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Archetypal Criticism

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on October 22, 2020 • ( 0 )

Archetypal theory and criticism, although often used synonymously with Myth theory and crticism, has a distinct history and process. The term “archetype” can be traced to Plato ( arche , “original”; typos , “form”), but the concept gained currency in twentieth-century literary theory and criticism through the work of the Swiss founder of analytical psychology, C. G. Jung (1875-1961). Jung’s Psychology of the Unconscious (1916, B. M. Hinkle’s translation of the 1911-12 Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido ) appeared in English one year after publication of the concluding volume with bibliography of the third edition of J. G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (2 vols., 1890,3d ed., 12 vols., 1911-15). Frazer’s and Jung’s texts formed the basis of two allied but ultimately different courses of influence on literary history.

Jung most frequently used “myth” (or “mythologem”) for the narrative expression, “on the ethnological level” ( Collected 9, pt. 1: 67), of the “archetypes,” which he described as patterns of psychic energy originating in the collective unconscious and finding their “most common and most normal” manifestation in dreams (8:287). Thus criticism evolving from his work is more accurately named “archetypal” and is quite distinct from “myth” criticism.

For Jung, “archetype is an explanatory paraphrase of the Platonic eidos ” (9, pt. 1: 4), but he distinguishes his concept and use of the term from that of philosophical idealism as being more empirical and less metaphysical, though most of his “empirical” data were dreams. In addition, he modified and extended his concept over the many decades of his professional life, often insisting that “archetype” named a process, a perspective, and not a content, although this flexibility was lost through the codifying, nominalizing tendencies of his followers.

At mid-century, Canadian critic Northrop Frye (1912-91) introduced new distinctions in literary criticism between myth and archetype. For Frye, as William K. Wimsatt and Cleanth Brooks put it, “archetype, borrowed from Jung, means a primordial image, a part of the collective unconscious, the psychic residue of numberless experiences of the same kind, and thus part of the inherited response-pattern of the race” ( Literary Criticism 709). Frye frequently acknowledged his debt to Jung, accepted some of Jung’s specifically named archetypes—” persona and anima and counsellor and shadow” —and referred to his theory as Jungian criticism (Anatomy 291), a practice subsequently followed in some hand books of literary terms and histories of literary criticism, including one edited by Frye himself, which obscured crucial differences and contributed to the confusion in terminology reigning today. Frye, however, notably in Anatomy of Criticism , essentially redefined and relocated archetype on grounds that would remove him unequivocally from the ranks of “Jungian” critics by severing the connection between archetype and depth psychology: “This emphasis on impersonal content has been developed by Jung and his school, where the communicability of archetypes is accounted for by a theory of a collective unconscious—an unnecessary hypothesis in literary criticism, so far as I can judge” (m-12). Frye, then, first misinterprets Jungian theory by insisting on a Lamarckian view of genetic transmission of archetypes, which Jung explicitly rejected, and later settles on a concept of “archetype” as a literary occurrence per se, an exclusively intertextual recurring phenomenon resembling a convention (99).

Northrope Frye/Pinterest

On a general level, Jung’s and Frye’s theorizings about archetypes, however labeled, overlap, and boundaries are elusive, but in the disciplines of literature the two schools have largely ignored each other’s work. Myth criticism grew in part as a reaction to the formalism of New Criticism , while archetypal criticism based on Jung was never linked with any academic tradition and remained organically bound to its roots in depth psychology: the individual and collective psyche, dreams, and the analytic process. Further, myth critics, aligned with writers in comparative anthropology and philosophy, are said to include Frazer, Jessie Weston, Leslie Fiedler, Ernst Cassirer, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Richard Chase, Joseph Campbell, Philip Wheelwright, and Francis Fergusson. But Wheelwright, for example, barely mentions Jung ( The Burning Fountain , 1954), and he, Fergusson, and others often owe more to Sigmund Freud, Ernest Jones, Oedipus Rex, and the Oedipus complex than to anything taken from Jung. Indeed, myth criticism seems singularly unaffected by any of the archetypal theorists who have remained faithful to the origins and traditions of depth, especially analytical, psychology—James Hillman, Henri Corbin, Gilbert Durand, Rafael Lopez-Pedraza, Evangelos Christou. This article, then, treats the only form of literary theory and criticism consistent with and derived directly from the psychological principles advanced by Jung. Other forms previously labeled “Jungian” are here subsumed under the term “archetypal” because whatever their immediate specific focus, these forms operate on a set of assumptions derived from Jung and accept the depth-psychological structure posited by Jung. Further, Jung termed his own theory “analytical psychology,” as it is still known especially in Europe, but Jungian thought is more commonly referred to today in all disciplines as “archetypal psychology.”

The first systematic application of Jung’s ideas to literature was made in 1934 by Maud Bodkin in Archetypal Patterns in Poetry : “An attempt is here made to bring psychological analysis and reflection to bear upon the imaginative experience communicated by great poetry, and to examine those forms or patterns in which the universal forces of our nature there find objectification” (vii). This book established the priority of interest in the archetypal over the mythological.

The next significant development in archetypal theory that affected literary studies grew out of the effort made by U.S.-born, Zurich-trained analyst James Hillman (b. 1924) “to move beyond clinical inquiry within the consulting room of psychotherapy” to formulate archetypal theory as a multidisciplinary field ( Archetypal 1). Hillman invokes Henri Corbin (1903-78), French scholar, philosopher, and mystic known for his work on Islam, as the “second father” of archetypal psychology. As Hillman puts it, Corbin’s insight that Jung’s “mundus archetypalis” is also the “mundus imaginalis” that corresponds to the Islamic “alam al-mithl” (3) was an early move toward “a reappraisal of psychology itself as an activity of poesis” (24). Hillman also discovers archetypal precursors in Neoplatonism, Heraclitus, Plotinus, Proclus, Marsilio Ficino, and Giambattista Vico . In Re-Visioning Psychology , the published text of his 1972 Yale Terry Lectures (the same lecture series Jung gave in 1937), Hillman locates the archetypal neither “in the physiology of the brain, the structure of language, the organization of society, nor the analysis of behavior, but in the processes of imagination” (xi).

