10. Going to Extremes
Experimenting with any polarized system involves going to the extremes. Comedy or tragedy may result as people who have habitually leaned to one side of a polarity not only experiment with the unaccustomed opposite quality, but take it to the limit. Those who have been shy take new-found confidence too far, becoming obnoxious instead of suave or self-assured. They overcompensate, missing the point of balance. They may then retreat to the opposite extreme of sullenness or some other exaggerated form of their original behavior. Eventually, through a series of such pendulum swings they may learn a new way to behave, somewhere in the middle ground.
Learning how to handle any quality is a process of finding the boundaries by experimentation. In many polarized relationships, one person is more experienced and has already made a fool of himself in long-ago experiments, so now he knows precisely how to handle women, cards, guns, cars, or money. To the inexperienced person it's all new, so we get to watch him or her making the beginner's hilarious mistakes.
Often there is a reciprocal area where the experienced person is weak, and is forced to make a comical effort to master the unaccustomed quality, such as politeness, sincerity, or compassion. However, the more experienced person will likely not have as far to travel in his or her path of learning as the inexperienced person.
11. Reversal of the Reversal
In effect the characters are learning from each other, shocked into it by contact with someone who is a polar opposite in one or more dimensions of behavior. They reverse polarity in order to experiment with behavior that is outside of their normal comfort zone. However, rarely is this the end of the story. There is usually at least one more reversal, as the characters recover from the temporary insanity imposed by the story and return to their true natures. It is a very strong rule in drama, and in life, that people remain true to their basic natures. They change, and their change is essential for drama, but typically they only change a little, taking a single step towards integrating a forgotten or rejected quality into their natures.
Having learned something useful by their first reversal, they may retreat to the pole that represents their true nature, but they end up in a little different place from where they started. This is realistic character change, an incremental movement rather
than a total 180-degree reversal. Complete and permanent reversals of polarity are rare in stories and in life.
If a story has done its work, the character has experimented with something unfamiliar, realized that some special quality was lacking, and incorporated some aspect of that quality into his or her life. He or she returns to their general comfort zone, but to a more nearly balanced position nearer the center, not polarized to either extreme.
In the process, the character and the audience get to experience all points along the spectrum, both the extremes and a range of positions in between. In most cases it's not desirable or realistic to end up exactly in the middle of the two positions. Most stories end with the characters back more or less on the side of the polarity where they started, but several steps closer to the center and the opposite side. The characters' range of possible behavior now avoids the extreme positions and overlaps a little into the territory of the opposite side, producing a more balanced personality that leaves room for the formerly unexpressed quality. This is a good place to end up, because from this position the character can retreat to his or her old comfort zone if threatened, but still reach across to experience something of the opposite side.
In the Chinese system known as the Book of Changes, this is considered a more stable state, more desirable than extreme polarization. In a throw of three coins, two heads and a tail or two tails and a head symbolizes a stable, more balanced and realistic situation, whereas a throw of three heads or three tails represents a situation that is too polarized, too much of one thing, and must certainly collapse or reverse polarity soon, becoming its opposite.
Any character who begins at an extreme or is driven to it is ripe for a process of polarity reversal.
12. Polarity Seeks Resolution
Sometimes the two big ideas or life-ways that have been polarized throughout a story will seek resolution by converting into something else, a third way that resolves the contradiction between the two elements.
The classic Western Red River shows two ways of living sharply polarized in the form of the older and younger men played by John Wayne (Tom Dunson) and Montgomery Clift (Matthew Garth). Dunson is brave but bull-headed, masculinity taken to its most macho extreme, while Garth's softer style is radically different, merciful where Dunson is ruthless. It is an almost Biblical polarity, like the difference between the wrathful, jealous Old Testament God and the gentle, compassionate Son of God depicted in the New Testament. Their struggle turns deadly, with Dunson swearing he will hunt down and kill Garth, who has been like a son to him. They fight at the climax and it looks like the polarity can only be resolved by the death of one party or the other, but this tragic fate is avoided by the intervention of pure female energy. The young woman played by Joanne Dru (Tess Millay) breaks up the fight with a gunshot and reminds the men that "anyone can see you two love each other." The men realize she's right and stop fighting. Dunson declares he'll change his cattle brand to reflect his acceptance of Garth, and the polarity is resolved. The two opposing styles of living are resolved into a third way, one that balances Dunson's extreme masculinity with feminine emotion and compassion. It makes dramatic sense, for it was Dunson's rejection of the feminine side in the early part of the film that set the whole plot in motion, when Dunson refused to take his lady love along with him on his journey to Texas.
We could say the protagonist's point of view or style of living is the thesis of the story. The anti-thesis is the antagonist's opposing viewpoint and style. The synthesis is whatever resolves the polarized conflict at the end. It may be a restatement of the protagonist's wishes or world-view, incorporating new learning or strength gained from the clash with the antagonist. It may be a radical new approach to life that the hero finds, or it may be a return to the hero's original position, but even then it will always be shifted a little by the polarized struggle the hero has been through. Typically heroes learn something from their polar opposites and incorporate this into their new pattern of behavior.
