Mythological and Archetypal Approaches

Mythological Approach

Definitions
It seeks out those mysterious elements that inform certain literary works and that elicit, with almost uncanny force, dramatic and universal human reactions. The myth critic wishes to discover how certain works of literature, usually those that have become, or promise to become, "classics," image a kind of reality to which readers give perennial response--while other works, seemingly as well constructed, and even some forms of reality, leave them cold.
the myth critic studiesthe so-called archetypes or archetypal patterns that the writer has drawn forward along the tensed structural wires of his or her masterpieces and that vibrate in such a way that a sympathetic resonance is set off deep within the reader.

Misconceptions

Myths are merely primitive fictions, illusions, or opinions based upon false reasoning. Actually, mythology encompasses more than grade school stories about the Greek and Roman deities or clever fables invented for the amusement of children

Archetypal Examples

   1. Images

Water: the mystery of creation, birth, death, resurrection (River: death and rebirth= baptism) (sea: mother of all life)

 

Sun: creative energy; law in nature; consciousness and father principle 

Colors:

§  Red (blood, sacrifice, violent passion: disorder)

§  Green (growth, hope, fertility)

§  Blue (associated with truth, religious feeling, security, spiritual purity)

§  Black (chaos, mystery, the unknown, death,  primal wisdom; the unconscious; evil; melancholy)

§  White (light, purity, innocence, and timelessness; death, terror, supernatural)

Circle: wholeness, unity.

§  Mandala (the desire for spiritual unity and psychic integration)

§  Egg (the mystery of life and the forces of generation)

§  Yang-yin (Chinese symbol, representing the union of the opposite forces of the yang (masculine principle, light, activity, the conscious mind) and the yin (female principle, darkness, passivity, the unconscious)

Serpent: symbol of energy and pure force: evil, corruption, sensuality; destruction; mystery; wisdom.

Numbers

§  Three (light; spiritual awareness and unity)

§  Four (associated with the circle, life cycle, four seasons; female principle, earth, nature; four elements: earth, air, fire, water)

§  Five (integration, four cardinal points and the center)

§  Seven (the most potent of all symbolic numbers--signifying the union of three and four, the completion of a cycle, perfect order)

Archetypal woman

§  The Good Mother (associated with the life principle, birth, warmth, nourishment, protection, fertility, growth, abundance)

§  The Terrible Mother (the witch, sorceress, siren, whore, femme fatale--associated with sensuality, sexual orgies, fear, danger, darkness, dismemberment)

§  The Soul Mate (the Sophia figure, Holy Mother, the princess or "beautiful lady")

The Demon Lover

     The Devil, Satan, Dracula

The Wise Old Man

      Representing "knowledge, reflectio, insight, wisdom, cleverness.

The Trickster

     The opposite of the wise old man because of his close affinity with the shadow archetype

Garden

 Paradise; innocence; unspoiled beauty (especially feminine); fertility.

Tree
Life of the cosmos: its consistence, growth, proliferation, generative and regenerative processes.

        
Desert
Spiritual aridity; death; nihilism, hopelessness.

           
Mountain
Aspiration and inspiration; mediation and spiritual elevation.

  
  2.   Archetypal Motifs and Patterns

Creation: virtually every mythology is built on some account of how the cosmos, nature, and humankind were brought into existence by some supernatural Being or beings.

Immortality: generally taking one of two basic narrative forms:

Escape from time: "return to paradise,"

Mystical submersion into cyclical time

Hero Archetypes

        
     The quest: the hero (savior, deliverer)

     Initiation: the hero undergoes a series of excruciating ordeals in passing from ignorance and immaturity to social and spiritual adulthood

    The sacrificial scapegoat

   3. Archetypes as Genres

Indicates the correspondent genres for the four seasons as follows:

• The mythos of spring: comedy
• The mythos of summer: romance
• The mythos of fall: tragedy
• The mythos of winter: irony

Jungian Psychology & its Archetypal Insights.

The great psychologist-philosopher and onetime student of Freud.

Jung´s primary contribution to myth criticism is his theory of racial memory and archetypes. Jung believed, that “Mind is not born as a tabula rasa (a clean slate)”. Like the body, it has pre- established individual definiteness; namely, forms of behavior. They become manifest in the ever recurring patterns of psychic functioning”. Therefore what Jung called “myth forming” structural elements are ever present in the unconscious psyche; he refers to the manifestations of the elements as “motifs”, “primordial images”, or “archetypes”.