Archetypal theory then took shape principally in the multidisciplinary journal refounded by Hillman in 1970 in Zurich, Spring: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought . According to Hillman, that discourse was anticipated by Evangelos Christou’s Logos of the Soul (1963) and extended in religion (David L. Miller’s New Polytheism , 1974), philosophy (Edward Casey’s Imagining: A Phenomenological Study , 1976), mythology (Rafael Lopez-Pedraza’s Hermes and His Children , 1977), psycholinguistics (Paul Kugler’s Alchemy of Discourse: An Archetypal Approach to Language , 1982), and the theory of analysis (Patricia Berry’s Echo’s Subtle Body , 1982).

These archetypalists, focusing on the imaginal’and making central the concept that in English they call “soul,” assert their kinship with Semiotics and Structuralism but maintain an insistent focus on psychoid phenomena, which they characterize as meaningful. Their discourse is conducted in poetic language; that is, their notions of “soul-making” come from the Romantics , especially William Blake and John Keats. “By speaking of soul as a primary metaphor , rather than defining soul substantively and attempting to derive its ontological status from empirical demonstration or theological (metaphysical) argument, archetypal psychology recognizes that psychic reality is inextricably involved with rhetoric” (Hillman, Archetypal 19).

Carl Jung’s Contribution to Psychoanalytic Theory

This burgeoning theoretical movement and the generally unsatisfying nature of so much early “Jungian literary criticism” are both linked to the problematic nature of Jung’s own writing on literature, which comprises a handful of essays: “The Type Problem in Poetry,” “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry,” “Psychology and Literature,” “ Ulysses : A Monologue,” and “Is There a Freudian Type of Poetry?” These essays reveal Jung’s lack of awareness as a reader despite his sense that they “may show how ideas that play a considerable role in my work can be applied to literary material” ( Collected 15:109^. They also attest to his self-confessed lack of interest in literature: “I feel not naturally drawn to what one calls literature, but I am strangely attracted by genuine fiction, i.e., fantastical invention” ( Letters 1:509). This explains his fascination with a text like Rider Haggard’s novel She: The History of an Adventure (1886-87), with its unmediated representation of the “anima.” As Jung himself noted: “Literary products of highly dubious merit are often of the greatest interest to the psychologist” ( Collected 15:87-88). Jung was also more preoccupied with dreams and fantasies, because he saw them as exclusively (purely) products of the unconscious, in contrast to literature, which he oddly believed, citing Joyce’s Ulysses as an example, was created “in the full light of consciousness” (15:123).

Issues of genre, period, and language were ignored or subjected to gross generalization as Jung searched for universals in texts as disparate as the fourth-century Shepherd of Hermas, the Divine Comedy, Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), E. T. A. Hoffman’s tales, Pierre Benoit’s L’Atlantide (1919-20), and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Hiawatha,” as well as works by Carl Spitteler and William Blake. But the great literary text for Jung’s life and work was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust , not because of its literary qualities but because he sensed that the drama expressed his own personal myth ( Letters 1:309-10). Further, the text offered confirmation (and poetic representation) of the only direct contribution Jung made to literary theory: a distinction between “psychological” and “visionary” texts ( Collected 15:89-90). This heuristic distinction was formed, however, solely on psychobiographical grounds: Did the text originate in, and remain principally shaped by, the author’s experience of consciousness and the personal unconscious or his or her experience at the level of the archetypal collective unconscious? And concomitantly, on which of these levels was the reader affected? Confirmation of this theory was Jung’s reading of Faust: part 1 was “psychological”; part 2, “visionary.”

Thus Jungian theory provided no clear avenue of access for those outside of psychology, and orthodox Jungians were left with little in the way of models for the psychological analysis of literature. Many fell prey to Jung’s idiosyncrasies as a reader, ranging widely and naively over genres, periods, and languages in search of the universal archetypes, while sweeping aside cultureand text-specific problems, ignoring their own role in the act of reading and basing critical evaluation solely on a text’s contribution to the advancement of the reader’s individuation process, a kind of literature-astherapy standard. This way of proceeding had the effect of putting, and keeping, archetypal criticism on the margins of academic discourse and outside the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines and departments.

Bettina Knapp’s 1984 effort at an authoritative demonstration of archetypal literary criticism exemplified this pattern. Her Jungian Approach to Literature attempts to cover the Finnish epic The Kalevala , the Persian Atar’s The Conference of the Birds , and texts by Euripides, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Michel de Montaigne, Pierre Corneille, Goethe, Novalis, Rabbi ben Simhah Nachman, and W. B. Yeats. And despite frequently perceptive readings, the work is marred by the characteristic limitless expansionism and psychological utilitarianism of her interpretive scheme.

Given this background, it is not surprising to find in a 1976 essay entitled “Jungian Psychology in Criticism: Theoretical Problems” the statement that “no purely Jungian criticism of literature has yet appeared” (Baird 22). But Jos van Meurs’s critically annotated 1988 bibliography, Jungian Literary Criticism, 1920-1980, effectively challenges this claim. Despite his deliberately selective focus on critical works written in English on literary texts that are, for the most part, also written in English, van Meurs, with the early assistance of John Kidd, has collected 902 entries, of which he identifies slightly over 80 as valid and valuable literary criticism.

While acknowledging the grave weaknesses of much Jungian writing on literature as “unsubtle and rigid application of preconceived psychological notions and schemes” resulting in “particularly ill-judged or distorted readings,” van Meurs still finds that “sensitively, flexibly and cautiously used, Jungian psychological theory may stimulate illuminating literary interpretations” (14-15). The critical annotations are astute and, given their brevity, surprisingly thorough and suggestive. Van Meurs also does a service by resurrecting successful but neglected early studies, such as Elizabeth Drew’s of T. S. Eliot (1949), and discovering value even in reductionist and impressionistic studies, such as June Singer’s of Blake. He notes that Singer’s Unholy Bible: A Psychological Interpretation of William Blake (1970), though oversimplified in its psychobiographical approach and its treatment of characters as psychological projections of the author, does make original use in a literary context of such Jungian techniques of dream interpretation as “amplification” and of such fantasy-evoking procedures as “active imagination.”

Van Meurs’s bibliography conveys the great variety of Jungian writings on literature even within one language, the increasingly recognized potential for further development and use of Jung’s ideas, and the growth in numbers of literary scholars falling under the influence of Jung. A few names form a core of writers in English (including many Canadians)—Martin Bickman, Albert Gelpi, Elliott Gose, Evelyn Hinz, Henry Murray, Barton L. St. Armand, Harold Schechter, and William Stein— though no single figure has attracted the attention of academic literary specialists, and no persistent commonalities fuse into a recognizable school critics who draw on Jung’s theories. To date, the British Journal of Analytical Psychology and the retitled American Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture are the best resources for archetypal criticism of literature and the arts even though only a small percentage of their published articles treat such topics.

