Archetypes In Waiting For Superman By Daughtry

To begin with the first layer of finding the archetype is easiest when looking at The Odyssey by Homer. There are actually quite a few archetypes just within this epic story, but when talking about a scapegoat a handful come to mind. The first one can be found in the first five books when it talks

Ego, soul, and self. Ego types have an agenda to succeed in ego-driven situations. Archetypes are also put into Four Cardinal orientations. Freedom, social, order, and ego further explain the archetypes. The innocent archetype falls near order and social. The innocent have defining characteristics such as optimism, faith, and simplicity. Innocent archetypes often have one specific goal which is to be happy. Innocent archetypes can also be perceived as a dreamer, naive, romantic and even boring because of their ignorance.

In 2010, Davis Guggenheim released one of the years most talked about documentaries, Waiting for Superman. His film was an eye opening, to many, look at the failings of the U.S. school system. The film follows five students across the U.S., who range in grade level from kindergarten to eighth grade, as they try and escape the public school system through a lottery for a chance admission to a charter school. Guggenheim lays the blame for the failing public education system at the feet of the various teachers unions, and makes a plea for the public in general to get involved in reforming the system. By analyzing Waiting for Superman through a sociological perspective, issues of inequality will be explained using the theoretical approach

Waiting for “Superman” is a documentary that focuses on five children-Anthony, Bianca, Emily, Francisco, and Daisy- who are looking for a better outcome for their education. The film is set up to follow different stories to explain how the school system works and the different ways that each school district functions. In detail, it unravels the struggle of the American school system and how the roles of charter schools has increased. It shows the five different charter schools that each child wants to attend while explaining how it would improve that child’s education. By following their stories, director Davis Guggenheim demonstrates how the American public school system is broken.

     An archetype is a universal symbol. It is also a term from the criticism that accepts Jung’s idea of recurring patterns of situation, character, or symbol existing universally and instinctively in the collective unconscious of man.

An archetype is a “character, an action, or a situation that seems to represent universal patterns of human nature” such as Hercules going on a hero’s journey to conquer the evil villians and achieve a “god-like” status (Archetype). The journey and challenges he faces lead him into a heroic ending and saving a damsel in distress. Similarly, in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, the characters face a journey of self discovery through varying archetypes. Jack Worthing is a dreamer, Cecily and Gwendolen struggle to play the innocent child role, and Ernest is prince charming. The archetypes portrayed in The Importance of Being Earnest epitomize a journey with self discovery and a resolution worth defending.

Although the documentary is coined the name Waiting for Superman, there in truth, is no Superman coming to the rescue. No hero in a red and blue cape is going to save these children from the horrors of growing up without an actual education. These children are left to a failing system because teachers simply just do not care about how they are affecting their lives. One of the strongest forms of emotional appeal in this documentary revolves around the raffle to get into a charter school. The narrator explains that these children’s futures are being “placed in the hands of luck.” Guggenheim is able to establish feelings of sickness for those who do not get selected and he creates a sadness that is sure to make his audience weep for the children that leave with drooping shoulders and forced

Throughout literature many pieces of work can be compared and contrasted to each other. In “Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie discusses the challenges he faced as a young Indian adult, who found his passion of reading at an early age, living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He challenged the stereotype of the young Indian students who were thought to be uneducated while living on a reservation. Likewise, in the excerpt from The Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez shares his similar experience of being a minority and trying to break stereotypes of appearing uneducated. He shares the details of his life growing up learning a different culture and the struggles he faced becoming assimilated into American culture. In these two specific pieces of literature discuss the importance of breaking stereotypes of social and educational American standards and have similar occupational goals; on the other hand the two authors share their different family relationships.

Another example of a character archetype

She kept insisting to do things the non-Bolivian way and her mother continuously explained to Andrea that’s not the way she was raised. “Why did I have an American flag next to my Bolivian one? My mother instilled Bolivian values in me…” (Roman 256) she included both flags indicating that she doesn’t want to fail her mother and forget the Bolivian culture.

What is an archetype? An archetype is a universal symbol, may be a character, a theme, a symbol or even a setting. (Literary Devices, 2016). Archetypes can be used to describe different types of people. People can be any type of archetype good or bad.

My first archetype is the caregiver as it is my most prominent archetype. The caregiver is described as “...an altruist, moved by compassion, generosity, and selflessness to help others…”, and that “A risk they take is that in their pursuit to help others they may end up being harmed themselves” (Jonas 2). Also associated with the caregiver archetype is the shadow side of the personality called the “suffering martyr” who manipulates using guilt by doing favors for them. These two sides of the personality are often mixed in various amounts in a person (Jonas 2). One recent example of this archetype in me happened just this past summer when I was working at a scout camp in the sierra mountains.

Archetype refers to a generic version of a personality. Archetypes are continually present in folklore and literature for thousands of years, including prehistoric artwork. The identification of archetypes in literature is to primarily find the behaviors and characteristics of the main protagonist, it is important to discover the ambiguity of how the traits change and develop throughout the rising

An archetype is an instantly recognizable, fundamental theme, character, or symbol. According to Carl Jung, archetypes are part of the collective unconscious, an inherent, species-wide knowledge base that is embedded in our natural and cultural identity (Boeree, Webspace). One example of a Jungian archetype is the mother. In the stories “The Boarding House” and “A Mother” from Dubliners, James Joyce explores the two aspects of the mother archetype and how they manifest themselves in the ways Mrs. Mooney and Mrs. Kearney protect and control their daughters.

At the peak of an island far off the coast of California lived a 10 year old girl named Avery. She lived with other orphans in a children's home. One thing was different none of these children had any connection with the outside world, and none of them knew that there were more humans out there somewhere, all except Avery. When each child's parents die, whether it is a car crash, disease, old age or other things that can cause death, every one percent of orphans get sent here to Ms.Vallery’s children's home. Every time that a new child arrives Ms.Vallery keeps them away from all the other kids until all of their memory and curiosity is drained, all of it. They drained their curiosity so that they would never feel the need to flee the children's