Thanks for sharing. I've learned a lot from these three posts on character arcs. I thought of perhaps one example of a negative character arc which has a moral theme and maybe a mystical theme. It also happens to be a non-fiction. The book is title "The Great Imposter" by Robert Crichton, who interviews Fred Demara and tells his story.
Fred grew up in a wealthy family in the early 19th century. His family lived in an upper-class neighborhood in Lawrence, Massachusetts, which had a large population of poor, immigrant workers. Though his family was wealthy, Fred was enrolled in a nearby public school that served the children of these poor workers. He felt lonely and out of place. One day, one of the children thought Fred "ratted" on him and got him in trouble. He threatened to beat him up and so, Fred, during the lunch hour, went home and brought back two of his parent's guns which he used to intimidate the children that advanced upon him to beat him up. In fact, he shouted, "I'm going to shoot your guts out." This brave gesture (in the eyes of the other school children) earned him respect. He learned that the way to "belong" was to be "bad." Eventually, his behavior deteriorated to the point where his parents decided that moving him to the more upper-class, Catholic school would be better for him.
The author writes, "For the first time in his life he had a serious dispute with his family. He made up his mind that he wasn't going to speak either at school or at home until he was returned to his old school. For weeks he held out against all pressures that were exerted on him until one afternoon, sitting sullenly in study hall he heard the soft sound of shoe leather come up behind him and felt the presence of someone hovering over him. It was the mother superior of the school and she simply sat down beside him and draped her black knit cloak around him as if he were being enveloped by the wing of some warm, kindly bird.
“At first he resisted her but there was something far more powerful than this stubborn boy’s will. In the secrecy of his cloak he began sobbing and crying helplessly about some sorrow he couldn’t name. He can still recapture the feeling of being reborn into the world again as he cried.
“Sitting beside her, he became gradually terribly conscious of the crucifix she wore until, he feels, that he was perhaps hypnotized by it.
“I don’t know, but I decided then and there that I had some special, sacred mission and I made up my mind to become a very devout boy.”
Fred’s life was inspired by a new meaning, which brought to him a calmness and happiness he had never before known. When the Great Depression hit, Fred’s family became poor. Fred found himself cast into a world that lacked the wealth and respect from others that it brought. He ran away from home and joined a trappist monastery. It turned out that Fred, perhaps unfortunately, wasn’t able to follow the rigid guidelines around food and conduct and eventually had to leave. He joined a religious lay order where he served as a teacher for some time. After a confrontation with the administration, his behavior took a sharp turn for the worse: he quit and stole the school's car. After joining the army, he decided it was too much discipline for him. He had a friend in the army who brought him over to his mother’s house one night. Fred discovered a box with much of this friend’s personal identification documents: all the things he needed to steal this friend’s identity. This began a life-long journey of imposing as other people.
I suppose one of Fred’s lessons was to find fulfillment, not in the opinions of others and the pleasures that wealth can bring, but in contentment and the happiness of a clear conscience. Instead, he abandoned his hope of inner happiness from a spiritual life and became increasingly immersed in false identities, gradually losing who he really was.
Thanks for the writeup. It's certainly a negative arc, as constantly posing as others will gradually pull you farther and farther from your true identity, and in that there would be great suffering. That's clearly a negative moral arc, and if the story had elements of spiritual suffering in that loss of identity--and in the denial or pushing away opportunities for redemption--then it could have a mystical flavor as well. That would be especially true if, say, in his taking on false identities he could also see that his own egoic identity was also false, that is, that *all* identities are ultimately limiting. That could be a climactic opportunity, but on a negative arc he'd deny that truth and thus end tragically. On a positive arc, that would be the point where his whole negative path suddenly turned positive.
Thanks for sharing. I've learned a lot from these three posts on character arcs. I thought of perhaps one example of a negative character arc which has a moral theme and maybe a mystical theme. It also happens to be a non-fiction. The book is title "The Great Imposter" by Robert Crichton, who interviews Fred Demara and tells his story.
Fred grew up in a wealthy family in the early 19th century. His family lived in an upper-class neighborhood in Lawrence, Massachusetts, which had a large population of poor, immigrant workers. Though his family was wealthy, Fred was enrolled in a nearby public school that served the children of these poor workers. He felt lonely and out of place. One day, one of the children thought Fred "ratted" on him and got him in trouble. He threatened to beat him up and so, Fred, during the lunch hour, went home and brought back two of his parent's guns which he used to intimidate the children that advanced upon him to beat him up. In fact, he shouted, "I'm going to shoot your guts out." This brave gesture (in the eyes of the other school children) earned him respect. He learned that the way to "belong" was to be "bad." Eventually, his behavior deteriorated to the point where his parents decided that moving him to the more upper-class, Catholic school would be better for him.
The author writes, "For the first time in his life he had a serious dispute with his family. He made up his mind that he wasn't going to speak either at school or at home until he was returned to his old school. For weeks he held out against all pressures that were exerted on him until one afternoon, sitting sullenly in study hall he heard the soft sound of shoe leather come up behind him and felt the presence of someone hovering over him. It was the mother superior of the school and she simply sat down beside him and draped her black knit cloak around him as if he were being enveloped by the wing of some warm, kindly bird.
“At first he resisted her but there was something far more powerful than this stubborn boy’s will. In the secrecy of his cloak he began sobbing and crying helplessly about some sorrow he couldn’t name. He can still recapture the feeling of being reborn into the world again as he cried.
“Sitting beside her, he became gradually terribly conscious of the crucifix she wore until, he feels, that he was perhaps hypnotized by it.
“I don’t know, but I decided then and there that I had some special, sacred mission and I made up my mind to become a very devout boy.”
Fred’s life was inspired by a new meaning, which brought to him a calmness and happiness he had never before known. When the Great Depression hit, Fred’s family became poor. Fred found himself cast into a world that lacked the wealth and respect from others that it brought. He ran away from home and joined a trappist monastery. It turned out that Fred, perhaps unfortunately, wasn’t able to follow the rigid guidelines around food and conduct and eventually had to leave. He joined a religious lay order where he served as a teacher for some time. After a confrontation with the administration, his behavior took a sharp turn for the worse: he quit and stole the school's car. After joining the army, he decided it was too much discipline for him. He had a friend in the army who brought him over to his mother’s house one night. Fred discovered a box with much of this friend’s personal identification documents: all the things he needed to steal this friend’s identity. This began a life-long journey of imposing as other people.
I suppose one of Fred’s lessons was to find fulfillment, not in the opinions of others and the pleasures that wealth can bring, but in contentment and the happiness of a clear conscience. Instead, he abandoned his hope of inner happiness from a spiritual life and became increasingly immersed in false identities, gradually losing who he really was.
Thanks for the writeup. It's certainly a negative arc, as constantly posing as others will gradually pull you farther and farther from your true identity, and in that there would be great suffering. That's clearly a negative moral arc, and if the story had elements of spiritual suffering in that loss of identity--and in the denial or pushing away opportunities for redemption--then it could have a mystical flavor as well. That would be especially true if, say, in his taking on false identities he could also see that his own egoic identity was also false, that is, that *all* identities are ultimately limiting. That could be a climactic opportunity, but on a negative arc he'd deny that truth and thus end tragically. On a positive arc, that would be the point where his whole negative path suddenly turned positive.