The resolution of some polarized stories could be the realization that the polarization itself was false, based on a misunderstanding, or that it was totally unnecessary if the seemingly opposed parties had simply communicated better in the beginning. Polarized romantic comedies can be built entirely around misunderstandings to show the difficulty of male-female communication, but might end with the lovers realizing they had been saying the same thing all along.
13. Polarized Universes
Polarity is a meta-pattern, a system that operates at all levels in stories, from large-scale clashes of cultures to intimate human relationships, all the way down to polarities within individuals. On the big scale a story can show a polarized clash between two cultures, generations, world-views, or philosophies of life. Ancient myths were polarized by eternal struggles between gods and giants or between primordial elements like fire and ice. Most Westerns put the hero into a town or a situation that is sharply polarized between pairs of opposing forces: Indians vs. the cavalry, cattle barons vs. immigrant farmers, ex-Confederates vs. ex-Yankees, etc. Film noir and the genre of "cops-and-robbers" split the world into polarized levels, the sun-lit upper world of law-abiding society and the shadowed Underworld of the criminals. The movie Titanic is polarized between the worlds of upper and lower decks, representing the classes of society and the conflict between desire for control and desire for freedom. The Terminator and Matrix movies are polarized between humans and machines, the Star Wars movies between dark and light sides of the Force. Platoon is polarized by a young soldier's choice between brutal and humane ways of going through a war, represented by two older men with contrasting approaches to survival.
14. Inner Polarity
&nb
sp; A story can be built around the polarities that sometimes exist within a person, as explored in stories and movies like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Fight Club. Psycho shows us a man who has internalized the feminine side of his dead mother, and half the time speaks in her voice. Stories like these externalize and make visible the usually unseen dualities of personality.
There is no better dramatization of a polarized inner struggle than the chilling scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, where Gollum alternates between the good and evil sides of his own personality. The good side is what remains of his original identity as an innocent hobbit, Smeagol, and it resists temptation heroically, remembering the kindness and humanity shown by his master, Frodo. But eventually the wheedling, crafty, evil side that has degenerated into Gollum triumphs with fierce hate and jealousy, reversing the power balance within the character. The polarity of the character had been aligned towards hope for Gollum's salvation; now it is aligned to the certainty that he will betray the hobbits in his greed to have the Ring. Polarity was used here to show an inner struggle in a divided self.
15. Agon
Around the globe, people have imagined the creation of the world as a polarized situation. God divides light from darkness and the heavens from the earth. Primordial gods wrestled monsters of chaos in the earliest stories of creation, and the earliest dramas were religious rituals re-enacting these polarized struggles. In the ancient world, where abstract qualities such as luck, love, war, and victory were personified, humanized, and worshipped as gods, the potent force of polarity was recognized in the person of the Greek god Agon, the force of struggle and conflict, ruling over athletic events and contests of all kinds, even legal disputes, for agon also means a judgment. In an athletic event or a courtroom, a judgment is being made about who is the best or who is right.
Agon was pictured as a young athlete carrying a pair of jumping weights called "halteres" in his hands. The weights gave the jumper an extra boost on long jumps and may have been a symbol of some quality associated with Agon, perhaps an extra edge he gave to the athlete who prayed and offered sacrifice to him. There was an altar of sacrifice dedicated to Agon at Olympia, where the Olympic games were held. Not much is known about Agon or his "backstory" but he may have been part of a family of Zeus s children who were responsible for other qualities that had roles to play in the lives of athletes, such as speed, victory, competitive spirit, and even chaos.
The spirit of Agon is imbedded in the polarized terms "protagonist" and "antagonist". We cheer for the protagonist in the struggle or contest, and we wish for the defeat of the antagonist.
The English word "agony" derives from agon and signifies that the process of struggle is sometimes painful and arduous. The word is sometimes used as one pole of a polarized expression, as in the title The Agony and the Ecstasy or the phrase from TV coverage of the Olympic Games, "the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat." These phrases describe the dramatic emotional extremes that a polarized agon can generate. To antagonize someone is to create an agon or conflict with that person where none existed before.
AGON: THE ARGUMENT OF THE PLAY
In ancient Greek drama, the "agon" was a formal debate between two characters in which their contrasting views of a current public issue were presented, judged by a chorus. We could still find use for the word to describe the main philosophical debate or clash of lifestyles in a play, novel, or film script. Movies like Wall Street and A Few Good Men and TV shows like The West Wing dramatize an agon, a kind of debate about a current social issue.
MODERN-DAY PUBLIC AGON
An "agon" among the Greeks and Romans also meant a formal competition to determine who was best at a given skill such as singing, composing plays or music, delivering speeches, etc. As in our modern star system of awards, prizes were given for the best performances of the year. These "agonic" competitions were organized like our sports leagues, with local and regional competitions leading to a national contest held at a great yearly festival in the capital. We still have a strong need to arrange this kind of agon each year to determine which team or performer is the best in the region, the country, and the world. Each stage of our athletic system pits pairs of teams and individuals against each other, recreating the polarized agon time after time until there are only two teams or people left for the final contest. Agon thrives in the eternally popular game shows and competitive "reality" programs of the day.
