The Immortal Archetype

A question was brought up during last weeks class that dealt with the idea of archetypes. The archetype in question is that discussed by Northrop Frye in "The Archetypes of Literature". This dealt with the signs or story progressions that are prominent within any story as a universal idea. Professor Wexler asked the class if they could identify a novel or even a movie that had no archetypes. Immediately I filtered through the index of anything that could apply in attempts to gain the extra credit that was promised.

The first character that came to my mind was Patrick Bateman of American Psycho fame. This thought came merely as the idea that the character never goes through a change of sorts. As said in the novel and in the film, “there is no catharsis.” There is no birth or death of the hero and the progression of the plot, while it does go somewhere, feels as though it ends where it began. A similar storyline is that of the movie rendition of A Clockwork Orange. Alex does go through a typical storyline, but it ends with no change in the character.

Even if these ideas confirm a preliminary idea of a story lacking heroic archetypes, by integrating the idea of laws of binaries, the non-archetype idea breaks down. The rule of binaries is that one object, idea, or character is defined by what it is not. When defining anything, a critic has to take into consideration what the object is, and also what it is not. There is an idea that God can not exist without the Devil, that we can not define hot without defining cold, love without hate. Everything requires it's binary opposites.

So now, we come back to the idea of a story without an archetype. Within the phrasing of the inquiry itself, there is a necessary need to define what the archetype is. With this definition of what the archetype is within the mind of the critic to point out the lack of, the archetype occupies the negative space within the story. It may not be a concrete idea within the story, but the archetype is there, and it is within defying the archetype that it reinforces the existence of the archetype. The same idea applies to that of the creation of the anti-hero.

So, since the creation of the archetype idea has therefore made its existence prevalent throughout all works of literature and other storytelling devices either in its presence or notable lack thereof. The archetype will live on.

And now for something completely different:

Source:

Frye, Northrop. "The Archetypes of Literature." The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Second ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. 1304-315. Print.