Water water everywhere, if only they’d just think…

How many times have you seen a character having an emotional birth or rebirth in water in a film? Mr Bourne of The Bourne Identity is found in the sea in the first of the trilogy, and is reborn in it in the third. I’ve lost count of the times that characters are depicted cleansed and renewed as they are immersed in the ocean. And it can happen inland too: Jean de Florette is all about putting the water on, its sequel Manon des Sources is all about cutting it off again.

It’s not always for the good: The Descent played with that nicely, when one of the women was reborn as a goddess of vengeance from a pool of blood. Jaws was all about something nasty that lurked beneath the surface, and caused good citizens and loving families to flee for the hills: only the truly troubled were drawn to take on the creature dwelling in the depths. But for the most part, as soon as a character gets near a body of water, you know you’re headed for some kind of baptism or birthing metaphor.

All very well, but how about we give other elements a look in? A treatment that I’ve developed quite a way features a character who is transformed by contact with fire. And then there’s earth and air, assuming we restrict ourselves to the four elements that were acknowledged when my secondary school chemistry teacher did his training.

The thing being, the elements are symbolic. Water is all about the emotions, swirling within and between us. Fire can consume everything (or at least everything flammable) with its energy. Air is connected with the intellect, lofty thoughts and words in the wind. Earth is to do with resolute practicality, the concrete.

That particular notation is Western by the way: if you explore Chinese thinking, you’ll come across a different grouping, with five elements: Water, Fire, Earth, Metal and Wood. And some symbol systems include a fifth element, sometimes called Void or Spirit, each with their own associations and meanings.

Knowing this, what difference can it make to your writing? Well, why not align particular characters to different elements? Medieval thought had it that peoples’ characters were essentially melancholic (earth), sanguine (fire), choleric (air) or phlegmatic (water). Whole structures were drawn up which indicated how someone’s health, thinking, and appearance would be affected by their guiding element. I’m not saying for a moment that these are true, but if you’re looking for a useful way of distinguishing characters, or strands in a story, then an elemental typology can be of considerable use.

Or, you can get a bit more up to date, and pursue a typology drawn from, say the Myers Briggs personality inventory…itself drawn from the work of Jung – and in turn heavily influenced by classical thinking about the elements. Which brings us back to square one. As you might expect. These are deep waters we’re treading in after all, and it’s possible to look back and see the footprints of many others on this particular beach, as we watch the clouds scud overhead and the sun blaze in the sky…