THE PERSONAL AGON
At the personal level, an agon was any challenge that pitted one side of a person's makeup against another. For example, the mind is always trying to master the lazy tendencies of the body. The struggle of the artist with her work is an agon, pitting her will to bring creativity into form against all the forces that make it difficult. Or the agon can be a person's struggle with some external condition that makes life challenging, such as a birth defect, an accident, or an injustice.
All the entertainment of the ancient world was based on the polarizing principle of the agon, and it seems to have an almost magnetic affect on us even today, in our sports, in politics, and in entertainment.
16. Polarity Gives Orientation
Magnets are widely used for purposes of orientation. A magnetic compass automatically orientates itself to point north, and from this we can determine south, east, west and all points in between. Polarity in a story serves a similar function, giving the audience orientation about the characters and situation, from the simplest level of white hats and black hats to represent good guys and bad guys, to the most sophisticated psychological dramas. Polarity lets us know who has the power and suggests how it might shift. It signals us who we are to be aligned with in the story and helps us understand how all the characters and situations are aligned with one force or the other.
Most of the time, you have to play fair with the audience and not make it difficult for them to get their bearings in a story. A polarized town, family, or society, a polarized agon between contrasting opponents, a polarized personality about to reverse itself, all these can help the audience determine what is up and down, right and wrong, in this story. They can quickly align themselves for or against characters depending on their choices about the polarized condition in the story. The writer can then start sending positive or negative energy into the scenes, bringing temporary victory or defeat to the characters until the final resolution.
Of course, some stories deal precisely with the grey areas, the kinds of characters and situations that are remarkable and interesting because they aren't obviously polarized. Some artists don't want to take sides or push their characters into simplistic categories. There is room for this artistic approach, but polarities will still naturally arise simply from having two characters in the same room at the same time.
CONCLUSION
As noted, polarities are useful tools in stories and are a practical way of organizing reality, but they can be misused to oversimplify situations that may actually be quite complex. Audiences are sophisticated these days and while they enjoy stories that are strongly polarized, they enjoy them more when they are also nuanced with small shadings and contradictions that make stories and characters seem realistic, even when dealing in worlds of pure fantasy. Like any technique, polarization in a story can be heavy-handed and too obvious. Polarization without shading or the possibility of change would quickly become boring, just two people shouting at each other. The fun is in seeing a tiny seed of the opposite quality coming to life in a polarized character or situation. It may only come to life for an instant, showing the possibility of reversal but then snatching it away forever, or it may work its way slowly until the character or situation reverses polarity dramatically.
Polarities in politics, sports, war, or relationships can divide us, but they also have the possibility of uniting us when we have been through a struggle together. An old soldier may have more in common with his former enemies than he does with his grandchildren. Polarized family feuds will sometimes dissolve when after many years ne
ither party can remember what all the fighting was about.
Polarities in stories form a conceptual framework with which to organize ideas and energy, building up positive and negative charges around selected characters, words, and concepts. They may serve a survival function for us in dramatizing useful distinctions about behavior, and in identifying patterns in human relationships. They serve an essential dramatic function by stirring us up, triggering emotional involvement and physical reactions in the organs of our bodies. Words on a page, actors on a stage, images on a screen can pull us this way and that until we have a small but potentially significant emotional release, for when we laugh at the characters in a funny movie, we are laughing in part at ourselves. When we cry over the fate of the characters in a tragedy or a romance, we cry in part for ourselves. When we shudder in terror at the latest horror film or novel, we shudder for ourselves. We sense our part in the great polarities, spirit and matter, male and female, life and death, good and evil, and we find healthy release in stories that explore their workings.
QUESTIONS
1. "To be or not to be, that is the question." Shakespeare uses many dualities and polarities in his plays and sonnets, using twins, pairs of lovers, and contrasting ideas such as the relationship of Prince Hal and Sir John Falstaff in Henry IV parts one and two, where they are flip sides of the same coin of knighthood, Prince Hal representing honor and Sir John dishonor. Read a Shakespeare play and see how many polarities you can find in it. What is the effect of these polarities on the reader or audience?
2. Review a movie such as Pulp Fiction or The Fellowship oj the Ring from the Lord oj the Rings trilogy. How many dualities and polarized relationships can you detect? Do they add to the dramatic experience or are they just repetitious?
3. Compile your own list of polarities. Pick one at random and see if you can generate characters and a story from it.
4. "Agon" means contest or struggle but also can be a central challenge in someone's life, perhaps something temporary that comes up, or it could the one great thing he or she must wrestle with throughout life. What is the agon in your life, at the moment and over the long run? What is the agon of your character?
The Writer's Journey Page 34