ARCHETYPAL/MYTH CRITICISM

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
 An archetype means “Original Form.”
 Archetypes can be divided into categories: Conflicts, Characters, Situations,
Themes, Myths, and Symbols.
- Conflict: young vs. Old, Strong vs. Weak, Rich vs. Poor, Dreams vs. Reality,
Men vs. Women
- Characters: Innocent youth, bully, devil, dreamer, scapegoat, outcast,
magician, warrior, dragon slayer, hero, seductress, wanderer
- Situations: Coming of age, being tempted, making a sacrifice, falling from a
high position, dying, being reborn, loss of innocence, quest
- Myths: Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, Garden of Eden, Sampson and
Delilah
- Symbols: water, sea, garden, sun, colours, flower, rain, fire, flooding, animals
 These critics view the genres and individual plot patterns of literature, including
highly sophisticated and realistic works, as recurrences of certain archetypes and
essential mythic formulae. Archetypes, according to Jung, are "primordial
images"; the "psychic residue" of repeated types of experience in the lives of very
ancient ancestors which are inherited in the "collective unconscious" of the
human race and are expressed in myths, religion, dreams, and private fantasies,
as well as in the works of literature (Abrams, p. 10, 112).
 Some common examples of archetypes include water, sun, moon, colors, circles,
the Great Mother, Wise Old Man, etc.
 A form of criticism based largely on the works of C. G. Jung (YOONG)
and Joseph Campbell (and myth itself). Some of the school's major
figures include Robert Graves, Francis Fergusson, Philip Wheelwright, Leslie
Fiedler, Northrop Frye, Maud Bodkin, and G. Wilson Knight.

 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 -
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 literary criticism is a theory that interprets a text by focusing on

recurring myths and archetypes in the narrative and symbols, images character
types in a literary work.

 Archetype denotes recurrent narrative designs, patterns of action, character

types, themes and images which are identifiable in a wide variety of works of
literature, as well as in myths, dreams and even social rituals. Such recurrent
items result from elemental and universal patterns in the human psyche.

 According to Jung, myths are the “culturally elaborated representations of the

contents of the deepest recess of the human psyche: the world of the
archetypes”.  He used the term archetype to refer to the experiences of our
ancestors which get lodged in the ‘collective unconscious’ of the whole race.

 Archetypal criticism, based on Jung’s psychology, searches texts for collective

motifs of the human psyche, which are held to be common to different
historical periods and languages. These archetypes represent primordial images
of the human unconscious which have retained their structures in various
cultures and epochs. It is through primordial images that universal archetypes
are experienced and more importantly, that the unconscious is revealed.
Archetypes such as shadow, fire, snake, paradise-garden, hell, mother-figure etc.
constantly surface in myth and literature as a limited number of basic patterns of
psychic images which lend themselves to a structural model of explanation.
Various cultures, religions, myths and literatures have recourse to primordial
images or archetypes which like a subconscious language express human fears
and hopes.

KEY TERMS
 Anima - feminine aspect - the inner feminine part of the male personality or a
man's image of a woman. Archetype symbolizing the unconscious female
component of the male psyche. Tendencies or qualities often thought of as
"feminine."

 Animus - male aspect - an inner masculine part of the female personality or a

woman's image of a man. Archetype symbolizing the unconscious male
component of the female psyche. Tendencies or qualities often thought of as
"masculine."

 Archetype - (from Makaryk) - "a typical or recurring image, character, narrative

design, theme, or other literary phenomenon that has been in literature from the
beginning and regularly reappears" (508). Note - Frye sees archetypes as
 recurring patterns in literature; in contrast, Jung views archetypes as primal,
ancient images/experience that we have inherited.
- These primordial images reflect basic patterns or universal themes common
to us all which are present in the unconscious. These symbolic images exist
outside space and time. Examples: Shadow, animus, anima, the old wise
person, the innocent child. There also seem to be nature archetypes, like fire,
ocean, river, and mountain.

 Collective Unconscious - "a set of primal memories common to the human

race, existing below each person's conscious mind" (Jung).

 Persona - the image we present to the world. The "mask" or image we present to
the world. Designed to make a particular impression on others, while concealing our true
nature.

 Shadow - darker, sometimes hidden (deliberately or unconsciously), elements of

a person's psyche. The side of our personality which we do not consciously display in
public. May have positive or negative qualities. If it remains unconscious, the shadow is
often projected onto other individuals or groups.

 Individuation - Jung believed that a human being is inwardly whole, but that
most of us have lost touch with important parts of our selves. Through listening to
the messages of our dreams and waking imagination, we can contact and
reintegrate our different parts. The goal of life is individuation, the process of
coming to know, giving expression to, and harmonizing the various components
of the psyche. If we realize our uniqueness, we can undertake a process of
individuation and tap into our true self. Each human being has a specific nature
and calling which is uniquely his or her own, and unless these are fulfilled
through a union of conscious and unconscious, the person can become sick.

 Story - Jung concluded that every person has a story, and when derangement
occurs, it is because the personal story has been denied or rejected. Healing and
integration comes when the person discovers or rediscovers his or her own
personal story.

