Principles of Teaching Mathematics- Education

A WRITTEN REPORT IN LITERARY CRITICISM
ARCHETYPAL/MYTH CRITICISM
I. OBJECTIVES
At the end of the discussion the student must be able to:
1.identify and describe key concepts of Archetypal and Myth Criticism, including archetypes,
motifs, and symbols in literary texts; and
2. appreciate the relevance of archetypes and myths in literature by reflecting on personal
interpretations and emotional responses to various texts; and
3. analyze a selected literary work by applying Archetypal Criticism, demonstrating the ability to
identify and explain archetypal patterns, symbols, and motifs in a presentation format.
II. ACTIVITY
Let's take a moment to dance before we begin our discussion. Dancing is a fantastic way
to boost our energy, improve our mood, and get ready to learn. It's like a warm-up for our brains
and bodies. So, let's move, groove, and then dive into our topic!
III. DISCUSSION
Archetypal criticism, a literary theory rooted in the exploration of recurring patterns and
symbols, delves into the profound connection between literature, mythology, and the human
psyche. Derived from the Greek term "archi-topos," meaning "first impression," archetypes
represent elemental and universal forms that resonate deeply with readers. By analyzing a text
through the lens of archetypes, critics can uncover hidden meanings, symbolic representations,
and deeper connections to human experience.

The Nature of Archetypes
Archetypes are recurrent narrative designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, and
images that appear across diverse cultures and time periods. They are believed to be ingrained in
the human psyche, evoking a profound response from readers who recognize and resonate with
these universal elements. Archetypal criticism seeks to identify and analyze these archetypes
within literary works, uncovering their significance and impact on the overall meaning of the
text.
The Origins of Archetypal Criticism
The roots of archetypal criticism can be traced back to James G. Frazer's seminal work, "The
Golden Bough," which explored comparative mythology and rituals across cultures. However, it
was C.G. Jung's psychological theories that truly shaped the field. Jung introduced the concept of
"primordial images," which he believed were innate, unconscious patterns that influenced human
behavior and thought. These primordial images closely align with the archetypes identified in
literary criticism.
Myth, Legend, and Folklore
Before delving deeper into archetypal criticism, it is essential to distinguish between myth,
legend, and folklore. A myth is a story that explains the origin of the world, natural phenomena,
or cultural practices. Legends are traditional stories often based on historical figures or events,
while folklore encompasses a broader range of tales, beliefs, and customs transmitted orally
within a culture.
Archetypal criticism examines a variety of elements within a text, including:
 Images: Symbols such as water, fire, the sun, and the moon, which often carry deep-
seated meanings.
 Motifs: Recurring patterns or themes, such as the hero's journey, the quest for
immortality, or the battle between good and evil.
 Characters: Archetypal figures like the wise old man, the young hero, the temptress, and
the innocent maiden.
 Settings: Symbolic locations such as the garden, the desert, or the underworld.
The Significance of Archetypal Criticism
Archetypal criticism offers a valuable tool for understanding the deeper meanings and universal
themes present in literature. By identifying and analyzing archetypal elements, critics can gain
insights into the author's intentions, the cultural context of the work, and the underlying
psychological motivations of characters. Furthermore, archetypal criticism can help readers
connect with the text on a more personal level, recognizing and appreciating the universal human
experiences reflected within its pages.
SOME EXAMPLES OF ARCHETYPES

A. IMAGE
1.Water: the mystery of creation; birth-death-resurrection; purification and redemption; fertility
and growth. According to Jung, water is also the commonest symbol for the unconscious.
 The sea: the mother of all life; spiritual mystery and infinity; death and rebirth;
timelessness and eternity; the unconscious.
 Rivers: death and rebirth (baptism); the flowing of time into eternity; transitional phases
of the life cycle; incarnations of deities.
2. Sun (fire and sky are closely related): creative energy; law in nature; consciousness (thinking,
enlightenment, wisdom, spiritual vision); father principle (moon and earth tend to be associated
with female or rnother principle); passage of time and life.
 Rising sun: birth; creation; enlightenment.
 Setting sun: death.
3. Colors
 Red: Blood, sacrifice, violent passion, and disorder.
 Green: Growth, sensation, hope, fertility; in a negative context, it may be associated with
death and decay.
 Blue: Usually highly positive, associated with truth, religious feeling, security, and
spiritual purity (the color of the Great Mother or Holy Mother).
 Black: Chaos, mystery, the unknown, death, primal wisdom, the unconscious, evil, and
melancholy.
 White: Highly multivalent, signifying light, purity, innocence, and timelessness in its
positive aspects. In its negative aspects, it can represent death, terror, the supernatural,
and the blinding truth of an inscrutable cosmic mystery (see, for example, Herman
Melville's chapter "The Whiteness of the Whale" in Moby-Dick).