Thus, with the archetypal theorists multiplying across disciplines on the one hand and the clinically practicing followers serving as (generally inadequate) critics on the other, archetypal literary theory and criticism flourished in two independent streams in the 1960s and 1970s. From the theorists, dissertations, articles, and books, often traditionally academic in orientation, appeared; the productions of the practitioners are chronicled and critiqued in van Meurs’s bibliography. And the 1980s saw a new, suggestive, and controversial direction in archetypal studies of literature: the feminist. With some of its advocates supported through early publication of their work in the journal Spring , feminist archetypal theory and criticism of literature and the arts emerged fullblown in three texts: Annis Pratt’s Archetypal Patterns in Women’s Fiction (1981), which self-consciously evoked and critiqued Maud Bodkin’s 1934 text; Estella Lauter’s Women as Mythmakers: Poetry and Visual Art by Twentieth Century Women (1984); and Estella Lauter and Carol Schreier Rupprecht’s Feminist Archetypal Theory: Interdisciplinary Re-Visions of Jungian Thought (1985). This last text explicitly named the movement and demonstrated its appropriation of archetypal theory for feminist ends in aesthetics, analysis, art, and religion, as well as in literature.

Feminist archetypal theory, proceeding inductively, restored Jung’s original emphasis on the fluid, dynamic nature of the archetype, drawing on earlier feminist theory as well as the work of Jungian Erich Neumann to reject absolutist, ahistorical, essentialist, and transcendentalist misinterpretations. Thus “archetype” is recognized as the “tendency to form and reform images in relation to certain kinds of repeated experience,” which may vary in individual cultures, authors, and readers (Lauter and Rupprecht 13-14). Considered according to this definition, the concept becomes a useful tool for literary analysis that explores the synthesis of the universal and the particular, seeks to define the parameters of social construction of gender, and attempts to construct theories of language, of the imaginal, and of meaning that take gender into account.

Ironically, as in the feminist revisioning of explicitly male-biased Jungian theory, the rise in the 1980s of Reader-response theory and criticism and the impetus for canon revision have begun to contribute to a revaluation of Jung as a source of literary study. New theoretical approaches appear to legitimize orthodox Jungian ways of reading, sanction Jung’s range of literary preferences from She to Faust , and support his highly affective reaction to Ulysses , which he himself identified (positively) as a “subjective confession” (i5:io9n). And new theories increasingly give credence to the requirement, historically asserted by Jungian readers, that each text elicit a personal, affective, and not “merely intellectual” response. Even French feminist Julia Kristeva has been brought to praise a Jungian contribution to feminist discourse on the maternal: recognition that the Catholic church’s change of signification in the assumption of the Virgin Mary to include her human body represented a major shift in attitude toward female corporaiity (113). In addition, many powerfully heuristic Jungian concepts, such as “synchronicity,” have yet to be tested in literary contexts.

Archetypal criticism, then, construed as that derived from Jung’s theory and practice of archetypal (analytical) psychology, is a fledgling and much misconstrued field of inquiry with significant but still unrealized potential for the study of literature and of aesthetics in general. Two publishing events at the beginning of the 1990s in the United States may signal the coming of age of this kind of archetypal criticism through its convergence with postmodern critical thought, along with a commensurate insistence on its roots in the depth psychology of Jung: the reissue of Morris Philipson’s 1963 Outline of a Jungian Aesthetic and the appearance of Karin Barnaby and Pellegrino D’Acerino’s multidisciplinary, multicultural collection of essays, C. G. Jung and the Humanities: Toward a Hermeneutics of Culture.

Myth Criticism of Northrop Frye

Bibliography James Hillman, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account (1983), Re-Visioning Psychology (1975); C. G. Jung, Collected Works (ed. Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, and Gerhard Adler, 20 vois., 1953-79), Letters (trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2 vois., 1973-75). James Baird, “Jungian Psychology in Criticism: Theoretical Problems,” Literary Criticism and Psychology (ed. Joseph P. Strelka, 1976); Karin Barnaby and Pellegrino D’Acerino, eds., C. G. Jung and the Humanities: Toward a Hermeneutics of Culture (1990); Martin Bickman, The Unsounded Centre: Jungian Studies in American Romanticism (1980); Maud Bodkin, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry: Psychological Studies in Imagination (1934); Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957); Albert Gelpi, The Tenth Muse: The Psyche of the American Poet (1975); Naomi Goldenberg, “Archetypal Theory after Jung,” Spring (1975); Julia Kristeva, “Stabat Mater” (1977, The Kristeva Reader, ed. Toril Moi, trans. Léon S. Roudiez, 1986); Estella Lauter and Carol Schreier Rupprecht, Feminist Archetypal Theory: Interdisciplinary Re-Visions of Jungian Thought (1985); Erich Neumann, Art and the Creative Unconscious: Four Essays (trans. Ralph Manheim, 1974); Morris Philipson, Outline of a Jungian Aesthetic (1963, reprint, 1991); Annis Pratt et al., Archetypal Patterns in Women’s Fiction (1981); Jos van Meurs and John Kidd, Jungian Literary Criticism, 1920-1980: An Annotated Critical Bibliography of Works in English (with a Selection of Titles after 1980) (1988); William K. Wimsatt, Jr., and Cleanth Brooks, Literary Criticism: A Short History (1957). Source: Groden, Michael, and Martin Kreiswirth. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

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Categories: Archetypal Criticism , Myth Criticism

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Definition of Archetype

An archetype is a literary device in which a character is created based on a set of qualities or traits that are specific and identifiable for readers. The term archetype is derived from the studies and writings of psychologist Carl Jung who believed that archetypes are part of humanity’s collective unconscious or memory of universal experiences. In a literary context , characters (and sometimes images or themes ) that symbolically embody universal meanings and basic human experiences, independent of time or place, are considered archetypes.

For example, one of the most common literary archetypes is the  Hero . The hero is generally the protagonist of a narrative and displays ubiquitous characteristics such as courage , perseverance, sacrifice, and rising to challenge. Though heroes may appear in different literary forms across time and culture, their characterization tends to be universal thus making them archetypal characters.

