, which owes much to Charles Dickens. George Bailey, played by James Stewart, is faced with bankruptcy when money a thief steals money from his bank. He turns angry and then violent and finally gets drunk and contemplates suicide when a guardian angel, Clarence, turns up to save him.
Clarence shows George scenes from his life in which he saves his brother from drowning, sets up a loving family home, and makes a real difference to the lives of many people. He can see what a difference he has made, and how many sad and tragic things might have happened if it wasn’t for him. and most especially when he sees his brother Harry as a hero of World War II saving hundreds of lives. Of course, this could never have happened if he had drowned.
The film ends with George happily reunited with his family and many appreciative towns people pouring into his home with gifts which save him from his debts. He has been reborn.
A new person
In Crime and Punishment, Beauty And The Beast, The Frog Prince, Fidelio, The Secret Garden and many other tales, we see the transformation of a hero(ine) from someone trapped under a cloud to a new and better state (a handsome prince, freed from prison, or given new hope and beliefs by a ‘guardian angel’).
Growing up always entails throwing off the shackles of the past and being born anew. Rebirth makes a great Christmas movie, and a great brand story too. Most of all rebirth is the story of our lives.
REFERENCES
The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories by Christopher Booker (2004)
