ArchetypesHonors English 10

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”

–James Baldwin

Why Read World Literature?

Archetype is a Greek word meaning “original pattern, or model.”

In literature and art an archetype is a character, event, story or image that recurs in different works, cultures and periods of time.

An archetype is always symbolic, but a symbol is NOT always an archetype

What Is an Archetype?

prototype

original pattern

model

recurrent type

Think of stories or image patterns that have been repeated in movies, books,

or even commercials…

Common Archetypes

Characters

The Hero is a protagonist whose life is a series of adventures.

Characterized by courage, strength, and honor, the hero will endure hardship, even risk his life for the good of all.

sets the standard for leadership in a society

often leaves the familiar to enter an unfamiliar and challenging world

The Hero

The Mentor is an older, wiser teacher to the initiates.

He often serves as a father or mother figure.

He gives the hero gifts (weapons, food, magic, information), serves as a role model or as hero’s conscience.

The Mentor

* Damsel in Distress-A vulnerable woman who needs to be rescued by the hero. She is often used as a trap to ensnare the unsuspecting hero.

* The Temptress or Black Goddess-Characterized by sensuous beauty, this woman is one to whom

the protagonist is physically attracted and who ultimately brings about his downfall. May appear as a witch or vampire

* Star-Crossed Lovers-Two characters engaged in a love affair fated to end tragically for

one or both due to the disapproval of society, friends, family, or some tragic situation.

The Earth mother

The Woman Figure

* The OutcastA character banished from a social group for some real or imagined crime against his fellow man, usually destined to wander from place to place.

* The ScapegoatAn animal, or more usually a human, whose death in a public ceremony expiates some taint or sin of a community. They are often more powerful in death than in life.

* The Faithful Companion

* The Christ-like figure (Savior)

More Characters…

* The Devil Figure-This character is evil incarnate (embodied).

* The Evil Figure with Ultimately Good Heart-A devil figure with the potential to be good. This person is usually saved by the love of the hero.

*The Trickster

*The Mad Scientist

More Characters…

Themes/ Situations

“All stories and poems…[that] use the archetype of change, or metamorphosis . . .show that in the imagination people themselves can ‘become’ something else... In ‘reality’ we are subject to the changes of time, but we can imagine the changes that are not subject to the changes of time” (Jewkes 229).

Change

That time when innocence somehow fades away and is replaced by experience or knowledge of the world…it is a story or an event that is a symbol of a universal human experience. When such imaginative stories or events are so common as to be used over and over by many cultures, they are called archetypes” (Jewkes 142).

The “fall”

Loss of Innocence

good vs. evil The quest The initiation misfit in society interpretation of dreams dead returning to life or advising the living

More Archetypal Themes/ Situations…

* Death/rebirth* Chaos* Creation* Flood/ punishment* Nature v. mechanical world

Symbols

Remember-- An archetype is

always symbolic, but a symbol is NOT

always an archetype!

Spring, the time of planting and growth is related in the imagination to youth, hope, courtship and love, rebirth

Summer, a time of ripening, is related to the maturing of relations, to comradeship and community, to fertility and passion, life

Fall, the time of harvest, is related to reflection and declining vigor, death/dying

Winter, when the earth seems sterile, is related to death and emptiness, without life/death

Seasons

* Water: birth-death-resurrection; source of life; purification and redemption; fertility and growth, beginning and end of all, eternity, baptism, time

Flood- drowning and dissolving death (dangerous energy when it overflows)

Sea/ocean: the mother of all life; spiritual mystery; death and/or rebirth; timelessness and eternity.

Rivers: death and rebirth; the flowing of time into eternity; transitional phases of the life cycle

Water

Sun (fire and sky are closely related)- creative energy; thinking, enlightenment, wisdom, spiritual vision.

Rising sun- birth, creation, enlightenment.

Setting sun- death.

Sun

Red: blood, sacrifice, passion, disorder, violence, love, hell, danger

Green: growth, hope, fertility

Blue: highly positive; secure; tranquil; spiritual purity, reflection [contemporary- truth, fidelity]

Black: darkness, mystery, the unknown, death, wisdom, evil, mourning, lack of consciousness

White: light, purity, innocence, timelessness, truth, transformation (whitening ashes); [negative: death, terror, supernatural]

Yellow: enlightenment, wisdom, intuition [contemporary- cowardice]

Colors

3 - light, spiritual awareness, unity (the Holy Trinity); male principle

4 - associated with the circle, life cycle, four seasons; female principle, earth, nature, elements

7 - the most potent of all symbolic numbers signifying the union of three and four, the completion of a cycle, perfect order, perfect number; religious symbol

Numbers

Garden: paradise (Eden), innocence, unspoiled beauty, fertility

Tree: denotes life of the cosmos; growth; proliferation; symbol of immortality; phallic symbol

Desert: spiritual emptiness; death; hopelessness

Serpent (snake, worm): symbol of energy and pure force; evil, corruption, sensuality, destruction and wisdom

Light vs. Darkness

Water vs. Desert

Innate wisdom vs. Educated stupidity

More Symbolic Archetypes…

According to Joseph Campbell, a scholar of comparative mythology, the following functions exist: to explain how the world and human life came into being

and evolved. to construct our social identity and to govern our behavior. to construct our personal identity.

Why Study Archetypes?

Studying archetypes: allows us to better understand allusions in artistic as well as

popular culture. provides us with another way to critique literary works and

contemporary culture.

Look for patterns, images, motifs that are common to literature

Research common archetypes in literature

While reading- keep notes of images, patterns, motifs draw conclusions about the representation of

archetypes in the work

How to Use Archetypal Criticism