Feb 11 2008
Notes on archetypal criticism
Archetypal criticism argues that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works, that a text’s meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths. Archetypes are the unknowable basic forms personified or concretized in recurring images, symbols, or patterns which may include motifs such as the quest or the heavenly ascent, recognizable character types such as the trickster or the hero, symbols such as the apple or snake, or images such as crucifixion (as in King Kong, or Bride of Frankenstein)–all laden with meaning already when employed in a particular work. Archetypal criticism gets its impetus from psychologist Carl Jung, who postulated that humankind has a “collective unconscious,” a kind of universal psyche, which is manifested in dreams and myths and which harbors themes and images that we all inherit. Literature, therefore, imitates not the world but rather the “total dream of humankind.” Jung called mythology “the textbook of the archetypes” (qtd. in Walker 17). Archetypal images and story patterns encourage readers (and viewers of films and advertisements) to participate ritualistically in basic beliefs, fears, and anxieties of their age. These archetypal features not only constitute the intelligibility of the text but also tap into a level of desires and anxieties of humankind.Archetypal critics find New Criticism too atomistic in ignoring intertextual elements and in approaching the text as if it existed in a vacuum. After all, we recognize story patterns and symbolic associations at least from other texts we have read, if not innately; we know how to form assumptions and expectations from encounters with black hats, springtime settings, evil stepmothers, and so forth. So surely meaning cannot exist solely on the page of a work, nor can that work be treated as an independent entity.http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/archetypal.crit.html
Character ArchetypesThree sources were compiled for these tables: www.unm.edu/~abqteach/fairytales/02-03-08.htm, www.fccps.k12.va.us/gm/faculty/archcrit.htm, and the source below.
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The Hero |
The protagonist on a literal or figurative journey often from childhood to adulthood, innocence to experience. |
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Death |
The antagonist or character blocking the hero’s path. |
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Shadow |
The hero’s inner evil, the dark side of his psyche that makes success difficult or impossible unless accepted. |
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Mother and Father |
Yup, the parental units are near and dear to our hearts and especially our minds because of their nurturing or lack thereof. |
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The Wise Old Man |
A mentor, a teacher, a counselor |
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The Friendly Beast |
This shows that nature is pro-hero. |
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The Devil |
The bad, bad person who tempts the hero |
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The Scapegoat |
A person (or animal) whose death relieves others of a sin or wrong |
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The Outcast |
A character banished because of his wrong doing; often a wanderer |
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The Earth Mother |
A female character, naturally, who offers spiritual and emotional comfort |
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The Temptress or Terrible Mother |
A female who tempts the hero and tries to bring about his end. Synonyms include femme fatale, witch, sorceress, and siren because these suggest the magical powers of a seductive woman. |
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The Platonic or Perfect Woman |
The hero has primarily an intellectual love for this woman who inspires his best. |
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The Unfaithful Wife |
Cheater, cheater. |
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The Damsel in Distress |
Help me! Help me, please! |
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Star-crossed Lovers |
Lovers fated to suffer a tragic end. |
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The Trickster |
This character has a negative nature, a character that might be a fraud, a prankster, a con man, a joker, etc. However, they might be helpful to the hero at some point. |
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And Many More… |
This list is by no means an exhaustive one. |
Plot Patterns/Elements Archetypes
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The Quest |
The search for someone or something that will restore rightness to the hero’s world that involves hardships, monsters, or riddles (literal or figurative in nature like all of these) |
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The Task |
The hero must perform a deed beyond the norm. |
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The Initiation or Transformation |
TYourhe hero undergoes a hazing to pass from ignorance and immaturity to social and spiritual adulthood. It usually occurs in three stage: separation, transformation, and return and thusly may include the fall and death/rebirth |
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The Journey |
In search of information, the hero passes into a real or figurative hell from which he may emerge after he discovers the blackest truths of himself |
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The Fall |
The hero falls to a lower level from a comparative heaven after a loss of innocence and happiness because of a transgression, a wrong. |
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Death and Rebirth |
Usually a metaphorical death, a spiritual or emotional death and reviving of the spirit and emotions |
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Nature vs. the Mechanical World |
Nature good, machines bad. |
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The Unhealable Wound |
A physical or psychological wound that indicates a loss of innocence |
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The Ritual |
Weddings, baptisms, coronations—real or figurative—that mark a rite of passage to another state or level |
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The Magic Weapon |
The Hero’s weapon that no one else can use to its full potential if at all. |
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Garden |
Paradise, innocence, unspoiled beauty, fertility |
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Tree |
Life of the cosmos, immortality |
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Desert |
Spiritual aridity, death, nihilism, hopelessness |
Archetypal Images
The only source for this table of archetypes is A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature (Guerin 161-166).
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Water |
Water has archetypal possibilities in every form it takes. It can represent purification, redemption, birth-death-resurrection, sadness, etc. |
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The Sea |
The mother of all life, spiritual mystery and infinity, death and rebirth, timelessness, eternity, and often the unconscious mind |
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Rivers |
Death/rebirth, the flowing of time, the life cycle, gods |
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Sun |
Creative energy, natural law, the conscious mind, the father principle; the rising sun is birth, creation, and enlightenment while the setting sun is death. |
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Colors |
Red: blood, sacrifice, violent passion: disorder |
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Circle |
A mandala, figure that represents the desire for spiritual unity and integration |
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The Egg |
The mystery of life |
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Yang-yin |
That funky Chinese symbol for a union of opposites: male-female, light-dark, activity-passivity, conscious-unconscious |
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Serpent |
Symbol of energy, pure force, evil, corruption, sensuality, destruction, mystery, wisdom, the unconscious |
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Numbers |
Three: light, spiritual awareness, and unity, the male principle |
Four archetypal narrative patterns, which survive, according to Frye, “because they are fundamental structures of the human imagination, perennially useful ways of perceiving the world we experience.”
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Romance |
A world where goals are achieved and dreams fulfilled. |
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Irony |
Goals are thwarted and nightmares become reality |
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Tragedy |
Moving from a desirable state to an undesirable one |
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Comedy |
From an undesirable state to a desirable one |
http://www.lebanon.k12.mo.us/lhs/departments/langarts/roden/literature/Archetypes%20and%20Archetypal%20Criticism.htm
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