Archetypal characters Essays

  • Archetypal Characters and Symbols in The Phantom of the Opera

    1724 Words  | 4 Pages

    Archetypal Characters and Symbols in The Phantom of the Opera The story of The Phantom of the Opera appeals to many types of personalities and people of all ages because of its archetypal characters and patterns.  Carl Jung theorized that we are born with innate tendencies to perceive things a certain way:  "a kind of readiness to reproduce over and over again the same or similar mythical ideas . . ."1.  These repeated ideas are archetypes.  The basic legend of The Phantom takes place in 19th

  • Archetypal Characters In Beowulf

    1134 Words  | 3 Pages

    expresses the true importance of heroes and outcasts within any given myth. A hero is a character who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities; while an outcast is a character who is separated from society due to a physical impairment or an emotional or physiological realization that makes him/her different. These characters are also known as archetypal characters. Some of these characters include Beowulf, Wiglaf, Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon--all of which

  • Archetypal Characters In Lord Of The Flies

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    An archetypal story is one which follows the archetypal theory, having hidden symbols and roles which must be played, for example, a scapegoat, an outcast and a villain. In the novel The Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, the main characters can have more than one of these roles, for example Piggy who is the sage as well as the scapegoat. The main characters each have at least one role. The main roles which are; the scapegoat, sage, outcast, loner, villain, temptress and hero are all

  • How Is Pan's Labyrinth An Archetypal Character

    933 Words  | 2 Pages

    Let’s start with the main character, Ofelia. Ofelia is portrayed as a very innocent and emotional character; A girl who believes in fantasies, who is also a reliable person as she takes care of her pregnant mother and later in the film, her infant brother. She represents the archetypal character called “The innocent.” The innocent is often depicted as a free spirit. A character that is full of faith and optimism. However, Ofelia represents another archetypal character. She also represents “the chosen

  • Archetypal Characters

    642 Words  | 2 Pages

    These archetypes in this piece of literature fabricate the characters in the plot to a great extent and unravel an amazing tale of love and tragedy that appeal to twenty-century Americans. This stunning literary piece, known as Romeo and Juliet, is written by the great mind of Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses numerous conventional archetypes such as, star-crossed lovers, tragic hero, and mentor to create archetypal characters, therefore making Romeo and Juliet important to twenty-first

  • Archetypal Characters In Frankenstein

    636 Words  | 2 Pages

    his life. The creatures archetypal horror character is described

  • A Tale Of Two Cities

    2254 Words  | 5 Pages

    Archetypal Characters: Characters are presented from the start of the novel as good or evil. There are no characters that the reader see as good and turn out to be evil at the end or vica versa. Their goodness or evilness is clearly shown from the beginning. 	   A Tale of Two Cities takes place in England and France, during the time of the French Revolution. A Tale of Two Cities is a classic novel, where Charles Dickens presents to the reader archetypal main characters. From the beginning

  • A Comparison Of The Catcher In The Rye And The Adventures Of Huck Finn

    1360 Words  | 3 Pages

    The forthcoming of American literature proposes two distinct Realistic novels portraying characters which are tested with a plethora of adventures. In this essay, two great American novels are compared: The Adventures of Huck Finn by Mark Twain and The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. The Adventures of Huck Finn is a novel based on the adventures of a boy named Huck Finn, who along with a slave, Jim, make their way along the Mississippi River during the Nineteenth Century. The Catcher

  • Cold Mountain: Frasiers Archetypal Journey

    1230 Words  | 3 Pages

    eventually finds the willpower to hoist himself out of the grave to once again take up the road. Finally, he gets to the house and restores order to his metaphysical kingdom, coming to terms with many of his thoughts. Ada goes through a more mental archetypal journey. She has to find manageable independence, an aspect of development of which she had always been deprived. Her low point was at the beginning of the book when she realized that she no longer had the money that once had enabled a work-free

  • Symbols and Subversion in 13 Happiness Street

    2163 Words  | 5 Pages

    couched in the language of metaphors and symbols. It is here that the author constructs a narrative using conventional symbols which play upon and also against the reader's expectations. Before we examine the means by which the author subverts the archetypal notions of symbols, it is first imperative to understand how these symbols stand in relation to the narrative and the reader. Symbols find their place within a narrative through a conscious desire of the author to create a pattern of meaning

  • A Journey to Adulthood

    2150 Words  | 5 Pages

    Journey To Adulthood In A Wizard of Earthsea an archetypal pattern of death and rebirth highlights Ged’s journey from adolescence to adulthood. In “Myth and Archetypal Criticism” we read, “Images of death and rebirth […] usually suggest some kind of emotional, moral, or spiritual rebirth”(Young 70). We see one or more of these aspects in each of Ged’s rebirths, especially in his last rebirth in this book. Ged’s coming of age process in this novel is also illuminated by the use of binary oppositions

