Myth criticism or the archetypal is a form of criticism based largely on the works of Carl Jung with individual plot patterns of literature, including highly sophisticated and realistic works as recurrence of certain mythic or archetypes formulae. Archetypes are “primordial” images or psychic residue of the types of experience in the lives of ancient ancestors which are inherited in the “collective unconscious” of the human race and are expressed in myths, religions, dreams and private fantasies as well as in the works of literature. An example of this is water, sun, moon, colors, circles, wise old man, etc. In films, we have The Lord of The Rings, Lord of The Flies, Avatar, Harry Potter, and Van Helsing, etc.
Jungian Philosophy
C.G. Jung’s “myth forming” elements are in the unconscious psyche; he refers to them as “motifs,” “primordial images,” or “archetypes.” He also detected the relationship between dreams, myths, and art through which archetypes come into consciousness.
Critics who examine texts from a mythological/archetypal standpoint are looking for symbols. Jung said that an archetype is “a figure…that repeats itself in the course of history wherever creative fantasy is fully manifested.” He believed that human beings were born innately knowing certain archetypes.
The evidence of this, Jung claimed, lay in the fact that some myths are repeated throughout history in cultures and eras that could not possibly have had any contact with one another. Many stories in Greek and Roman mythology have counterparts in Chinese and Celtic mythology, developed long before the Greek and Roman empires spread to Asia and northern Europe.
Most of the myths and symbols represent ideas that human beings could not otherwise explain (the origins of life, what happens after death, etc.). Every culture has a creation story, a life-after-death belief, and a reason for human failings, and these stories-when studied comparatively- are far more similar than different.
Individuation: Shadows, Persona, and 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.
Shadow
The shadow is the darker aspects of our unconscious self, the inferior and less pleasing aspects of the personality, which we wish to suppress. (cf. Shakespeare’s Iago, Milton’s Satan, Goethe’s Mephistopheles, and Conrad’s Kurtz)
Anima
The anima is the “soul-image.” It is the contrasexual part of a man’s psyche, the image of the opposite sex that he carries in both his personal and collective unconscious. (cf. Helen of Troy, Dante’s Beatrice, Milton’s Eve)
Persona
If the anima is a kind of mediator between the ego and the unconscious, the persona is the mediator between our ego and the external world. It is the actor’s mask that we show to the world.
How to use the Mythological/Archetypal Approach
When reading a work looking for archetypes or myths, critics look for very general recurring themes, characters, and situations.
- Three main Points of Study
- Archetypal Characters
- Archetypal Images
- Archetypal Situations
Archetypal Characters
- The Hero
- The Villain
- The Temptress
- The Scapegoat
- The Loner/Outcast
- The Underdog
- The Damsel in Distress
Archetypal Images
- Colors:
- Numbers
- Water: the sea, rivers
- Fire
- Gardens
- Celestial Bodies: rising and setting sun
- Caves
- Circle: wholeness, unity
- Serpent (snake)
Archetypal Situations/ Motifs/ Patterns
- The Quest
- The Renewal of Life
- Initiation
- The Fall
- Redemptive Sacrifice
- The End of the World
- The Banquet
- Creation: perhaps the most common of all archetypal motifs
- Immortality: escape of time, mystical submersion into cyclical time
The Sacrificial Hero: Hamlet
- Hamlet was not the playwright’s invention but was drawn from legend.
- Philip Wheelwright’s The Burning Fountain, explaining the organic source of good and evil, is directly relevant to the moral vision in Hamlet, particularly to the implications of Claudius’s crime and its disastrous consequences.
Archetypes of Time and Immorality: “To His Coy Mistress”
- “To His Coy Mistress” is a poem about time. It is concerned with immorality.
- The last stanza presents an escape into cynical time and thereby a chance for immorality.
“YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN”: A FAILURE OF INDIVIDUALIZATION
- Just as his persona has proved inadequate in mediating between Brown’s ego and the external world, so his anima fails in relating to his inner world.
- In clinical terms, young Goodman Brown suffers from a failure of personality integration, because he is unable to confront his shadow, recognize it as a part of his own psyche, and assimilate it into his consciousness.
3. Creature or creator: who is the real monster
Speaking archetypally, we may say of Frankenstein, just as we have said of Brown, that he suffers from a failure of individualization. He himself has conjured up and manufactured from his own immature ego.
Even in his dying moments Victor insists upon projecting his shadow-image upon the monster, calling him “my adversary” and persisting in the sad delusion that his own past conduct is not “blamable.”
“Everyday Use”: The Great [Grand]Mother
In the story, the archetypal woman manifests herself as both Good Mother and Earth Mother.
The Good Mother is associated with such life-enhancing virtues as warmth, nourishment, growth and protection.
Dee, the daughter and antagonist, has broken that tradition.
Limitation of Myth Criticism
Back to the beginning of humankind’s oldest rituals and beliefs and deep into our own individual hearts.
The work of Jung is based upon culturally specific, Western mythology-so that other cultures might be informed by significantly different mythic structures.
The discreet critic will apply such extrinsic perspectives as the mythological and psychological only as far as they enhance the experience of the art form, the structure and potential meaning of the work consistently support such approaches.
The myth critics study the so-called archetypes or archetypal patterns. They wish to reveal about the people’s mind and character. Myth is the symbolic projection of the people’s hopes, values, fears, and aspirations. Mythological criticism is concerned with the motives that underlie human behaviour. Mythology tends to be speculative and philosophical; its affinities are with religion, anthropology, and cultural history.
For some more information you may want to know about this topic, feel free to jump over this link and watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdkE3sJbnaY.
DISCLAIMER: The author does not claim copyright of the information included in this blog. These discussions were pieced together from varied uncited sources. Whosoever wishes to claim ownership of the words in this blog may feel free to contact the author.
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