Common Examples and Descriptions of Literary Archetypes

As a rule, there are twelve primary character types that symbolize basic human motivations and represent literary archetypes. Here is a list of these example literary archetypes and their general descriptions:

• Lover: character guided by emotion and passion of the heart
• Hero : protagonist that rises to a challenge
• Outlaw: character that is rebellious or outside societal conventions or demands
• Magician: powerful character that understands and uses universal forces
• Explorer: character that is driven to explore the unknown and beyond boundaries
• Sage: character with wisdom, knowledge, or mentor qualities
• Creator:  visionary character that creates something significant
• Innocent:  “pure” character in terms of morality or intentions
• Caregiver:  supportive character that often sacrifices for others
• Jester:  Character that provides humor and comic relief with occasional wisdom
• Everyman:  Character recognized as average, relatable, found in everyday life
• Ruler:  Character with power of others, whether in terms of law or emotion

Examples of Archetype in Shakespearean Works

William Shakespeare utilized archetype frequently as a literary device in his plays. Here are some examples of archetype in Shakespearean works:

• Lover: Romeo (“Romeo and Juliet”), Juliet (“Romeo and Juliet”), Antony (“Antony and Cleopatra”)
• Hero : Othello (“Othello”), Hamlet (“Hamlet”), Macduff (“ Macbeth ”)
• Outlaw: Prince Hal (“Henry IV”), Edmund (“ King Lear ”), Falstaff (“Henry IV”)
• Magician: Prospero (“The Tempest”), The Witches (“Macbeth”), Soothsayer (“Julius Caesar”)
• Sage: Polonius (“Hamlet”), Friar Laurence (“Romeo and Juliet”), Gonzalo (“The Tempest”)
• Innocent: Viola (“ Twelfth Night ”), Ophelia (“Hamlet”), Hero (“Much Ado about Nothing”)
• Caregiver: Nurse (“Romeo and Juliet”), Mercutio (“Romeo and Juliet”), Ursula (“Much Ado about Nothing”)
• Jester: Touchstone (“As You Like It’), Feste (“Twelfth Night ”), Fool (“King Lear”)
• Everyman: Lucentio (“ The Taming of the Shrew ”), Valentine (“The Two Gentelmen of Verona”), Florizel (“The Winter ’s Tale”)
• Ruler: King Lear (“King Lear”), Claudius (“Hamlet”), Alonso (“The Tempest”)

Famous Examples of Archetype in Popular Culture

Think you don’t know of any famous archetypes? Here are some well-known examples of archetype in popular culture:

• Lovers: Ross and Rachel ( Friends ), Scarlett O’Hara ( Gone with the Wind ), Jack and Rose ( Titanic )
• Heroes: Frodo Baggins ( The Lord of the Rings ), Luke Skywalker ( Star Wars ), Mulan (Mulan)
• Outlaws: Han Solo ( Star Wars ), Star-Lord/Peter Quill ( Marvel Universe ), Ferris Bueller ( Ferris Bueller’s Day Off )
• Magicians: Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings), Dumbledore (Harry Potter ), Doctor Strange ( Marvel Universe )
• Explorers: Huck Finn ( The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ), Indiana Jones ( Indiana Jones ), Captain Kirk ( Star Trek )
• Sages: Atticus Finch ( To Kill a Mockingbird ), Jiminy Cricket (Disney’s  Pinocchio ), Obi-Wan Kenobi ( Star Wars )
• Creators: Victor Frankenstein ( Frankenstein ), Willy Wonka ( Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ), Daniel Plainview ( There Will Be Blood )
• Innocents: Tiny Tim ( A Christmas Carol ), Dorothy ( The Wizard of Oz ), Forrest Gump ( Forrest Gump )
• Caregivers: Mary Poppins ( Mary Poppins ), Alice ( The Brady Bunch ), Marge Simpson ( The Simpsons )
• Jesters: Donkey ( Shrek ), Kramer ( Seinfeld ), Eric Cartman ( Southpark )
• Everyman Characters: The Dude ( The Big Lebowski ), Homer Simpson ( The Simpsons ), Jim Halpert ( The Office )
• Rulers: Daenerys Targaryen ( Game of Thrones ), T’Challa/Black Panter ( Marvel Universe ), Don Corleone (The Godfather)

Difference Between Archetype and Stereotype

It can be difficult to distinguish the difference between archetype and stereotype when it comes to literary characters. In general, archetypes function as a literary device with the intent of complex characterization. They assign characters with specific qualities and traits that are identifiable and recognizable to readers of literary works. Stereotypes function more as limited and often negative labels assigned to characters.

For example, the movie “The Breakfast Club” features characters that are far more stereotypical than archetypal. This movie features five representations of “typical” teenagers such as a dumb jock, conceited rich girl, skinny nerd, misunderstood rebel, and disaffected slacker that are forced to spend time together. These representations include what may appear to be archetypes in that they are identifiable by the audience . However, they function much more as stereotypes in the sense that their characterization is oversimplified and primarily negative. The characters assume their given stereotypical roles rather than display the complex characterization generally demonstrated by archetypes.

Writing Archetype

Overall, as a literary device, archetype functions as a means of portraying characters with recurring and identifiable traits and qualities that span time and culture. This is effective for readers in that archetypes set up recognizable patterns of characterization in literary works. When a reader is able to identify an archetypal character, they can anticipate that character’s role and/or purpose in the narrative. This not only leads to expectations, but engagement as well on the part of the reader.

It’s essential that writers bear in mind that their audience must have a reasonably clear understanding of how the character reflects a particular archetype in order for it to be effective. If the characterization of the archetype is not made clear to the reader, then that level of literary meaning will be lost. Of course, archetypal characters can be complex and fully realized. However, they must be recognizable as such for the reader on some level.

Here are some ways that writers benefit from incorporating archetype into their work:

Establish Universal Characters

Archetypal characters are recurrent when it comes to human experience, especially in art. A literary archetype represents a character that appears universal and therefore gives readers a sense of recognition and familiarity. This ability to relate to an archetypal character alleviates a writer’s burden of excessive or unnecessary description, explanation, and exposition . Due to a reader’s experience, they are able to understand traits and characteristics of archetypes in literature in an almost instinctual way without detailed explication .

