Archetypal Criticism

“There are only two or three human stories, and they repeat themselves as fiercely as if
they had never happened before.” Willa Cather (Death Comes for the Archbishop)
A second installment on the discussion of structuralist approaches to literature (genre,
in this case) is Northrop Frye’s theory of myths, a theory of genres that seeks the structural
principles underlying the Western literary tradition. Mythoi (plural of mythos) is a term Frye
uses to refer to the four narrative patterns (comedy, romance, tragedy and irony/satire) that
structure myth.
According to Frye, human beings project their narrative imaginations in two
fundamental ways: in representations of an ideal world and of a real world. The ideal world, is
the world of innocence and fulfilment. Frye calls it the mythos of summer, and associates it
with the genre of romance. It is the world of adventure, of successful quest in which brave
heroes overcome villainous threats to the achievement of their goals. Examples: Sir Thomas
Malory’s Morte d’ Arthur (1470), “Sleeping Beauty”.
In contrast, the real world is the world of experience, uncertainty and failure. Frye
calls it the mythos of winter, and associates it with the double genre of irony/satire. Irony is
the real world seen through a tragic lens, a world in which protagonists are defeated by the
puzzling complexities of life. They may try to be heroic, but they never achieve heroic stature.
They may dream of happiness; but they never attain it. They’re human, like us, and so they
suffer. Examples of ironic texts: Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Analogously, satire is the real world seen through a comic lens, a world of excess. In
the world of satire, human frailty is mocked, sometimes with biting, merciless humour.
Examples: J. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), G. Orwell’s Animal Farm (1946), Mark
Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1856).
The remaining two mythoi involve a movement from one of these worlds to the other.
Tragedy involves a movement from the ideal world to the real world, from innocence to
experience, from the mythos of summer to the mythos of winter, and therefore Frye calls
tragedy the mythos of autumn. In tragedy, a hero with the potential to be superior, like a
romantic hero, falls from his romantic height into the real world, the world of loss and defeat,
from which he can never rise. Examples: Sophocles’s Oedipus the King (5th C B.C.),
Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1601) and Othello (1604), and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818).
In contrast, comedy involves a movement from the real world to the ideal, from
experience to innocence, from the mythos of winter to the mythos of summer, and therefore
Frye calls comedy the mythos of spring. In comedy, a protagonist caught in a web of
threatening, real-world difficulties manages to overcome the circumstances that have thwarted
him and attain happiness. Examples: Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors (1590) and A
Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), J. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813).
Taken together, the four genres form a kind of master plot, or key to understanding
narrative as a whole. And for Frye, that master plot is the structure of the quest, of which each
mythos represents one leg. Thus, for Frye, all narrative is structurally related because it’s all
some version of some part of the quest formula.
Frye calls this method of classification archetypal criticism because it deals with the
recurrence of certain narrative patterns throughout the history of Western literature. The word
archetype refers to any recurring image, character type, plot formula, or pattern of action. The
word archetype is from the Greek arkhetupon, first mould or model, in the meaning of being
the initial version of something later multiplied.
The archetype has been used to describe original or ideal model phenomena and
characters, such as easily recognizable type-roles in drama - like the evil stepmother, the
miser, the brave hero. In the case of drama and literature, such archetypes are usually
traceable back to myth and fable. An archetype = a kind of super-type, or model, different
versions of which recur throughout the history of human production: in myths, literature,
dreams, religions and rituals of social behaviour.
Another method with which Frye seeks the structural principles that govern genres in
the Western literary tradition: theory of modes.
1 - the divine, mythical mode centred on gods, the most elevated subjects/protagonists
of literary communication; 2 – the mode of romance which centres on heroes in extraordinary
circumstances; 3 – the high mimetic mode exhibiting the feats of human heroes endowed with
exceptional powers but functioning in entirely natural circumstances, 4 – the low-mimetic
mode, observing characters whose status is that of perfectly ordinary human beings, “like any
of us”; 5 – the ironic mode in which man is looked down upon from a patronising and often
intensely satirical perspective.
Joseph Campbell The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
- the most persistent theme in all recorded literature – the myth of the hero.
- all stories can be understood in terms of the hero myth; the “monomyth”.
- accounts for the universal power of such stories.
Chapter IV, “The Keys”, of The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
The hero’s journey: The hero is introduced in his ORDINARY WORLD where he
receives the CALL TO ADVENTURE. He is RELUCTANT at first to CROSS THE FIRST
THRESHOLD (the hero balks at the threshold of adventure: s/he is facing the greatest of all
fears – fear of the unknown) where he eventually encounters TESTS, ALLIES and
ENEMIES. He reaches the INNERMOST CAVE where he endures the SUPREME
ORDEAL. He SEIZES THE SWORD or the treasure and is pursued on the ROAD BACK to
his world. He is RESURRECTED and transformed by his experience. He RETURNS to his
ordinary world with a treasure, boon, or ELIXIR to benefit his world (unless he comes back
with the elixir or some boon to mankind, he’s doomed to repeat the adventure until he does).
Campbell’s thinking = Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, who wrote in The Collective
Unconscious and its Archetypes of the “archetypes: -- constantly repeating characters who
occur in the dreams of all people and the myths of all cultures. He suggested that they are
coming from a deeper source, in the “collective unconscious” of the human race.
At first: the “unconscious” was limited to denoting the state of repressed or forgotten
contents. With Freud, it is nothing but the gathering place of forgotten and repressed contents.
A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal: the
personal unconscious. But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does
not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn: the
collective unconscious. “Collective” - we are dealing with archaic or primordial types, that is,
with universal images that have existed since the remotest times.
Archetypes constitute the structure of the collective unconscious - they are psychic
innate dispositions to experience and represent basic human behavior and situations.
Archetypes manifest themselves through archetypal images in dreams and visions,
therefore a great deal of Jungian interest in psyche focuses on dreams and symbols.
Carl Gustav Jung described several archetypes that are repeating patterns of thought
and action that re-appear time and again across people, countries and continents. He listed
four main forms of archetypes:
The Shadow
- reflects deeper elements of our psyche, where 'latent dispositions' which are
common to us all arise. It is, by its name, dark, unknown and potentially troubling.
The Anima and Animus
The second most prevalent pattern is that of the Anima (female) / Animus (male), or,
more simply, the Soul, and is the route to communication with the collective unconscious.
The anima/animus represents our true self, as opposed to the masks we wear every day and is
the source of our creativity.
The Self
For Jung, the self is not just 'me' but God. It is the spirit that connects and is part of
the universe. It is the coherent whole that unifies both consciousness and unconsciousness.
Other archetypes
- Family archetypes: The father: Stern, powerful, controlling; The mother: Feeding,
nurturing, soothing; The child: Birth, beginnings, salvation
- Story archetypes: The hero: Rescuer, champion; The maiden: Purity, desire; The
wise old man: Knowledge, guidance; The magician: Mysterious, powerful; The earth mother:
Nature; The witch or sorceress: Dangerous; The trickster: Deceiving, hidden
- Animal archetypes: The faithful dog: Unquestioning loyalty; The enduring horse:
Never giving up; The devious cat: Self-serving
For more on identifying myths: James Frazer’s The Golden Bough; Jung, C.G. (1964)
Man and His Symbols.