Cantwell Archetypes

As Turtle is growing, she recognizes the wisteria vines and other vegetables. Plants are an important part of Taylor’s and Turtle’s childhood. Garden is an archetype because it crosses both time and place. Gardens travel from Taylor’s childhood to the Turtle’s childhood. Gardens also travel from Pittman County, Kentucky, to Tucson, Arizona.

At this point the poet uses symbolism substituting a flower for his mother. This is an appropriate symbol as, like his mother, a flower is feminine, delicate and

For example, Fitzgerald descriptively paints Gatsby’s flashback with emotional diction like “perishable”or “incomparable”. These words tag this emotional moment with an innocent and truly passionate tone and describe the moment to be fleeting yet extremely precious to both him and Daisy. The scene Fitzgerald creates induces a “mysterious excitement” in Gatsby, thus, revealing his pure, unadulterated mood. The words signify a truthful love for Daisy, not yet corrupted by his obsessions. Additionally, the use of vivid imagery continues to build upon the pure intimacy of the moment. Fitzgerald carefully illustrates how “Daisy blossomed for [Gatsby] like a flower”. This descriptive imagery of the blossoming flower shows how passionate and pure the moment is for Gatsby. Only the exquisiteness and simplicity of a flower finally spreading its petals expresses Gatsby’s feelings. In fact, he refuses to climb “to a secret place above the trees” where he “could suck on the pap of life”(110), and, instead, he opts to remain with Daisy. This location above the trees describes a heavenly place which Gatsby knowingly ignores because of his love for Daisy. This powerful imagery and diction reveals the true innocents and beauty of Gatsby’s initial dream of Daisy. The moods which Fitzgerald creates from these two scenes differ greatly to reveal the change of Gatsby’s

The novel The Secret Life of Bees is well thought out and planned. Author Sue Monk Kidd uses different archetypes throughout the novel. Shown through names, nature, or even food, the mythological archetype is mainly used. In the novel, many can recall hearing about foods such as peaches and honey.

Mansfield Park, written by Jane Austen, is a literary classic full of symbolism. One such symbol is that of gardening and landscaping, two highly important factors to the family in this novel. The characters throughout the novel seem distressed at times about this factor in their lives. But why is gardening and such trivial things of such grass and landscaping? “Eighteenth century landowners spent a great deal of time and money remaking the grounds of their estates” (Olsen 316). There were many reasons on why these upper-class people worried so much about this and there were many ways that Austen showed this need for approval and used it to exemplify her characters. Yet, Austen uses the shrubbery and the aspects of nature to reflect her diverse and complexing characters in many of her novels. The symbolism of nature is a mirror to how the characters, and humanity, truly are.

When Gatsby asks Nick to invite Daisy to his house for tea for their reunion, “a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby’s” bringing in an excessive amount of flowers. Gatsby believes that by filling Nick’s house with flowers, he would be able to recreate the feeling of spring and fabricate an “eternal springtime”. The use of seasonal imagery shows that Gatsby is trying to relive the past but he is living in his own impossible dream, especially since it is summer in the novel. Seasons will change and continue just like time and as much as people try, they cannot try to control it. When Gatsby and Daisy finally meet again, both are awkward and uncomfortable. Gatsby, leaning against the mantelpiece knocks over “a defunct mantelpiece clock” but he manages to catch and “save” the clock even though it was already broken. The clock is a symbol of time and the motion of catching the broken clock was a symbol of Gatsby trying to “save” his love for Daisy and reconceive the past. Gatsby tries to save something that has already passed, he tries to refabricate lost time. This reflects humanity as people often try to live in the past and hold onto past memories, even though the clock, time, is broken and cannot be

Through the symbolism of the lilacs that bud in the story, “The Lie,” Kurt Vonnegut argues that without the pressure of other’s expectations people set themselves up for their brightest and happiest future. At the end of the story after Eli runs out of the room, his parents find out that he was not entirely truthful about his acceptance into Whitehill. Immediately, Dr. Remenzel attempts to convince the board to let Eli in while Sylvia finds Eli, “He was outside--all alone on a bench in a bower of lilacs that had just begun to bud… He tried to smile and found that he could do it easily. ‘I feel so much better now that it’s over,’ ” (9 & 10) “A bower of lilacs that had just begun to bud.”The lilacs symbolize Eli’s new and propitious future. Flowers that bud are like flowers in the process of birth, much like Eli’s future is born.