4. Circle (sphere): wholeness, unity.
 Mandala: A geometric figure based on the squaring of a circle around a unifying center
(see the accompanying illustration of the classic Shri-Yantra mandala). It symbolizes the
desire for spiritual unity and psychic integration. Note that in its classic Asian forms, the
mandala juxtaposes the triangle, the square, and the circle with their numerical
equivalents of three, four, and seven.
 Egg (oval): the mystery of life and the forces of generation.
 Yang-yin: a Chinese symbol (below) 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).
Ouroboros: the ancient symbol of the snake biting its own tail, signifying the eternal cycle of life,
primordial unconsciousness, the unity of opposing forces (cf. yang-yin).
5. Serpent (snake, worm): symbol of energy and pure force (cf. libido); evil, corruption,
sensuality; destruction; mystery; wisdom; the unconscious.
6. Numbers:
 Three: light; spiritual awareness and unity (d. the Holy Trinity); the male principle.
 Four: associated with the circle, life cycle, four seasons; female principle, earth, nature;
four elements {earth, air, fire, water)

 Seven: the most potent of all symbolic numbers signifying the union of three and four,
the completion of a cycle, perfect order.
7. The archetypal woman (Great Mother) – the mysteries of life death, transformation.
 The Good Mother (positive aspects of the Earth Mother): associated with the life
principle, birth, warmth, nourishment, protection, fertility, growth, abundance (for
example, Demeter, Ceres).
 The Terrible Mother (including the negative aspects of the Earth Mother): the witch,
sorceress, siren, whore, femme fatale--associated with sensuality, sexual orgies, fear,
danger, darkness, dismemberment, emasculation, death; the unconscious in its terrifying
aspects.
 The Soul Mate: the Sophia figure, Holy Mother, the princess or "beautiful lady"-
incarnation of inspiration and spiritual fulfillment (cf. the Jungian anima).

8. The Wise Old Man (savior, redeemer, guru): personification of the spiritual principle,
representing "knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, cleverness, and intuition on the one hand,
and on the other, moral qualities such as goodwill and readiness to help, which make his
'spiritual character sufficiently plain. Apart from his cleverness, wisdom, and insight, the old
man is also notable for his moral qualities; what is more, he even tests the moral qualities of
others and makes gifts dependent on this test. The old man always appears when the hero is in a
hopeless and desperate situation from which only profound reflection or a lucky idea. can
extricate him. But since, for internal and external reasons, the hero cannot accomplish this him-
self, the knowledge needed to compensate the deficiency comes in the form of a personified
thought, i.e., in the shape of this sagacious and helpful old man" (C. G. Jung, The Archetypes
and the Collective Unconscious, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2nd ed. [Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1968]
217ff.)
9. Garden: paradise; innocence; unspoiled beauty f especially feminine); fertility.

10.Tree: "In its most general sense, the symbolisrn of the tree denotes life of the cosmos: its
consistence, growth, proliferation, generative and regenerative processes. It stands for
inexhaustible life, and is therefore equivalent to a symbol of immortality"
11. Desert: spiritual aridity; death: nihilism, hopelessness
B. ARCHETYPAL MOTIFS OR PATTERNS
1. Creation: perhaps the most fundamental of all archetypal motifs-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.
2. Immortality: another fundamental archetype, generally taking one of two basic narrative
forms:
 Escape from time: "return to paradise," the state of perfect, timeless bliss enjoyed by man
and woman before their tragic Fall into corruption and mortality.
 Mystical submersion into cyclical time: the theme of endless death and regeneration-
human beings achieve a kind of immortality by submitting to the vast, mysterious rhythm
of Nature's eternal cycle, particularly the cycle of the seasons.
3. Hero archetypes (archetypes of transformation and redemption):
 The quest: the hero (savior, deliverer) undertakes some long journey during which he or
she must perform impossible tasks, battle with monsters, solve unanswerable riddles, and
overcome insurmountable obstacles in order to save the kingdom.
 Initiation: the hero undergoes a series of excruciating ordeals in passing from ignorance
and immaturity to social and spiritual adulthood, that is, in achieving maturity and
becoming a full-fledged member of his or her social group. The initiation most
commonly consists of three distinct phases: (1) separation, (2) transformation, and (3)
return. Like the quest, this is a variation of the death-and-rebirth archetype.

