Archetypes In Fifth Business

Carl Jung, the very first pioneer who discovered human collective unconsciousness, including archetypes, once said, “An archetype is something like an old watercourse along which the water of life flowed for a time, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it flowed the deeper the channel, and the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return.” An archetype is the universal patterns and behaviors that represent a typical human experience that is passed down from generations to generations, creating its originality. In “A Separate Peace”, John Knowles uses many archetypes to enrich the personality of his characters, especially Gene and Finny based on common human experiences. By embodying the archetypes of the Fall from Innocence, the Unhealable, and the Crossroads in “A Separate Peace,” John Knowles was successful in establishing the theme for the novel which implies that the guilt which is begotten from one’s deceitful actions would remain as an irrecoverable wound overtime.

Throughout the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou, classic storytelling through archetypes is reworked into a more modern time in order to create the unique gem that it is. Archetypes are a general persona of a character that is repeated many times through films and literature, they define the character and give meaning to their roles. Archetypes have been used ever since stories were made, from the Odyssey to even Percy Jackson. Archetypes tend to set the stage for the story, and get revealed throughout the story adding more life and energy to it. Three examples of archetypes expressed very well through characters in the movie are the hero, the alter ego, and the temptress.

An archetype is a very typical example of a certain person or thing and is used to primarily convey the idea of the authors point. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, written by Carol Joyce Oates, she uses various types of examples using archetypes to prove the different characters and their situations in their specific life environment. The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” , is about an innocent 15 year old girl Connie who has a normal teenage life until a strange older guy Arnold tries to enter her life.

The character of Bartleby in Herman Melville’s novella “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street” is a person who refuses to become an object in capitalistic society. Initially, he is the perfect example of the objectification and mechanization of humans in the workplace. In essence, Bartleby is a machine that continually produces. Ultimately, he begins to resist the mind numbing repetition of his tasks and the mechanization of his life. The other main character, the narrator, is a facilitator of the capitalistic machine. He dehumanizes his employees by ensuring that their free will is denied in the workplace using objectifying nicknames, providing a workplace devoid of human touch and connection,; and perpetuating mechanized, repetitive work. Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener” shows the dehumanizing effects of working in a capitalistic environment and ultimately suggests that one must conform to a standard way of life or will cease to exist.

As a child, Dunny felt guilty for the accident, and its affect on Mrs. Dempster. As he sees the weak child, Paul, grow his guilt also

“It was characteristic of Boy throughout his life that he was always the quintessence of something that somebody else had recognized and defined” (Davies 113). He believes that he is in control of every situation, but inside he cannot control his guilt that is still buried deep inside himself. Contrary to Dunstan who feels responsible for problems, Boy runs away from his problems by keeping himself busy. The death of Leola, his wife, clearly shows Boy’s fear of facing problems, for his does not show up for her funeral, “Boy was in England, arranging something or other connected with his Ministry, and duty and the difficulty of transatlantic flights in wartime kept him there”(Davies 194). Boy still yearns for fulfillment even though he achieves greatness in terms of his financial success and his outward appearance. He says, “I feel rotten. I’ve done just about everything I’ve ever planned to do and everybody thinks I’m a success… But sometimes I wish I could get into a car and drive away from the whole damned thing.” (Davies). Boy knows that deep inside he is very unsuccessful. As he gets older, he is supposed to be wiser, but his commitment to achieving the external greatness has stopped him from being fully satisfied. There is an immense difference in the lives of Boy and Dunstan. Boy’s focus on his external being causes him live an unfulfilled life, like a ‘boy’ who cannot see that there is

The obsession, the hardship, and the struggle to make life seemingly simple and easy, is an understatement to its true complexity. To dwell in the past, is a fault that one must not fall under, or else the difficulty to progress and move forward with the future, is a pleasure the past will have to turn any due progression, into failure. Robertson Davies’ novel, Fifth Business, examines the memoir of the character Dunstan Ramsay that reveals the struggles he comes across in his life, and the failure he has with moving forward to progressing from these struggles. By examining Dunstan’s Victoria Cross, his engagement to Diana, and Mary being a saint, one can see behind every literal event is a deeper psychological truth that Dunstan seeks,

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies explores the theme of Psychology through several characters. Each character has a certain archetype which will affect how they think, showing different psychological effects. Specifically, the archetypes mentioned are the introverted, the confidant, the egotist, and the saint. These four archetypes correlate to being the side character, the secret keeper, the self-absorbed brat, or the painfully charitable woman respectively. Davies attempts to explore the relation between an archetype and the psychology behind it.

At times, Doodle’s brother takes advantage of his loving and forgiving nature and is cruel to him. “There is within me […] a knot of cruelty born by a stream of love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of our destruction and at times I was mean to Doodle” (Hurst 3). Although Brother truly loves Doodle, he takes advantage of Doodle’s kind and naïve personality. This metaphor from Brother equates cruelty coming from a source of love to a bad situation coming from a mistake that one made, for example, his bullying behavior to Doodle. Brother, looking back, has deep remorse for being cruel to Doodle, because each time Doodle would come back to him out of trust and admiration for his sibling. Doodle’s love for his brother leads him to be easily manipulated to do what his brother wants, even if it is not out of loving intent. “Then I’d paint for him a picture of us as old men white haired, him with a long white beard and me still pulling him in a go-cart, this never failed to make him try again” (Hurst 4). Brother’s form of

The Magicians is a novel which presents worlds within a world, and this world is peopled with characters who are complex, brilliant, powerful and have such a good shine of their own that it overshadows the protagonist himself. These characters not only play an important role in the twists on the traditional hero’s journey but also blesses an appreciable tone to the overall story. Without the use of these archetypes and the twists to the traditional hero’s journey, the protagonist, who is basically a timid, coward, unheroic and introverted type of person, would have made this story stale, uninteresting and unsuccessful.

The movie District 9 and the novel The Devil and Miss Prym utilize different types of conflict, archetypes, and philosophies to culminate its story line. “District 9” is a science fiction movie based on sick aliens arriving in South Africa and a man who transforms into one of them. It explores the theme of social segregation and relativism in relation to their government. It also explores the person versus self, type of conflict with the archetypes of the refugee and the other. This movie also explores relativism according to the main character and the government. The novel, The Devil and Miss Prym is about a man coming to a town and him testing the town of their morality when he gives them a choice of breaking their moral code and taking gold or staying good. The main character, Chantal, and the townspeople are tested on whether they will murder someone to save the town’s economy. It

We played the game to review the different archetypes in literature. We mainly went over the situational and character archetypes. There are multiple benefits to playing this game, such as, it is a fun way to test how much you know. Other benefits to playing the archetype game includes the way games keep students engaged, motivated, and competitive which can lead to a better understanding of the content.

Have you ever noticed some common characters in every story? Carl Jung discovered a common pattern in characters called archetypes. In the book The Pearl, Kino, Juana, and the pearl are examples of said characters. There are several outstanding archetypes in The Pearl.

Readers that want to analyze the characters in the text can do so through the character archetypal theory to further understand the text and the characters in the text. When viewing the text from a character archetypal perspective, a reader may look at the literary work to understanding the characters better. Moreover, archetypal character theory helps the reader understand the characters` enthusiasm and the reasons for what they do. Therefore, looking at James Joyce`s “The Dead”, a reader may look at the characters with various character archetypes, such as, Miss Ivors, with the patriot archetype, Gabriel with the innocent archetype, and Greta with the good wife archetype.

Kokemuller, N. (2014). Mintzberg 's Five Types of Organizational Structure. Retrieved August 16, 2014, from Houston Chronicles: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/mintzbergs-five-types-organizational-structure-60119.html