Plot and Character

Poetics by Aristotle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Aristotle says that the exercise of any capacity brings pleasure. He defines poetry as language made pleasurable in verse form. Aristotle distinguishes the poetic genres of epic poetry (like Homer's Illiad and Odyssey) and tragedy (like the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles) and comedy (like the plays of Aristophanes). Aristotle only mentions lyric poetry, which is what we normally think of as poetry (like a sonnet). When Aristotle is talking about poetics, we should think of stories in verse form like Shakespeare's plays.

Aristotle explains that we enjoy poetics because of their imitation (mimesis) of reality. Thus Aristotle doesn't believe that our enjoyment of good poetry is purely subjective or only a matter of taste. The better the imitation of reality and the more pleasurable the language, the more our enjoyment will increase. I suppose that the subjective element is our own version of reality, which dictates whether we agree with the author's vision of reality. While Aristotle might have conceded this, he focuses on standards for imitation and pleasurable language.

Comedy is "an imitation of inferior people.... The laughable is an error or disgrace that does not involve pain or destruction" (3.4). When we laugh we recognize something ridiculous in others. Hopefully we can do this when we recognize our own silliness, but Aristotle doesn't "go there." Epic poetry, on the other hand, "is an imitation in verse of admirable people," like the hero Odysseus. "Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete and possesses magnitude ... effecting through pity and fear the purification (katharsis) of such emotion" (4.1). Thus we come to one of the main differences between Aristotle and Plato.

Plato criticized the poets in Book Ten of Republic, because he considered their work a mere representation of reality, which also stirred up the emotions. Plato considered reason the highest human faculty, whose job it was to tame the passions of the heart and discipline the appetites of the body. Thus poets were guilty of creating escapist fiction. Conversely, in his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote:

For example, fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity and in general pleasure and distress can be experienced in greater or lesser degree, and in both cases wrongly. To feel them at the right time, in response to the right things, with regard to the right people, for the right reason and in the right way--that is the mean and optimum, which is the characteristic of virtue (1106b.18-23; cited in Introduction xxxviii).

According to Aristotle, the emotions weren't necessarily inferior to reason. They merely needed to be exercised and trained, just like reason. This happened during katharsis or "purification" by experiencing emotion through tragic stories. Thus if tragedies could release and train the emotions in a positive way, we need quality stories with good plots. A good plot imitates reality accurately and presents characters that we can recognize.

A defective plot was one in which "the sequence of episodes is neither necessary nor probable.... they draw out the plot beyond its potential" (5.6). We tend not to love books or movies whose plots or actions are not believable or inaccurate. But we must also take into account the genre of the story. We wouldn't expect the driver in "Driving Miss Daisy" to suddenly put on a wizard's hat and wave a staff to avoid a car accident, but such actions in a fantasy story would not be unrealistic.

Good plots, for Aristotle, create astonishment through reversal, recognition, and suffering. Aristotle cites Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex," as an example. At the end of the play, when understanding dawns and the great king falls, the reader is amazed. A modern example would be the movie "The Sixth Sense," in which a reversal occurs at the end of the action. We then “recognize” what’s really going on and are surprised to find that we have been watching the movie the wrong way from the beginning.

The goal of character is goodness, appropriateness, likeness, and consistency. This means that characters, once established, must not act out of character. Concerning goodness, Aristotle says, "The character is good if the choice is good" (8.1). In the movie “Shadowlands,” the following words are put into the mouth of C. S. Lewis: "Aristotle’s solution was simple and radical, plot is character. Forget psychology; forget the insides of men’s heads. Judge them by their actions." This insight into Aristotle is in sharp contrast to our post-modern movies, which often try to reconstruct villains by creating sympathy for them.

From a Christian point of view, sympathy for a bad character is sinister, unless it creates a desire to redeem the bad character. This happens in Lord of the Rings with Gollum, when we are given a peek into his background. As Frodo begins the "taming of Smeagol [Gollum]," we begin to feel pity for him Gollum and hope that he can change. There are examples in the Bible like Jacob's brothers, but the norm in Scripture is bad guys are bad guys, and they will be judged by their actions. God will call us all to account, and good plots do the same, rather than making excuses for badness or trying to create sympathy toward sin.

Also contrary to Hollywood is Aristotle's dictum "no unnecessary badness" (8.1). The gratuitous, the explicit, and the shocking pass for realism today instead of the true, the good, and the beautiful. There are endless examples of this in recent movies and books. Aristotle provides some from the ancient world, and they are quite tame in comparison to our own. An example of a terrible villain who isn't “unnecessarily badæ is Kevin Bacon's character in "The River Wild." I think he says about two cuss words in the whole movie and there is little to no sexual innuendo. Oh, to read and watch without feeling the need afterwards to take a bath!

Aristotle also discusses poetic style:

The most important quality in diction is clarity, provided there is no loss of dignity. The clearest diction is that based on current words; but that lacks dignity. By contrast, diction is distinguished and out of the ordinary when it makes use of exotic expressions -- by which I mean non-standard words, metaphors, lengthening, and anything contrary to current usage.... So what is needed is some kind of mixture of these two things: one of them will make the diction out of the ordinary and avoid a loss of dignity ... while current usage will contribute clarity (9.4).

Aristotle gives plenty of examples to illustrate his points and Homer is praised beyond the rest as "he excels everyone in diction and reasoning" (10.2). Constructing quality plots is not easy but Aristotle advises: "nature itself teaches people to choose what is appropriate to it" (10.3). Nature, not artifice, is the standard for Aristotle.

Aristotle also addressed strict imitation vs. poetic license: "Impossibilities should be referred to poetic effect, or idealization of the truth, or opinion. With regard to poetic effect, a plausible impossibility is preferable to what is implausible but possible.... It is probable that improbable things will happen" (11.3). When we think of or experience an improbability, we might have the basis for an interesting plot. I'm afraid that many moviemakers today start with special effects they want to create, and a screenplay is concocted artificially to present it. A return to Aristotle would mean a much needed return to plot and character.

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