c. The sacrificial scapegoat: the hero, with whom the welfare of the tribe or nation is identified,
must die to atone for the people's sins and restore the land to fruitfulness.
C. ARCHETYPES AS GENRES
Finally, in addition to appearing as images and motifs, archetypes may be found in even more
complex combinations as genres or types of literature that conform with the major phases of the
seasonal cycle. Northrop Frye, in his Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1957),
indicates the correspondent genres for the four seasons as follows:
1.The mythos of spring: comedy
 Rebirth of hero
 Renewal of life in which those elements of society who would block the hero are
overcome
 Hero and heroine take their rightful place
 Order is restored
2.The mythos of summer: romance
 analogous to the birth and youthful adventures of the mythic hero
 suggests innocence and triumph
 narrative of wish-fulfillment with good character triumphing over bad
Examples: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Robin Hood, old-fashioned cow boy movies
3. The mythos of fall/autumn: tragedy
 Major movement toward death or defeat of the hero
Examples: Oedipus, King Lear
4. The mythos of winter: irony or satire
 Hero now absent
 Society is left without effective leadership or sense of norms/values
PROPONENTS

Carl Jung
 Jung addresses the relevance of archetypal theory in literature and the arts most
clearly in The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature (1966) which contains two
significant essays on literature and poetry (first published 1922 and 1930).
 Psychologist
 Student of Freud
 He first gave prominence to the term archetype
 Became convinced that all humans share a “collective unconscious,” an
unconscious “which does not derive from personal experience acquisition but is
inborn” (Jung 289)
 In Jung’s archetypal theory, the unconscious mind plays a profound role, and it has
a purpose, which is to assist individuals in maintaining a balanced psychological
state.
Principles of Archetype
1.Animus
 Physical man
 Represents physical, brute strength of man and his animal instincts
 Can be the “masculine” designation of the female psyche
2.Anima
 The “soul image”
 The spiritual life-force
 The “living thing in man, that which lives of itself and causes life..” “the archetype of
life itself” (Jung, Archetypes 26)
 Feminine designation in the male psyche
 Associated with feelings, passions, instinctive, unconscious aspect of psyche
3.Shadow
 The darkest side of our unconscious self

 Inferior, less pleasing aspect of the personality
 Represents “the dangerous aspect of the unrecognized dark half of the personality” (Jung,
Two Essays 94)
 Needs to be suppressed
 When projected, this archetype becomes the villain, the devil.
The theory of archetypes would explain not only such instances as these but also the similarity of
myths and rituals found by Frazer, for archetypes are universal patterns from which myths
derive.
Northrop Frye (1912-1991)
Canadian literary critic, best known as a major proponent of archetypal criticism.
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957)
 Relies solely upon literature to draw the archetypal patterns
 Calls the theory of collective unconscious on “unnecessary hypothesis in
literary criticism” (Frye 112)

Other Proponents
Sir James Frazer
 Cambridge anthropologist
 examined primitive rituals that indicated similar patterns of behavior and
belief among diverse and widely separated cultures.
Example: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (1922)-12 Volumes
Gilbert Murray
 “Hamlet and Orestes” in The Classic Tradition in Poetry
 (found similarities in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Greek Orestes
Joseph Campbell

