Back in 2014, before my confidence in everything I once knew was shattered by doing my PhD, I taught a class in archetypes for writers at North Seattle College’s Continuing Education Department. As part of the marketing for my class, I was interviewed for their blog. Well, as I no longer teach there, that post has long been taken down, and anyone following the link from my original post about it will get a 404.
And as I’m kicking off a series of posts about archetypes, I thought I would bring that original[footnote]slightly updated[/footnote] interview back. So enjoy!
The Universal Appeal of Archetypes
Cole Hornaday interviews Ashland Pym, MA, instructor of Archetypes for Writers
Intro: Through her course Archetypes in Writing, instructor Ashland Pym plans to help writers strengthen their creative voice through the exploration of archetypes. Her goal is to help writers look beyond action, plot, setting and character by drilling deep into the shared experience found in the art of storytelling. She did a quick Q&A and taught us the process is much simpler than it sounds.
What is an archetype?
Archetypes are patterns, but there is so much more to it, and to fully utilize archetypes we need to understand where they come from and why they are important. They come from what psychiatrist Carl Jung called the Collective Unconscious and are the building blocks of any story that is told—be it a creation myth, an epic fantasy novel, a Nobel-winning literary fiction, or a memoir.
An archetype can be a type of universal character, such as a trickster, a mother, or a wise elder, but it can also be an experience, such as coming of age or transformation through tragedy. Emotional states such as fear or joy can be archetypes. Anything that is a universal pattern of human experience, and not informed by the cultural or sociopolitical environment, is an archetype.
Why are archetypes important in storytelling?
An archetype is something deeply ingrained in the human psyche. They are a universal truth and a universal language. Using a powerful archetype in your writing is a way of speaking directly to a wide audience on a very personal level. This connects them to your story and to the message you are trying to get across.
Related Post: Why Are Archetypes Important?
Are archetypes only beneficial to fiction writers?
No, archetypes can be used to engage with the audience no matter your medium. Essentially, it’s all about storytelling. In that light, even journalistic work like documentaries or the news rely on archetypes. It isn’t enough to report the facts, one must engage their audience through a storytelling process. The building blocks of those stories are archetypes because they connect with the audience on a deeply psychological and instinctual level.
How are modern novels and films archetypal?
All stories have some universal appeal, otherwise no one but the writer could connect with them. And since they have tapped into something universal, they have tapped into something archetypal. All characters are essentially comprised of one or more archetypes, and the best characters are a complex combination of archetypes, just like we are. Writing is a way of engaging with the unconscious, and since it cannot communicate directly it has to use symbols and metaphor—and that means story.
Can you give us some examples of archetypes in contemporary literature or popular culture?
The archetypes that are strongest in popular culture and literature are the ones that are most important to our society right now. For example, the apocalyptic or dystopian memes that have recently inundated cinema and fiction are a version of the Underworld Journey (Nekyia) archetype. In mythology, death is not an ending but a transformation from one thing into another. The Underworld Journey is about the protagonist’s descent into the world of the dead and re-ascent as someone new. Or, in the case of the apocalyptic and dystopian meme, the destruction of the world and society as we know it and the continuation of the human race through perseverance which determines a new societal structure and a new morality. Young Adult dystopian fictions like Divergence and The Hunger Games (along with their film versions), are very popular of late because the world is changing around us very quickly and that’s a frightening thing. These stories are a reflection of our world and help us work through those fears by giving us a means to process that terrifying imagery and help us better understand it all.
What is the difference between an archetype and a stereotype?
An archetype is a universal truth living in the unconscious, and it evolves as the human mind evolves. It transcends all cultural and social differences. No archetype can be given a concrete definition because it is so entwined with other archetypes it is impossible to fine its borders. An archetype must also be allowed to continue changing, else it no longer reflect human experience and thus becomes toxic.
A stereotype, on the other hand, lives in the conscious mind — it is a thing invented inside a specific culture and often attached to a specific social class or political idea. Stereotypes are an invention of our fears. They may even have evolved out of an archetype which has been concretized by strict definition, thereby inverting and killing it.