Establish Contrasting Characters

Archetypes can also help writers establish contrasting characters, sometimes known as foils . In general, a literary work does not feature just one archetypal character. Since readers have an awareness of the inherent and typical characteristics of an archetype, this can create contrast against other characters in the narrative that are either archetypes themselves or not. Therefore, writers are able to create conflict and contrast between characters that are logical and recognizable for the reader.

Examples of Archetype in Literature

Archetype is an effective literary device as a means of creating characters with which the reader can identify. Here are some examples of literary archetypes and how they add to the significance of well-known literary works:

Example 1: Nick Carraway: Everyman ( The Great Gatsby , F. Scott Fitzgerald)

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

In this passage, Fitzgerald establishes for the reader that Nick Carraway’s character is not just the narrator of the novel , but an “everyman” archetype as well. Though Nick’s father reminds him of “advantages” that he’s had, Nick is nevertheless considered the novel’s most relatable and “average” character. Therefore, as an everyman archetype, the reader is able to identify with Nick and consequently trust his observations and narration of the events of the story . This allows Nick’s character to influence the way in which the reader engages with the novel’s characters and events, as his everyman actions and interactions become vicarious experiences for Fitzgerald’s audience as well.

Example 2: Ma Joad: Caregiver ( The Grapes of Wrath , John Steinbeck)

Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman understanding. She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear, she had practiced denying them in herself.

In Steinbeck’s heart-breaking novel, the female characters represent a life force. This is epitomized by Ma Joad’s character as a “caregiver” archetype. Ma Joad is not only literally a caregiver in the sense that she is the mother of the protagonist and cares for her family, but she is also an archetypal caregiver in the sense that she makes sacrifices in order to care for others. Readers’ recognition of the characterization of Ma Joad as a caregiver allows Steinbeck to portray her as a traditional and symbolic mother figure.

However, Steinbeck elaborates on this archetype by portraying the effects of these caregiver traits on Ma Joad’s character. Rather than establishing her as a passive maternal character which would be identifiable and understood by a collective readership, Steinbeck reveals the universal consequences of this archetype’s traits on the character herself. Ma Joad is a universal character, yet her character also has a universal understanding and experience of tragedy and suffering. This makes her role and sacrifices as a caregiver even more meaningful.

Example 3: Sancho Panza: Jester ( Don Quixote , Miguel de Cervantes)

The most perceptive character in a play is the fool, because the man who wishes to seem simple cannot possibly be a simpleton.

In Miguel de Cervantes’ novel, Sancho Panza reflects the complexity and importance of the “jester” archetype. As Don Quixote’s sidekick, Sancho Panza provides humor and comic relief as a contrast to the title character’s idealism. However, as Sancho Panza’s character becomes more developed in the novel, his jester archetype develops as well into a voice of reason and example of empathy and loyalty. This is beneficial for the reader in that, though they are contrasting characters, Sancho Panza as a jester beside Don Quixote becomes a more legitimate and influential character. In turn, the jester archetype legitimizes the protagonist as well, making the novel’s fool the “most perceptive character.”

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• Wild Woman Archetype

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An Introduction to Archetypal Stories

If it works, it is true.

Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle (affiliate link)

Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water comments that:

…all true art has an iconic quality…. All artists reflect the time in which they live, but whether or not their work also has that universality which lives in any generation or culture is nothing we will know for many years…. If the artist reflects only his own culture, then his works will die with that culture. But if his works reflect the eternal and universal, they will revive.

What is an archetype? My dictionary offers three definitions:

1. A typical specimen.

2. An original model.

3. A universal or recurring symbol.

Structuring Your Novel (Amazon affiliate link)

As we discussed last week, the very shape of story itself is archetypal . Its structure, by whatever system you prefer to codify it , is a blueprint for life itself, both as a whole and in its many smaller integers. In future weeks, we’re going to be talking about some specific archetypal models (of which there are many) that you can use to discover, guide, and amplify the archetypes within your own stories. But today, let’s examine the intermediary ground— why it should be that story and archetype are so intertwined and what this means for you as a writer attempting to channel these deep patterns of human existence.

Story as Revelation

Many writers can speak to the experience of “receiving” a story. Much as Stephen King has famously described his own process, we don’t so much create our stories as we discover them. It is as if the bones, at least, are always there, and all we have to do is figure out how to dig them up. When the creation process is at its most powerful, we are “ in the zone ,” writing madly away, just hoping our fingers can move fast enough to get it all down before the inspiration fades.

Dr. Friedrich Dessauer, an atomic physicist at the turn of the 20th Century , mused that:

Man is a creature who depends entirely on revelation. In all his intellectual endeavor, he should always listen, always be intent to hear and see. He should not strive to superimpose the structure of his own mind, his systems of thought upon reality.

Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer (affiliate link)

I think Dessauer would agree with Jonathan Lehrer in Proust Was a Neuroscientist when Lehrer says:

Physics is useful for describing quarks and galaxies, neuroscience is useful for describing the brain, and art is useful for describing our actual experience.

Writers can easily attest to the delicate balance of uncovering life’s patterns as recorded in our collective story theories  so that we may better tap into them, but not so that we may superimpose them where our deeper wisdom and creativity knows they do not belong.

Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés (affiliate link)

In her book Women Who Run With the Wolves , a poetic exploration of the feminine journey via archetypal stories, psychologist and oral storyteller Clarissa Pinkola Estés speaks passionately to the storyteller’s (and indeed the human’s) responsibility to channel this archetypal inspiration:

Our work is to interpret this Life/Death/Life cycle, to live it as gracefully as we know how, to howl like a mad dog when we cannot—and to go on…. Although some use stories as entertainment alone, tales are, in their oldest sense, a healing art. Some are called to this healing art, and the best, to my lights, are those who have lain with the story and found all its matching parts inside themselves and at depth.

When writers first begin learning about archetypal story structure , they are often astonished (as I was) to examine their own stories and discover that these archetypes they’ve never heard of before are there already within their best stories— or waiting to be uncovered to help those stories find a truer voice.

How is it that even the most uneducated writers seem to have at least a glimmer of an understanding for these archetypes? Perhaps it is because these patterns are everywhere, and we necessarily absorb them by osmosis. Perhaps, as the depth psychologists would have it, it is because these archetypes reside in a collective unconscious. Or perhaps it is simply because as humans we resonate with the patterns of our existence and instinctively understand how to recreate them in our art.