In order to analyze the character archetypes for this assignment, I chose The Tortoise and The Hare, a fairy tale found at Animated Fairy Tales for Children. Overall, this tale falls into the classical animal archetype. These animals are used to teach us a moral lesson that we can be successful if we do very things steadily, thoughtfully, and carefully. The tortoise and the hare are foil characters, whose views about life are completely different. The tortoise is an archetype of a humble, friendly, smart, and careful person. The tortoise always does everything in a slow, thoughtful, and steady manner; he knows how to control his emotions despite the hare keeps teasing him about “being so slow.” The hare is the archetype of a mean, boastful,

“A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room.” (Walker 268) Mama express the beauty of her yard and the comfort it brings to her. From the air to the irregular grooves in the ground illustrates that Mama and Maggie have little control over the environment. In other words the yard defines their house and the comfort it bring to them. The yard also illustrates that Mama is free from all regrets and shortcomings that happened

The traditions of storytelling have long been used as a means to impart wisdom and life lessons to others. One of the most effective ways in which this is done is through the use of archetypes. While it is possible to look at these images in a general way, one may also focus an analysis on a single tale. In this way it is possible to explore the particular images used and their significance in a given situation, (often a coming of age rite of

The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck is a short story with an abundance of significance. The Chrysanthemums gives insight on how a women named Elisa Allen is unsatisfied with her day-to-day life in the 1930’s. Elisa is limited by society, and unsatisfied with the dull relationship she has with her husband. Her only escape from such an unfulfilled life is in her garden where she crafts chrysanthemums. Steinbeck uses these flowers as symbolism. These flowers can be interpreted in two different ways; from one point of view the flowers represent Elisa’s inner-self and from a different approach they represent the children Elisa never had.

Archetypes are used in literature to portray a certain meaning, that helps create a better and more meaningful story. The archetypes used can be embedded in the characters, symbols, or even rituals involved in a story. These archetypes can help give deeper meaning to the story by giving a underlying reference to concepts that are used over and over again in literature throughout history. When an author uses an archetype in his or her writing, they link it to many other stories that use that same archetype. Some do this for a reason, to give an underlying meaning, to symbolized something of importance, or even just to make their story more interesting. Many readers may not notice the underlying archetype, but sometimes the author uses them because he or she knows that the reader will.

Throughout numerous works by Sylvia Plath, she is characteristically known for emphasizing conflict, whether it be within herself or in the world around her. This poem dramatizes the conflict between the craving a sense of belonging and feeling useless. To create this effect, the speaker refers eloquently to the notion that she feels bland and unnoticed in comparison to nature. She wishes to possess the same striking beauty that the flowers have in their beds, or the same sense of direction that the trees have within their secured roots. The speaker then attempts to relate herself to her environment but fails, knowing that she will continue to be overlooked even though she and the sky "are in open conversation" (l 18). Finally, after realizing that nature cannot be paralleled when compared, especially to her, she concludes that she is more useful when she is lying horizontally without a purpose, hence the first line. In this way, the speaker seems to imply that she would be more valuable if she was dead and used as fertilizer for those same flowers and trees.

All stories and mythologies regardless of culture and historical period have become a part of human mind which contain a collective unconscious of all human species. This collective unconscious shared by all human beings is called as ‘Universal Memory ’or ‘Primal Memory’. Collective unconscious is a kind of universal psyche which is vested in dreams and myths and draws the themes and images from various sources. Recognising this collective unconscious to the conscious level is the prima-facie of an archetypal writer. These unconscious and recognizable elements of archetype occur across all literature and life. Literature is based on recurring images, characters, narrative designs and themes. Archetypal criticism identifies and determines the form and function of archetypes in literary works.

When I was a young girl, I cherished the moments my family and I had while we were outside during the summer. Usually going outside consisted of me riding my newly bought, white and pink bike that I still wobbled on because it was too big for me or climbing the apple tree in the front yard, but this time, my parents wanted my brother and I to help garden. The dreadful thing of planting a beautiful flower in the mucky dirt, left my hands and feet soiled in a dark substance. I never liked gardening and I hated when I saw the neighborhood children enjoying the “activity”, but I always did what my parents told me. Now, as I look back into the life of the young Brittney, I realize that the only thing that I didn’t like about it was the dirt. Did I not understand what putting the root into the soil meant, or was I just too childish to remark the significance of a seed growing like a little me?