Archetypes Essay

The Mythological/Archetypal. Mythological criticism is a mix of anthropology, psychology, history, and religion. Mythological criticism explores how the imagination uses myths, and symbols compared to different cultures. Mythological criticism is an archetype that analyzes symbols and characters to find a deeper meaning that is beneath the surface (Gillespie “Finding Mythic” 58).Carl Jung introduced this literary criticism. Carl Jung believed that all individuals share an “ collective unconscious”(Golden).This meant that there is a common thought between all humans that lies below a person's unconscious mind. Mythological critics view literary works in the broader context of work sharing a similar pattern. Archetypes are a symbol that occurs often enough in literature to be recognizable as an element of a person's literary experience as a whole. …show more content…
The job of the Mythological/Archetypal critic is to connect the character to the twelve common archetypes. This lens helps the reader because it is concerned with the motives that underlie human behavior. The reader is able to focus on relationships and individuals and how each has a role that is crucial to the novel. The Secret Life of Bees is a novel that contains many elements in relation to the Mythological/Archetypal lens. The Mythological/Archetypal lens was important while reading The Secret Life of Bees because each character was just as important as the next, but the prestige use of symbolism was what kept the reader