  • Archetypes In The Lion King

    544 Words  | 2 Pages

    death & rebirth of the hero, and the symbolism and associations of water vs. desert. These archetypes can be noticed easily and help things come together. The Lion King has a very evident hero, Simba. Simba meets many of the characteristics of an archetypal hero. Among these is the way that he is taken away from his home, the Pridelands, and grows up with Timon and Pumbaa. After Simba arrives with Timon and Pumbaa, we see very little of his life until he is fully grown. When the film returns to Simba

  • Essay on Picture of Dorian Gray: Discovering Wilde

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    Discovering Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray can be defined as a symbolic representation of a dialectic between two aspects of Wilde's personality. Dorian is an archetypal image by which both aspects are fascinated. This suggests that his behaviour symbolizes Wilde's unconscious (i.e. unacknowledged) attitudes. Dorian is characterized by his evasiveness and his obsession with objets d'art. For example, when Basil comes to console him about Sibyl's death, he is unwilling

  • Anatomy of Criticism

    1252 Words  | 3 Pages

    give literature coherence and structure are derived from the myths of ancient Greece and the archetypal imagery found in the Bible. In his Third Essay, Frye suggests that all literature is based on displacements of these myths. In postulating this, however, Frye denies the individual identity of a work of literature: it becomes merely another abstraction of an axial symbol, an embellished copy of an archetypal myth. This tenet essentially annexes the identity of the writer as well, for every work of

  • The Reagen and Bush Presidencies

    3033 Words  | 7 Pages

    given that Bush was a dutiful Vice President to Reagan for eight years and sought on gaining office only to take over where he left off. Bush did not set out to ring the changes between Reagan and himself; quite the opposite. He purported to be the archetypal guardian president; consolidating Reagan's good work and continuing to steer America on the same path. So why then did they turn out to be such almost polar opposites? This essay explores the realms of domestic politics, vision and leadership

  • Comparing the Bible and Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel: An Examination of Archetypal Referenc

    2039 Words  | 5 Pages

    Comparing the Bible and Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel: An Examination of Archetypal References Often times great novels and plays allude to religion, to mythology, or to other literary works for dramatic purposes. Shakespearean plays are perfect examples. Allusions help the reader or spectator better understand, through visualization, a character or an event in a novel. In some cases, the characters, the events, or a series of events are structured according to the people and the action

  • The Role of the Great Mother in Beowulf

    1989 Words  | 4 Pages

    dam is not simply a "wandering fiend" (1621), a "swamp thing from hell" (1518), or a "troll-dam" (1391). She is an example of what Erich Neuhmann in his book, The Great Mother, calls an embodiment of the Great Mother in her "negative elementary character" (147). Her realms are the underworld, a cave below a lake, both symbols of the unconscious. She is begetter and child bearer, creator and destroyer of life; she nourishes and ensures the fertility of the land and people through her thirst for

  • Sita as the Hidden Hero of Ramayana

    2226 Words  | 5 Pages

    Sita as the Hidden Hero of Ramayana Valmiki's Ramayana was written around 300 B.C.E. (Carrier 207). Typically, the character of Rama is seen as the hero and the character of Sita is seen as the hero's wife.  In this essay, I will compare Sita's journey of capture and inner growth with the "save the kingdom" journey of Rama, show how the two correlate, and eventually connect in the influential chastity scene. I will also prove that Sita is the "hidden hero" of this epic even though she is seen

  • Tori Amos

    2823 Words  | 6 Pages

    interviews, she has admitted to being much influenced by numerous books of symbology and others of Jungian psychology and their archetypal insights. "I don't fall in love much. I mean, I fall in love every five seconds with something but I don't go from boy to boy. I go from archetype to archetype" (Rogers 33). Most dominantly, her lyrics rely on concept of the archetypal woman in all of her aspects. Motifs of creation and destruction are also represented in her work. Her ideals of balance

  • Compare And Contrast Thomas Be

    2012 Words  | 5 Pages

    The archetypal hero journey, Joseph Campbell states, is a typical series of heroic actions. Four stages form the hero journey: departure, trials, epiphany, and return (the stages do not necessarily occur consecutive with the listing). Death and resurrection of lifestyle and beliefs, spiritual journey, and finally rebirth form hero journey’s motif. An archetypal hero pattern is the transformation of the character’s conscience through trials and revelations. Lust, fear, and social duties