Wise Women Discuss—Plot!

The 36 Tragic Situations

Though women have been starved of creative opportunities over the centuries of patriarchal bullying, they have proved in one important field that they are not creatively inferior to men—in writing. Adelphiasophists are keen that all people should be creative and that their efforts should be appreciated. If you have been intending to start that novel or screenplay but felt short of ideas, here is the Wise Women's synopsis of plot to give you a few ideas. May the Goddess inspire you. Saviour Shirlie.


13. Hatred of Kinsmen

Antithesis is the fount of art, particularly dramatic art, through the conflict it generates. Hatred of one who should be loved (this situation) and "love of one who should be hated" An enemy loved offer a nice symmetry.

Three points:

  1. The more close the bonds which unite kinsmen who disagree, the more savage and dangerous their outbursts of hatred.
  2. If the hatred is not mutual the situation will tend toward other dramatic situations listed here in which one relative is tyrant and the other victim.
  3. The problem is to find a powerful enough reason for the close ties of kinship to be sundered.

Plainly any relationship could be fruitfully explored. The enmity of two brothers-in-law, ex-rivals, is explored in Jean Jullien's La Mer (1891) in which emotion increases after the death of the principle character thus reflecting life where sorrow is often not fully felt until after a death. Hatred between sisters is not uncommon and offers the chance of studying feminine enmities, so lasting and so cruel. The antipathy of a mother and the husband of a young woman is commonplace and perhaps is therefore not adequately treated.

The hatred between the kinsmen can be modified. The role of a party torn between the two contending people can be explored, eg the wife and mother caught between a father and son conflict.

Elements
  1. A malevolent kinsman
  2. A hated or reciprocally hating kinsman
Themes
  1. Hatred of brothers
  2. Hatred of parents and children, one way or mutual
  3. Hatred of grandfather for grandson. A facet of Hamlet, Shakespeare
  4. Hatred of father-in-law for son-in-law
  5. Hatred of mother-in-law for daughter-in-law
  6. Infanticide