Man has used stories to describe his world for thousands of years. These stories have identified the characters, situations, and symbols that grow on the lives of people throughout every culture. Over time, myths, legends, fairy tales and folklore produced patterns that became part of most all stories. These patterns are called archetypes. The definition of an archetype is “a typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature.” There are literally thousands of archetypes that fall into three basic categories: character archetypes, situational archetypes, and symbolic archetypes. These three archetype groups have evolved into powerful and quickly recognizable parts of man’s literature, The Initiation, Dark vs. Light, and Star-crossed Lovers. These three archetype groups show how character, situational, and symbolic archetypes are patterns that are found around the world that reflect different values in the cultures in which they evolve.
So what is an initiation, what goes on in dark vs. light, and how is star-crossed lovers usually explained? The initiation is defined as the action of admitting someone into a secret or obscure society or group. In dark vs. light archetypes, light usually suggests hope, renewal, or intellectual illuminations while darkness implies the unknown, ignorance, or despair. Finally, star-crossed lovers is usually described as lovers whose relationship is doomed to fail. Each archetypes, has their own category but are also found in different cultures around the globe.
For my situational archetype, I chose the initiation. The movie Divergent which takes place in North America; consist of survivors that are divided into five divisions based on their character. Those who do not complete the test will be known as “functionless”, and are forced to live in poverty on the streets of the city. The hunt takes place in England and is a type of initiation because the main character Lucas, Is a member if a close-knit Danish community and works at a local kindergarten school. He is divorced and brawls to maintain a good relationship with his teenage son, who lives with his ex-wife. The quest takes place in Austria. The film is about a magical land of twelve peacefully coexisting kingdoms that is occasionally threatened by a dark power known as Verlox, who first appeared a thousand years ago. Each time Verlox appears, heroes from our world who are transported to Everealm. Each receives one piece of a mystical weapon called the Sunspear. The Paladins are tested by the Fates until one True Hero remains.
Next, in my symbolic archetype, I chose Light vs. dark. Light proposes hope or renewal, darkness suggests the unknown. Santa clause 2 is a type of dark vs. light archetype; made in Northern America because divorced father Scott Calvin, put on the Santa clause suit, and became subject to The Santa Clause. Now he could not be happier as he enjoys being Santa and helping the elves with making toys and delivering them on Christmas Eve. To cover for Santa's prolonged absence, Curtis helps him create a life-size toy replica of him. Toy Santa takes control of the North Pole, turns it into a strict and evil government. Macbeth, made in England is also a light vs. dark because in Macbeth, all evil happenings came during the night and all the things that were dark represented evil. Also Magical sword which is made in japan is about roots of the sentient weapon myths sentient weapon myths stem from peoples belief that sword making and metallurgy was in fact a magical process. This next dark vs light archetype is a very popular movie. The lion King, which takes place in Africa. This movie takes place of a light vs. dark archetype because all of the lions and all the inhabitants of the pride land were wearing very bright, vibrant colors, whereas scar and the hyenas are all about the dark. The pride lands were the good resided, as was seen when Mufasa was speaking to Simba on the top of Pride Rock about how different the lands were between Mufasa and Scar.
Star-Crossed Lovers initiations are usually peoples most favorite. It involves a relationship that is often dissatisfied by outside forces. Like Romeo and Juliet. Juliet was the daughter of the Capulets and Romeo was the son of the Montagues. Romeo and Juliet becomes lovers of course but their parents and family does not agree because they do get along. Therefore, Romeo and Juliet hid their marriage. Tristan and Isolode is a love story about the Cornish knight, Tristan and the Irish princess isolide. After defeating the Irish knight Morholt, Tristan goes to Ireland to bring back the fair Iseult for his uncle King Mark to marry. Along the way, they consume a love potion which caused the pair to fall madly in love. Although Iseult marries Mark, she and Tristan are forced by the potion to seek one another as lovers. Titanic, a famous movie which takes place in England and New York in 1996, is a about a treasure hunter Brick Lovett and his team abroad the research vessel search the wreck for a very important necklace with a rare diamond, the Heart of the Ocean. They recover a safe containing a drawing of a young women wearing the necklace dated April 14, 1912, the day the ship struck the iceberg. Another important archetype that I picked is Odysseus and Penople. Penople didn’t believe that the beggar was her husband Odysseus. She thought the gods were playing a trick on her. She goes to meet Odysseus and tells him that he will be tested. Penelope had told Odysseus that he needs to find the secrets to their marriage.
An archetype is a commonly understood symbol, term, statement, or pattern of behavior upon which others are copied, or emulated. Archetypes are often used in myths and storytelling across different cultures. Archetypes are important because it gives "meanings" that don't have to be repeated because they are considered already having their own personality. All in all, I like using archetypes because it kind of gives me a better understanding of certain myths that I’ve read today. The initiation, dark vs light and star-crossed lovers because they all contain a situational archetype, character archetype or a symbolic archetype.