 

Archetypes: are not inherited ideas or patterns of thought, but rather that they are predispositions to respond in similar ways to certain stimuli. 

      He theorized that myths so not derive from external factor such as the seasonal or solar cycle but are, in truth, the projections of innate psychic phenomena. Myths are the means by which archetypes, essentially unconscious forms, become manifest and articulate to the conscious mind. Jung indicated further that archetypes reveal themselves in the dreams of individuals, so that we might say that dreams are “personalized myths” and myths are “depersonalized dreams”.

            Jung detected an intimate relationship between dreams, myths and art in that all three serve as media through which archetypes become accessible to consciousness. The great artist, is a person who possesses “primordial vision”, a special sensitivity to archetypal patterns and a gift for speaking in primordial images that enable him or her to transmit experiences of the “inner world” through art.

.   Some Special Archetypes: Shadow, Persona, & Anima.

Jung´s theory of individuation as related to those archetypes designated as the shadow, the persona, and the anima. Individuation is a psychological growing up, the process of discovering those aspects of one´s self that make one an individual different from other members of the species. It is essentially a process of recognition that is, as one matures, the individual must consciously recognize the various aspects, unfavorable as well as favorable, of one´s total self.

The shadow, the persona, and the anima are structural components of the psyche that human beings have inherited, just as the chicken has inherited his built in response to the hawk. In melodrama, such as the traditional television or film western or cop story, the persona, the anima, and the shadow are projected, respectively, in the characters of the hero, the heroine, and the villain.

·      The Shadow, is the darker side of our unconscious self, the inferior and less pleasing aspects of the personality, which we wish to suppress. The most common variant of this archetype, when projected, is the Devil, who, in Jung´s words, represents the “dangerous aspect of the unrecognized dark half of the personality”.

·  The Anima, is perhaps the most complex of Jung´s archetypes. It is the “soul image”, the spirit of a man´s élan vital, his life force of vital energy. In the sense of “soul”, says Jung, anima is the “living thing in man that which lives of itself and causes life…. Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness”. Jung gives the anima a feminine designation in the male psyche, pointing out that “the anima image is usually projected upon women”. Following his theory, we might say that any female figure who is invested with unusual significance or power is likely to be a symbol of anima.

The Persona, is the obverse of the anima in that it mediates between our ego and the external world. Speaking metaphorically, let us say that the ego is a coin. The image on one side is the anima; on the other side, the persona. The persona is the actor´s mask that we show to the world it is our social personality that is sometimes quite different from our true self. The individual must have a flexible, viable persona that can be brought into harmonious relationship with the other components of his or her psychic makeup. He states, furthermore, that a persona that is too artificial or rigid results in such symptoms of neurotic disturbance as irritability and melancholy.

Limitations of Myth Criticism

vMyth critics have posited that certain archetypical and mythic patterns are “universal,” some contemporary theorists disagree with this idea, arguing particularly that the work of Jung is based upon culturally specific, Western mythology.

vThe reader must take care that enthusiasm for a new-found interpretive key does not tempt him or her to discard other valuable critical instruments or to try to open all literary doors with this single key.

Links

Video What is an Archetype?
Mythic Approach Mythic Approach

Taken from:

`A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 3d ed. ed., Wilfred L. Guerin [et al.] New York: Oxford University Press, 1992

Practice

Let's practice some archetypes meaning.

MULAN

MERLIN

THE LION KING

Doña Sebastiana

Practice

1. What are the basic archetypical patterns deoicted in the text?
2. How are the concepts of time and life cycle and their mythic potencia depictected withing the work?
3. What is Initiation? Mention an example from the text.
4. How are the mythic journey and its stages developed in the text?
5. Following the mythic figures such as the femme fatle, the Soul Mate, and the Good Mother, how is the female image presented in the literary text?
6. What is a myth?

Doña Sebastiana

(Anonymous)

    Once there was a poor man who earned his living cutting wood in the common land of the land grant and selling it in the village. When he sold his wood his family ate well, when he couldn’t sell it his family went hungry. He lived that way for a long time, but one day he was tempted by hunger and he decided to swipe one of his wife’s setting hens.

