One story, twenty-two stages
The Major Arcana can be read as a sequence: The Fool sets out at 0 and arrives at The World at 21. This framing is modern (it dates to Eden Gray in the 1960s, not to the fifteenth century) but it is a genuinely good teaching device, because a story is far easier to hold than a list.
The three acts
Cards 0 to 7: the world of others. The Fool meets the archetypes that shape a person from outside. The Magician and High Priestess are the two ways of knowing. The Empress and Emperor are mother and father, growth and structure. The Hierophant is inherited tradition. The Lovers is the first real choice. The Chariot is the first act of independent will.
Cards 8 to 14: the world within. Strength is power mastered internally. The Hermit withdraws to find his own light. The Wheel introduces forces beyond control. Justice demands accountability. The Hanged Man surrenders. Death ends what must end. Temperance rebuilds in proportion.
Cards 15 to 21: the world beyond. The Devil shows what binds. The Tower destroys what was false. The Star restores hope. The Moon confuses. The Sun clarifies. Judgement calls. The World completes, and The Fool, being zero, begins again.
How to use this
When a major appears in a reading, ask where it sits in the sequence. A card from the first act suggests something being learned from outside. A card from the third suggests something being resolved at depth.
Where the framing breaks
Do not force it. Tarot's trump order was not designed as a narrative and different historical decks ordered the trumps differently. The Strength/Justice swap is only the best-known example. The journey is a mnemonic that happens to be illuminating, not a hidden structure you are recovering.
