From two hundred and fifty million dollar movies to your daughter's dance recital and everything in between, we see a story unfold before our eyes. As the audience, we interpret emotions and events that burrow through the core of our senses. This is all done by story. To some, they see story as common device used to make them laugh, cry, feel fear, hate, and even love. But to the trained eye, key elements take place as a distinct structure is revealed to us every few minutes. Aristotle, a philosopher of the ancient world, has had an unprecedented impact on how one participates with the modern day narrative.
To understand Aristotle, you must be acquainted with how he came to these poetic, philosophical conclusions. Socrates was first, with his ground-breaking thought process on how psyche and virtue played a key role in self-enlightenment . He had strong belief that through these two items came the path to inherent and overall defining of wisdom . Next was Plato, Socrates' best student and Aristotle's former teacher. Like Socrates, Plato felt that the psyche was more important than the ever changing body . However, he came up with a more advanced philosophy in which the body lived solely in a material world; utterly taken over by our senses . From birth, we're ensnared into bodies and the psyche could get but a mere peep of a higher reality but only because of remembrance . Aristotle took much of his philosophy from Plato but focused more on the human senses. He disagreed with his teacher and felt that ideas could only be derived from the physical world. He was a tentative philosopher unlike Plato but he did believe is Socrates theory of how the mind is more important than the body.
Aristotle was the first to examine story structure and his innovative theories from long, long ago and can still be witnessed today. He analyzed the theatrical components of how powerful story structure produces catharsis in an audience through dialogue, visuals, character and plot. “Poetics” written by Aristotle in 350 BC has laid the ground work for modern writers since. In “Poetics” he goes into detail about how the use of proper key components gives the audience an intoxicating sensation. He explains that the most efficient tragedies use complications, reversals, and resolutions all along spotlighting fascinating characters.
Aristotle explains that stories need to have three main concepts when relating to plot and character these include: imitation, error, and catharsis. In imitation, the story and character must be believable. Through imitation, the audience must feel they can to relate either to the story or to the character. Dialogue is certainly a common imitation for interesting people as most writers use an eavesdropping journal to record dialogue in public places such as Starbucks, parks, and restaurants. You name it and most likely a writer is listening in on your conversation.
In error, our protagonist must have a flaw, because like imitation nobody is perfect. This flaw gives the audience something to relate to as they embark on the adventure with our hero. Error is often used in tragedies when the character makes a mistake such as in the play “Oedipus Rex” when Oedipus wrongly kills his father thinking he is but a mere stranger. From error usually spawns catharsis in which the audience purges pity or emotion for the hero. From imitation, and error comes catharsis. This powerful emotion is what entertains us and ultimately brings us back to watching films. Without these concepts and an audience will lose interest and will be unable to relate to the story or character.
For any good drama to take place there needs to be six elements to follow in the order of importance, they are: plot, character, theme, dialogue, song, and spectacle. Plot is most important because this is what keeps our attention. Aristotle says there are two types of plot's simple and complex . He tells that every story has 3 parts, a beginning, middle, and end. Each act serves the story with the intent to bring our hero closer or farther to their goal. Plots also use imitation of real life to portray the character's ordinary world. Characters keep the story interesting with their dialogue and help the audience forget their watching a movie. The idiosyncrasies of characters also help audience relate through imitation. Theme is important because it lets the audience know what their watching. Clever dialogue is what makes the story be believable. Some dialogue is on the nose which means it has no subtext. Movies are not generally presented this way. If woman said “I love you” in real life then in a film she would say “How did you sucker me in?” Song, drives the emotion of the story playing at key moments when there is a transition or some type of important action taking place. And last but not least is spectacle. This is the set design, props, and cinematography. Spectacle aids imitation by casting the mood and feel of the film.