 Monomyth pattern
Maud Bodkin
Archetypal Pattens in Poetry (1934)
 among first literary studies in the Jungian tradition
 application of psychological knowledge to works of literature
Leslie Fiedler
 begins examination with literary works themselves, rather than with universal
patterns
 concerned with defining unique cultural patterns with literature
 uses insights of archetypal criticism to isolate patterns within literature of a
given culture of author.
IV. ASSESSMENT
Direction: Read each question carefully and choose the best answer from the options
provided. Select the letter corresponding to your chosen answer.
1. What are archetypes in literature?
A. Unique symbols that only appear in one culture
B. Recurrent narrative designs, patterns, and character types across cultures
C. Specific themes only found in ancient mythology
D. Literary devices used to create suspense
2. Who introduced the concept of "primordial images," which align with literary archetypes?
A. Sigmund Freud
B. Carl Jung
C. James G. Frazer
D. Northrop Frye
3. Which of the following best describes a myth?
A. A fictional story about magical creatures
B. A tale that explains natural phenomena, cultural practices, or the origin of the world
C. A historical account based on real events
D. A short story passed down through families
4. What does the "wise old man" archetype typically represent?
A. A character who is always skeptical of heroes

B. A guide who provides wisdom and insight to the protagonist
C. A villain who misleads the main character
D. A comic relief figure
5. In archetypal symbolism, what does water most commonly represent?
A. Chaos and destruction
B. Birth, purification, and the unconscious
C. Anger and passion
D. Darkness and death
6. Which of the following is an example of an archetypal motif?
A. A one-time event in a story
B. A recurring pattern such as the hero’s journey
C. A new genre created by an author
D. A symbol that has only one fixed meaning
7. What does the "quest" archetype typically involve?
A. A hero undertaking a journey with challenges to achieve a goal
B. A hero staying in one place to protect their home
C. A villain plotting revenge against society
D. A character who refuses to change or grow
8. Which of the following is an example of the "sacrificial scapegoat" archetype?
A. A hero who seeks revenge for a personal loss
B. A character who sacrifices themselves for the greater good of their people
C. A villain who is unjustly punished
D. A side character who disappears from the story
9. According to Northrop Frye, which genre corresponds with the mythos of winter?
A. Comedy
B. Tragedy
C. Romance
D. Irony or satire
10. Which principle of archetypes, according to Jung, represents the feminine aspect of the male
psyche?
A. Animus
B. Anima
C. Ego
D. Id
Answer key:
1. B. Recurrent narrative designs, patterns, and character types across cultures
2. B. Carl Jung

3. B. A tale that explains natural phenomena, cultural practices, or the origin of the world
4. B. A guide who provides wisdom and insight to the protagonist
5. B. Birth, purification, and the unconscious
6. B. A recurring pattern such as the hero’s journey
7. A. A hero undertaking a journey with challenges to achieve a goal
8. B. A character who sacrifices themselves for the greater good of their people
9. D. Irony or satire
10. B. Anima
V. REFLECTION
Archetypal criticism shows us that literature is much more than words on a page; it’s a
powerful bridge to our deepest selves and to one another. Each symbol whether a hero rising
against impossible odds, a river flowing through the ages, or a wise mentor guiding a lost soul
reminds us of universal human truths that transcend culture and time. These are not just fictional
elements; they are ancient echoes that we intuitively understand, feeling as though they were
drawn from our own memories.
Engaging with these archetypes is like entering a timeless dialogue. We see ourselves
reflected in every quest for redemption, every transformation, and every cycle of rebirth or
decay. Through archetypal criticism, we come to recognize that these stories are far more than
mere entertainment; they are mirrors reflecting back to us the most enduring and vulnerable parts
of our shared humanity.
There is a power in these symbols that goes beyond any individual story they connect us to a
collective experience, a rich tapestry woven from countless lives, eras, and beliefs. Archetypal
criticism offers a unique way to appreciate that depth, reminding us that behind every narrative is
a glimpse into the soul of humanity itself.

VI. REFERENCES
https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/archetypal.crit.html
https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/archetypal-myth-criticism/23023045
https://www.govtwomencollegeslm8.org/e_content/English/II%20M.A.%20ENGLISH/
LITERARY%20CRITICISM/UNIT%20-I%20ARCHETYPAL%20CRITICISM.pdf
Prepared by:
Joefel S. Magada
BSEd English III

Principles of Teaching Mathematics- Education

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