Whatever the case, archetypal stories and characters have populated the greater archetypal mythologies of the human experience for as long as we can remember. As Willa Cather says in one of my favorite quotes ever:

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they never happened.

Mythological Character Archetypes

Writing Archetypal Character Arcs (affiliate link)

Most of what we specifically think of as character archetypes are found in the stories that have been mythologized, whether from history, religion, or folk and fairy tales. What we recognize as the origins for these stories and their characters are often simplistic, fantastical, and moralistic. They often repeat over and over again throughout the millennia, varied but always foundationally similar from culture to culture and era to era. Or as Estés put it:

That is the nature of archetypes… they leave an evidence, they wend their way into the stories, dreams, and ideas of mortals. There they become a universal theme, a set of instructions, dwelling who knows where, but crossing time and space to enwisen each new generation. There is a saying that stories have wings. They can fly over the Carpathian Mountains and lodge in the Urals. They then vault over to the Sierras and follow its spine over and hop to the Rockies, and so on.

The Art of Fiction by John Gardner (affiliate link)

In The Art of Fiction , writing instructor John Gardner distinguished “fables,” “yarns,” and “tales” as layers of story that move increasingly away from non-reality (i.e., fantasy) into the more nuanced and specific realms of realism. But even the hyper-realistic fiction of post-modernism rests upon the foundations of myth and its metaphors.

Psychologist James Hillman notes:

Mythology is a psychology of antiquity, psychology is a mythology of modernity.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell

When modern writers think about archetype, we are most likely to think of the now ubiquitous Hero’s Journey, made famous by Joseph Campbell’s mythological research in The Hero With a Thousand Faces and since codified by many writers (most notably Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey ) as a profoundly powerful archetypal character arc. The Hero’s Journey is a deeply metaphoric structure that finds its most literal representation in fantasy—with its often black-and-white representations of good and evil, complete with dragons, resurrections, kingdoms, and wizards. But it is found over and over again in story after story, whether fantastical or realistic, proving its versatility. (However, it is not the only archetypal character arc, and not even the most important one—which is what we will be discussing in the upcoming series, featuring six primary and serial arcs, of which the Hero’s Journey is the second.)

Archetype as the Path to Powerful Stories

So why do archetypes matter? To a writer, they matter for the most obvious reason that they are stories . But more than that, they are stories that work . The very fact that these patterns have not only stuck around over the years, but in fact have proven themselves to still be meaningful should be enough to perk up the ears of any writer. After all, that’s what we’re all hoping for in our own stories, isn’t it?

Like the structure of plot and character itself, archetypes offer writers insights into modalities of deeper and more resonant fiction . The mere pattern of an archetype is not resonance in itself (as the many cookie-cutter productions of the Hero’s Journey, ad nauseum, have proved). But the archetypes offer the storyteller a glimpse into some of the deeper insights and truths of humanity.

Gardner points out:

Fiction seeks out truth. Granted, it seeks a poetic kind of truth, universals not easily translatable into moral codes. But part of our interest as we read is in learning how the world works; how the conflicts we share with the writer and all other human beings can be resolved, if at all; what values we can affirm and, in general, what the moral risks are. The writer who can’t distinguish truth from a peanut-butter sandwich can never write good fiction. What he affirms we deny, throwing away his book in indignation; or if he affirms nothing, not even our oneness in sad or comic helplessness, and insists that he’s perfectly right to do so, we confute him by closing his book.

More than that, archetypes—particularly the specific archetypal character arcs that represent the human life—have the potential to offer writers and readers alike a subconscious road map to our own initiatory journeys through life.

Creating Character Arcs

That has been my own experience with these archetypal character arcs. Merely in coming to a recognition of them (and particularly that the Hero’s Journey is one of many and where it fits within the pattern—and therefore within my own life as well as my characters’), I have personally found just as many gifts as a person as I have as a writer.

Campbell says it as well as anyone:

The tribal ceremonies of birth, initiation, marriage, burial, installation, and so forth, serve to translate the individuals’ life-crises and life-deeds into classic, impersonal forms. They disclose him to himself, not as this personality or that, but as the warrior, the bride, the widow, the priest, the chieftain; at the same time rehearsing for the rest of the community the old lesson of the archetypal stages. All participate in the ceremonial according to rank and function. The whole society becomes visible to itself as an imperishable living unit. Generations of individuals pass, like anonymous cells from a living body; but the sustaining, timeless form remains. By an enlargement of vision to embrace this super-individual, each discovers himself enhanced, enriched, supported, and magnified. His role, however unimpressive, is seen to be intrinsic to the beautiful festival-image of man—the image, potential yet necessarily inhibited within himself.

Whether we are writing about falling in love in a YA novel, fighting dragons in a fantasy, making peace with adult children in contemporary fiction, ruling a corrupt dynasty in a historical novel, or conversing with the moon in magical realism—we are all writing about our own experiences of the world and, by extension if we write well and truly enough, everyone else’s experiences as well.

The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass

In closing, here is one last quote, this one from Donald Maass’s wonderful Emotional Craft of Fiction :

You may think you are telling your characters’ stories, but actually you are telling us ours.

Stay tuned: Next week, we will officially kick off the series on archetypal character arcs with an introduction to the six primary Positive Change Arc character archetypes we will be studying.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What has been your experience reading, viewing, or writing archetypal stories? Tell me in the comments!

Go on the journey with your characters! Check out the Archetypal Character Guided Meditations .

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in Apple Podcast or Amazon Music ).

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K.M. Weiland is the award-winning and internationally-published author of the acclaimed writing guides Outlining Your Novel , Structuring Your Novel , and Creating Character Arcs . A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and fantasy novels and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

