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.

22. Crimes of love

Love—the ever present of most situations whatever the subject matter, though love per se is the subject of comedy in the dramatic sense. Here there are also categories of Obstacles to Love and An Enemy Loved.

Eight species of erotic crime are distinguishable;

1. Onanism—The solitary vice, can lead only to melancholy silhouettes cf Narcissus, or used to study the weakening and collapse of the will, as in drunkeness and gambling (All sacrificed for a passion.)
2. Violation—An act like murder not a situation except inasmuch as it is an aspect of Adultery.
3. Prostitution—Does not become dramatic unless pursued by punishment when it becomes All sacrificed for a passion.
4. Adultery—Already noted.
5. Incest—Which can be either between generations or between members of the same generation. These are where the categories listed begin. The passion might not be returned or it might. Both parties might be complicit (Nero and Agrippina). Some can be reversed. The stepson's passion might be unrequited by his father's wife, not an uncommon case. Complicity in some cases can be suppressed, allowing the infatuation to exist on one side only. Without any crime occurring the dramatist can explore the temptations involved in it. All may be interlaced with one of the other seven classes of crimes of love, together with rivalries, adulteries, murders, etc.
6. Homosexuality—as pederasty or tribadism is overed elsewhere. Pedestaty—The Chrysippus of Euripides seems to have been one of the finest tragedies of antiquity. Three situations were superposed with rare success. Tribadism does not work dramatically—it has no grandeur.
7. Bestiality—No use threatrically except by Euripides in the Cretans.
8. The abuse of children—borrows a little from each of the others.

Elements

1. A lover
2. A beloved

Themes

1. Lineal incest
• A mother in love with her son
• A daughter in love with her father
• Violation of a daughter by a father
2. A woman and a son
• A woman enamoured of her stepson
• A woman and her stepson enamoured of each other
• A woman being the mistress at the same time of a father and a son both of whom accept the situation
3. Among siblings
• A man becomes the lover of his sister-in-law
• The man alone enamoured
• A brother and sister in love with each other
4. A man enamoured of another man who yields
5. A woman enamoured of a bull The Cretans, Euripides