Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : Rebirth
Rebirth
Under the Shadow of a Dark Power
Booker suggests that "Rebirth" plotlines begin with the hero "fall[ing] under the shadow of [a] dark power." In Bradley Pearson's case, this "dark power" isn't "the black Eros," as some of you may be guessing—it's his inability to write.
Having taken an early retirement so that he could devote all of his time to writing a great novel, Bradley is taken aback when he discovers that he has no ideas at all. Try as he might, he just can't get the words to come, and little things that never used to bother him (the noise of the city, for example), now drive him up the wall. What's a wannabe literary genius to do?
The Dark Power Seems to Retreat
Bradley Pearson experiences this stage more than once, as he swings back and forth between this one and the next multiple times. Keep scrolling down to hear more about why that is.
The Dark Power Returns
Things seem to be going well for Bradley Pearson whenever it looks as if he'll finally be able to fulfill his desire to write—that is, when he rents a seaside cottage in northern England, when Rachel Baffin initiates a love affair that seems to promise to fuel his creative talents, when falling in love with Julian Baffin makes him certain that he's finally discovered the key to artistic mastery, and so on.
None of these feel-good interludes lasts for long, though, because something always happens to thwart Bradley's best-laid plans and distract him from his goal. However pure Bradley's artistic ambitions may be, other people always seem to intrude, interfere, and spoil his productivity with their unreasonable needs.
Things Get Really Bleak
Those interruptions and intrusions come to a head for Bradley Pearson when he's accused of Arnold Baffin's murder and put on trial. So much for his dreams of a cosmic love affair with Julian Baffin and an earth-shattering burst of artistic productivity.
As Booker suggests, the fourth stage of "Rebirth" plotlines is when things seem bleakest for the hero—that is, when the powers of darkness seem to have defeated the hero once and for all.
Brand Spanking New
According to Booker, the fifth and final stage of "Rebirth" plotlines is when all that birthing finally gets underway. It's the stage when all the magic happens—a time of "miraculous redemption," when the hero is reborn.
In The Black Prince, this stage comes to Bradley Pearson in prison, of all places, because that's where he makes the acquaintance of one P. Loxias—the mysterious figure who inspires him to write "The Black Prince," and who may just be the god of music and poetry in the flesh. Why not?