 Neurosis - Jung had a hunch that what passed for normality often was the very
force which shattered the personality of the patient. That trying to be "normal",
when this violates our inner nature, is itself a form of pathology. In the psychiatric
hospital, he wondered why psychiatrists were not interested in what their patients
had to say.

 Mystery - For Jung life was a great mystery. We know and understand very little
of it. He never hesitated to say, "I don't know." Always admitted when he came to
the end of his understanding.
 The unconscious - A basic tenet: All products of the unconscious are symbolic
and can be taken as guiding messages. What is the dream or fantasy leading the
person toward? The unconscious will live, and will move us, whether we like it or
not.

 Personal unconscious - That aspect of the psyche which does not usually inter
the individual's awareness and which appears in overt behavior or in dreams. It is
the source of new thoughts and creative ideals, and produces meaningful
symbols.

 Collective unconscious - That aspect of the unconscious which manifests

inherited universal themes which run through all human life. Inwardly, the whole
history of the human race, back to the most primitive times, lives on in us.

 Symbol - A name, term, picture which is familiar in daily life, yet has other
connotations besides its conventional and obvious meaning. Implies something
vague and partially unknown or hidden, and is never precisely defined. Dream
symbols carry messages from the unconscious to the rational mind.

 Dreams - Specific expressions of the unconscious which have a definite,

purposeful structure indicating an underlying idea or intention. The general
function of dreams is to restore one's total psychic equilibrium. They tend to play
a complementary or compensatory role in our psychic makeup.

 Complexes - Usually unconscious and repressed emotionally-toned symbolic

material that is incompatible with consciousness. "Stuck-together"
agglomerations of thoughts, feelings, behavior patterns, and somatic forms of
expression. Can cause constant psychological disturbances and symptoms of
neurosis. With intervention, can become conscious and greatly reduced in their
impact.

 Word association test - A research technique Jung used to explore the

complexes in the personal unconscious. Consisted of reading 100 words one at a
time and having the person respond quickly with a word of his or her own. Delays
in responding can indicate a complex.

 Synchronicity - The meaningful coincidence of a psychic and a physical state or

event which have no causal relationship to each other.
  Self - Archetype symbolizing the totality of the personality. It represents the
striving for unity, wholeness, and integration.

 Mandala - The Sanskrit word for circle. For Jung, the mandala was a symbol of
wholeness, completeness, and perfection. Symbolized the self.

 Amplification - To get a larger sense of a dream, a kind of spreading-out of

associations by referring to mythology, art, literature, music. ("Where have we
heard this before."

 Active imagination - A concept embracing a variety of techniques for activating

our imaginable processes in waking life in order to tap into the unconscious
meanings of our symbols.

 Psychological types - People differ in certain basic ways, even though the
instincts which drive us are the same. He distinguished two general attitudes--
introversion and extraversion; and four functions--thinking, feeling, sensing, and
intuiting.

Extravert: Outer-directed, need for sociability, chooses people as a

source of energy, often action-oriented.

Introvert: Inner-directed, need for privacy and space; chooses

solitude to recover energy, often reflective.

Thinking function: Logical, sees cause & effect relations, cool,

distant, frank, questioning.

Feeling function: Creative, warm, intimate, a sense of valuing

positively or negatively. (Note that this is not the same as emotion)

Sensing function: Sensory, oriented toward the body and senses,

detailed, concrete, present.

Intuitive: Sees many possibilities in situations, goes with hunches,

impatient with earthy details, impractical, sometimes not present.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. How does this story resemble other stories in plot, character, setting, or
symbolism?
2. What universal experiences are depicted?
 3. Are patterns suggested? Are seasons used to suggest a pattern or cycle?
4. Does the protagonist undergo any kind of transformation, such as movement
from innocence to experience, that seems archetypal?
5. Are the names significant?
6. Is there a Christ-like figure in the work?
7. Does the writer allude to biblical or mythological literature? For what purpose?
8. What aspects of the work create deep universal responses to it?
9. How does the work reflect the hopes, fears, and expectations of entire cultures
(for example, the ancient Greeks)?
10. How do myths attempt to explain the unexplainable: origin of man? Purpose and
destiny of human beings?
11. What common human concerns are revealed in the story?
12. How do stories from one culture correspond to those of another? (For example,
creation myths, flood myths, etc.)
13. How does the story reflect the experiences of death and rebirth?
14. What archetypal events occur in the story? (Quest? Initiation? Scapegoating?
Descents into the underworld? Ascents into heaven?)
15. What archetypal images occur? (Water, rising sun, setting sun, symbolic colors)
16. What archetypal characters appear in the story? (Mother Earth? Femme Fatal?
Wise old man? Wanderer?)
17. What archetypal settings appear? (Garden? Desert?)
18. How and why are these archetypes embodied in the work?
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REFERENCES
 Dr. Kristi Siegel, Introduction to Modern Literary Theory,
http://www.kristisiegel.com/theory.htm#myth
 Handout on Carl Gustav Jung,
https://web.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/jungsum.html
 Michael Delahoyde, Introduction to Literature: Archetypal Criticism,
https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/archetypal.crit.html
 Dr. S. Devika, Archetypal Criticism,
https://drdevika.wordpress.com/2016/11/02/archetypal-criticism/