1. OVERCOMING THE MONSTER

A hero learns of a great evil overshadowing the land (sometimes not his own land). He gets special equipment and/or weapons, heads out, and defeats the evil, freeing the land.
One of the oldest known stories, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is set in this form. So is the first James Bond movie, and of course a wealth of stories in between. Also the base for many video games, e.g. any Super Mario jump’n’run The fearsome Monster makes his presence known, often from “a great distance”. Its nature is base and vile, a picture of the dark side of humanity.
The Monster may be humanoid, animal, or a combination of both at the end, the Monster’s power is broken, and it dies; the people who had been under its power are liberated; the Hero emerges victorious. To symbolically complete the tale, the Hero receives three things:
1. A treasure (an inheritance counts)
2. A kingdom (something to rule over, e.g., a cook hero might get his own restaurant)
3. A Princess (or, in the case of a female Hero, a Prince – either way, it’s the ultimate mate, the Hero’s other half) And they all lived Happily Ever After.

2. RAGS TO RICHES
Surrounded by dark forces who suppress and ridicule him, the Hero slowly blossoms into a mature figure who ultimately gets riches, a kingdom, and the perfect mate. The basic tale behind such gems as “Aladdin” and “Cinderella” At the end the character should have status, riches, and a mate, and often a kingdom as well. this starts with a very young Hero in a “lowly and unhappy state, usually at home.” Antagonists of various sorts “scorn or maltreat” the Hero – though that is merely “the most obvious reason” for her unhappiness. This lasts until he/she receives The Call and either heads out, or is sent out, into the world.

3. THE QUEST
Here it’s the search for an object, a location or some information that requires our Hero to leave their (usually) everyday life to find. It’s the basic plot most likely to include a party instead of a lone hero. Hero learns of a great MacGuffin that he desperately wants to find, and sets out to find it, often with companions. Examples The Odyssey , hatim tai

4. VOYAGE AND RETURN
The Hero enters a Magical Land where normal rules don’t apply, happily explores for a while, then encounters a darker side of things; he conquers or escapes, in the process overcoming a character flaw, and returns home far more mature than when he left. This is the backbone for Alice in Wonderland and The Labyrinth, and the framing concept for The Chronicles of Narnia.

5. COMEDY
Comedy is the grand mesh of relationships among a large cast, rooted in miscommunication. The fog of misunderstanding is maintained by some dark figure. Hero and Heroine are destined to get together, but a dark force is preventing them from doing so; the story conspires to make the dark force repent, and suddenly the Hero and Heroine are free to get together. This is part of a cascade of effects that shows everyone for who they really are, and allows two or more other  relationships to correctly form. The misunderstandings get cleared up, the relationships get properly aligned and everything gets brought to light. e.g. shakespere’s comedy of errors, (angoor), George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man

6. TRAGEDY
The flip side of the Overcoming the Monster plot. Our protagonist character is the Villain, but we get to watch him slowly spiral down into darkness before he’s finally defeated. The end, however tragic, is seen as just, even if we can sympathize with the villain and see some of his choices as right or forced. prime example for Tragedy is King Lear, in which the Tragic Hero realizes his fault at the end and repents – too late to be saved. The Tragic Hero’s death or destruction releases the world around him from the darkness he had wrought, and the world without him rejoices.

7. REBIRTH
Rebirth is the more optimistic form of Tragedy, in which the villain spirals down into evil and then at the last second raises his head and gets pulled out of the mire by some redeeming figure, either his other half or a young child. The redeemer awakens the hero’s ability to love (or feel compassion) and helps him also to see things as they are, including, sometimes, a reordering of priorities. Examples ‘reincarnation of peter pan’ or ‘karz.’

Dr. Anupam Sethi Malhotra