I was writing archetypal stories before I knew the word existed or its meaning. I sometimes wish I could regain that innocence because I sometimes feel I am so self-aware of all the “theory” behind the writing it has ruined my ability to be creative. Then I think that I am only immature when it comes to writing. It’s my own fault because I never did enough of the work. I never put in my “10,000-hour rule”. Maybe 2 or 3, even 4 thousand if that. That is the dark hole I find myself in looking up at that pinhole-size of light. Then I take a breath, hit the reboot button, and start again. With the most recent story I am wiring, a nightmare theme that deals with how parents experience unimaginable acts of violence committed by their children, it’s forced me to mediate on my own experience of trauma growing up and how it has made me what I am and if I am not careful and self-aware, how might that have affected my own children. I also wonder how many archetypes I am still incorporating into my story and in being aware of them, how can I, should I, subvert them. I realize that the most important archetype I am working with here is the one of “the wounded healer” Carl Jung is quoted as saying…”a good half of every treatment that probes at all deeply consists in the doctor’s examining himself… it is his own hurt that gives a measure of his power to heal. This, and nothing else, is the meaning of the Greek myth of the wounded physician.” He was referring to Greek mythology’s, Chiron, the centaur, who was poisoned with an incurable wound by one of Hercules’s arrows. Jung mentioned the Chiron myth “wounding by one’s own arrow means, first of all, the state of introversion” It’s not ironic then that I was always more interested in Jung than in Freud. What I also liked about Jung’s psychology is his acceptable that there is danger in becoming conscious of one’s own wounds. Making one’s self vulnerable to other people’s wounds puts yourself in a position to become infected by it, but also infecting the other with your own wounds. Jung’s closest colleague, Marie Louise Von Franz, said “the wounded healer IS the archetype of the Self [our wholeness, the God within] and is at the bottom of all genuine healing procedures.” So this is the archetype I am working with in my story, since my story is sort of an ensemble cast in that I provide glimpses into how the antagonist and supporting characters are going through the same thing as the protagonist as they act out how they think is the best way to deal with the unimaginable.

I love your introspection. I’m writing a story about the PTSD of surviving an alcoholic home, and the power of the father/alcoholic in the psyche of his son. Of course, it’s persona and hard to wade into. Such a morass! I like the idea of the wounded healer. I’m in AA and that’s what AA is all about. We are all wounded healers trying to help each other. Thanks.

Thank you Frank…I think maybe it’s been taking me so long with this story is 1) how to structure it (KW, thanks for your instructional book Structuring Your Novel! It is so so so helpful) 2) my own laziness and writers block 3) the subject matter is very painful – not just in terms of autobiographical but in the research I do with respect to abusive/neglectful parents – how to make someone like this the protagonist? – as well as it manifests in people who are not coping with trauma – the notion that parents can have thoughts about regretting that they had children – or who resent their children and living with that tension that they love them too. And satisfying all the tropes of the horror genre. I’m looking for redemption for any of my characters!

My protagonist and antagonist are both in recovery which is what makes them identity with one another and makes both of them outcasts too with their community. It makes them harder to battle with one another against a “common” enemy.

I think you’re mining lots of great archetypal potential here!

I love this post. I love archetypes. I remember I was really happy and excited when I realized that the Hero’s Journey existed, and that `Star Wars’ followed it. That was not long after the first `Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie came out, and I spent a long happy while figuring out that it ALSO follows the Hero Journey, with Captain Jack Sparrow taking on the role of mentor figure. It really widened archetypes for me- the realization that an arch-typical role didn’t have to LOOK familiar. Their role is defined by their place in the story, not their trappings.

Sparrow is mentor and a trickster all at once. Very unique character in this way.

Yes, we can not only portray archetype effectively in classic ways, but also by subverting them.

Honestly, I haven’t thought about archetypal stories much, but I guess I wrote some in the past. For example, the coming-of-age story I used to work on about my character Cynthia Carson. It was a story that took place from the 1930s to the 1960s. I’m thinking of revising it in another story under a different title and storyline, at least the part of the 1960s during her young adulthood. Anyway, in the 1950s during her teen years, I had a lot of archetypes: the bully, the MVP, the popular cheerleader, the nerd, etc.) Some of these are actually in my debut novel “With You Forever’ which I mentioned during Eva’s class reunion.

And I’m sure some books I’ve read have some archetypes too, such as Mama Flora’s Family. In the story, Flora has two sons (Willie & Luke) from different fathers. Willie struggles to make ends meet and was raised without his father who was killed when he was a baby, and Luke is a successful lawyer and was raised without Flora when he was taken away after birth. The brothers clash over their differences, as Willie dropped out of school to help support his mother and cousin/sister Ruthana. Years later, Don, Willie’s oldest son gets trapped in gambling, flashy clothing, and all the other things Willie was involved in, repeating the same lifestyle, which is another form of archetype too. These are just some of my examples of writing and reading archetypal stories.

I love this premise as it is seemingly based in the real and at the same time an expression of archetype. What comes to mind when I consider a story that is plausibly based in the world as we know is, ironically, the movie Stranger Than Fiction, with Will Farrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. Farrell is a character in Thompson’s novel as she writes it and he comes to be aware that he is the character. He goes to Hoffman, a literature professor who initially asks Farrell questions about himself. After answering the questions, Hoffmann reveals he has been trying to pinpoint what type of story he is in and what type of archetypal character he is. This for me shows how we are all archetypal characters in our own stories (of our own creation or someone else’s?) in our everyday lives.

Great movie for writers.

Yessss!!! Love that movie!

Brilliant start to this series, Katie. And I assume there will be a book at some point? 😉

You never know. 😉

I hope you write a book on this!

cool. I was watching a movie the other day with my family and by the midpoint I knew that the story was one of those… Ambitious protagonist who has friends and a family but lies to himself that he needs more and gets that by the first plot point, but by the midpoint starts neglecting his friends and family and becomes a jerk up until the end were he realizes that he had everything he ever needed right there in the beginning Everyone else in my family was blown away, HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT. I was just sitting back on the couch. “Idk. I guess I just saw that same thing before in a ton of other movies like The greatest showman, high school musical 2, and Sky high.

Watch it. Pretty soon they won’t want to watch movies with you anymore. 😉

Guilty… lol

My partner and I went to see “The Force Awakens” at the cinema. In the middle of the movie there was a scene in which Han and Leia were talking and Han promises to Leia that he will bring their son home.

I turned to my partner and whispered “Han’s going to die.”

My partner thought I’d seen a spoiler online.

The more you study story structure and layout, the more you’ll find yourself predicting the key events of movies. You may never be able to watch one the same way again.

Not that understanding ruins my appreciation of books and movies, but I have to stop myself from criticizing them. The bottom line is that books and movies are made for entertainment and it is a business. Writers want to make a living working at their craft. Publishers want to make money off of their investment in the writer. There is fine line crafting a story that will sell, receive enough “buzz” from critics and fans, while adding something “new” to the genre and format. But is it too much to expect as a reader or viewer that the next new book or movie we watch is crafted well enough to the sophisticated audience that it somehow breaks new ground or is there just to satisfy our need for entertainment? I watch movies and read books as throwback stories and don’t expect the creators to redefine the genre. Whether or not a story breaks new ground is something that is not know and can only be done if it can stand the test of time. But we are told that the next thing is the next “new” thing. I expect that archetypes are familiar enough to engage me or retain my interest but don’t expect too much from the creators in breaking new ground.