   He waited until everyone was asleep and then stole into the chicken coop, took a chicken and killed it. Then he stealthily made his way into the mountains where he planned to indulge himself. He made a big fire and put the chicken on a spit roast. He was flavoring the chicken with a few spices and enjoying the dripping when he heard someone approach is camp.

  God help me! He thought. Even here I can’t be left alone to enjoy myself! Well, whoever it is, I’m not going to invite them to eat!

 “How do you do, my friend”, said the stranger as he approached the camp. The stranger’s noble stature made the woodcutter cautious.

“Buenas noches” the woodcutter responded. “Who are you?”

I am the Lord, the stranger answer. Will you invite me to eat with you? The woodcutter looked at the small chicken and thought awhile. “No”, he finally said, “I don’t think I´ll invite you to share my meal, and I´ll tell you why. I think you neglect the poor. You give everything to the rich and so little to the poor. You don’t treat us equally.”

And so the woodcutter kept the chicken for himself, and the Lord went away saddened. The woodcutter was satisfied, but shorty he heard another person approaching.

“Good evening, my friend”, said the woman as she drew near.

Buenas noches, señora, the woodcutter replied. And who might you be?

I am the Virgin Mary, the woman answered. Will you share your food with me?

The woodcutter scratched his beard, looked again at the small chicken and finally said, “No, I am not going to share my food with you, and I´ll tell you why. I think your Son neglects the poor.”

    Since you are the other of God, you should intercede for us so He would make us equal. Either we should all be rich, or we should all be poor. The way it is now, he makes some very rich and some very poor, and unfortunately I am one of the poor ones. For that reason I am not going to share my food with you.

So the Virgin Mary left, but it wasn’t long before the woodcutter´s fire.

How goes it, my friend? Doña Sebastiana asked.

“Buenas noches”, the woodcutter answered, trembling at the sight of the old hag in front of him. “Who are you?” he asked.

I am death, Doña Sebastiana answered as she slowly got down from her cart. “Will you share your meal with me?”

I never realized death was so thin¡ the woodcutter said as he looked at the skeleton in front of him. Of course you are welcome to share my food, and I´ll tell you why. You do things very well. You don’t play favorites with the wealthy because of their money, not the beautiful because of their beauty, nor do you play favorites with the ugly or the old or the young. No you treat us all equally. Sit down and share my meal.

After they had finished eating the roasted chicken Doña Sebastiana, was very pleased, so she told the woodcutter to ask for any favor he wished and it would be granted.

Señora, the woodcutter said in his most humble voice, “I can’t ask for a favor. If you wish to grant me one, then grant me what you will.”

Very well, Death answered, “I am going to grant you the power to be healer, a curandero. You shall be able to cure all kind of sickness. However, I leave you with one commandment: when you are asked to cure a sick person and you go to that patient’s bed and see me standing at the head of the bed, don’t cure that person regardless of what his relatives will pay or promise you. I warn you if I am there, don’t cure that person! That person has no remedy but to die. He has been called by God.”

“But if you see me at the patient’s feet, then go ahead and cure him. Use water or earth or curing powders, and the patient will get well. But remember, if you see me at the head of the bed, don’t dare to attempt a cure, no matter what you are promised!”

So the curandero practiced his craft for many years and he cured many people and became famous for his powers. But one day the richest man in the region became ill and offered the curandero a fortune for a cure, and so the healer broke the commandment of Doña Sebastiana.

When the curandero arrived at the rich man´s home he saw Doña Sebastiana seated at the head of the bed where the sick man lay. The curandero immediately grabbed her and wrestled her back and forth until she was so dizzy that he was able to move her to the foot of the bed. In that way death was overpowered, and the curandero then cured the rich man.

But when the curandero was returning home death met him on the road and reminded him that he had broken the one commandment he had promised not to break when she had given him the power to cure sickness.

I warned you, “never to cure a sick person if I was at the head of his bed”, Doña Sebastiana said angrily. “Now you must come with me.”

She took the curandero to a dark room and showed him two candles. One candle had burned low and was flickering as if ready to go out, the other was a tall candle burning brightly.

“You have make a grave mistake”, death told the curandero. “Once you were like the tall and sick man was like the short candle. But now you are the small candle and the man you cued is the tall one.”

At the moment the flame of the short candle went out, and the curandero´s soul was added to Doña Sebastiana´s cart as it slowly made its way into eternity.

More Info:
Lady Sebastiana

Video:
Doña Sebastiana El Cuento

Presentation