Yes, I think about this sometimes too—how I get bored with the “same ol” in new stories but can watch the old movies that originated the tropes over and over again.

K.M., would you list the old movies that originated the tropes? I would love to see what you mean.

Hard to make a definitive list, since both the tropes and the movies are myriad. But it’s always instructive to watch old classics– Casablanca , It’s a Wonderful Life , All About Eve , etc.–to see how they laid the groundwork for everything to follow.

If what Willa Cather says is true in one of her quotes:

Then why should we as authors bust our butts to be original? What is the point of repeating these three stories? Did I miss something in this essay?

Originality is built on top of the familiar. It’s variation on a theme. Human lives themselves are *not* original: we are all born, we all live, we all die. But the variations within our lives make them unique. Some of us are writers. Some are inventors. Some are parents. Etc.

You might enjoy these posts: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/?s=original

Thank you for the link. It was most enlightening and from it I have discovered (creative wise) I have done some things right in my book.

I love guitars and appreciative of finely crafted ones. I am intrigued by the concept of the perfect guitar one that is not only is easy to play physically, but is also an uninhibited extension of the guitarists’ spirit.

I also like elves, giants, and dragons and so have included them in my book.

I also like magic and have it in my book.

I’m interested in questions of morality. Is it ever Godly to kill?

I’m interested in forgiveness and redemption.

I love food and so does my protagonist.

I love the French language and names which I have also included.

I also know that most of my love loves and interests are considered no nos in today’s marketing schemes, but I feel compelled to include them anyway. To not to do so feels cowardly and dishonest.

One item I’m not passionate about is marketing which is my downfall.

This year, I will deal with it.

You can also love marketing. Just think of it as another food course.

Marketing is like liver: it’s suppose to be good for you, but the taste is nasty. I don’t like liver.

Haha. Well, you’re not alone as an author who struggles with a relationship to marketing. 😉

“‘You may think you are telling your characters’ stories, but actually you are telling us ours.'”

Don’t tell my family this. Then they’ll think that I spend all my time in my room or outside because I’m a superhero. : D

Always an appropriate alter-ego for a writer. 😉

I’m so excited by this new series! Many years ago I listened to a collection of Joseph Campbell audio tapes (yes, a long, long time ago) on Archetypes and was fascinated. Most of what I learned has probably evaporated so am keen to revisit.

Love your curiosity and compassion for the craft and for teaching, Katy. You’re brilliant – thank you.

My ears are perked!

Yes, there will be quite a few Campbell references coming up! It would be hard to discuss this subject without doing so.

The serendipitous timing of your posts astounds me. I’ve only recently begun searching out archetypes, trying to understand why they are so important. I decided some months ago to write a fairytale, (as a conscious objection to the stress that COVID has imposed on my work for the last, never-ending year) but simplifying the narrative form means that structure actually matters more. Theme matters more. I’ve known about the Hero’s Journey forever, but never examined it in detail until now. I find it very funny that you keep referencing books I’ve just discovered as I flounder, trying to figure out what I’m missing.

Maybe you can recommend some new ones to me too!

Whether lovers or heroes, sages or outlaws, jesters or commoners, the archetypes are all aspects of life and personality common to us all.

The innocent sins and his conscience awakens to lead him down the road to wisdom that renders him a sage. The commoner among us meets a beautiful woman and becomes first a lover, then a ruler of sorts as parents rule over children. That steadfast couple’s struggle to care for family and friends makes them affluent, but then thieves take success and prosperity from them, killing the husband as they do. Our steadfast wife then becomes an outlaw to and provide for her children. One of their innocent children grows into the hero who repays the thieves and restores the family’s standing. We each experience many archetypical qualities and phases throughout life.

Jung postulates that archetypes are part of a “collective unconscious” where humans share memories of universal experience. With all due respect to Mr. Jung, that seems unfounded mysticism to me. At different times we are all the innocent, the caregiver, the nobleman, the hero, the outlaw, jester, commoner, ruler, lover and sage, and it is in those aspects of being that we find our best writing. When our words drip life into any such part of ourselves as we leave on the page, that is when we bring an archetype to life and become creators (yes I know, another archetype).

Beautifully put!

I love this series, Katie. It really speaks to my interest in stories and archetypes. I read Women Who Run with the Wolves many moons ago… so good! I will have to revisit it now. Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung fascinated me in high school. Makes a lot of sense to me now thinking about how adolescence is such a time of figuring out who we are and what our stories are and will be. And understanding that we are so connected. Lots to think about.

Yes, so many good authors to explore!

I know Carl Jung said archetypes are part of a “collective unconscious” where humans share memories of universal experience. With all due respect to Mr. Jung, that seems unfounded mysticism to me. After all, the seasons of our lives take us through many of the mythical archetypes in their natural course. We begin as The Innocent and through the natural course of our mistakes and sins, our conscience awakens and so the journey to wisdom begins. This eventually leads some of us to become The Sage in our elder years. Along the way, we encounter evil that tries to wrest any success we have from us so that men can prosper without work. In the call to oppose evil, we may play the part of The Hero from time to time, and if the evil is within a governing body, we may perhaps play The Outlaw for a time as well. As we grow, we meet that man or woman we just can’t live without and marry up to settle down, becoming The Lover. As children arrive on the scene, we also spend time as The Ruler, rather like miniature versions of loving kings or queens. In raising them we understand the role of The Caregiver. I personally have been The Jester at times, haven’t we all? But I realized somewhere along the way that all people are beautiful things and powerful, ready to surprise you with how they exceed my own little life. Truly I am The Everyman. I hope I bring these to my writing, but alas, I remain unpublished. Perhaps I will never be The Artist.

You’re an Artist whether you publish or not. That’s something else I want to post on later this year (way later) after I finish this series.

I tried to post something last night and it didn’t go up right away. When it did post, I didn’t see it and it was under the name “Ja.” Sorry about that. I didn’t discover the error until tonight when I was reading through the posts. Anyway, when it didn’t initially post, I rewrote it and posted again, so since the two posts are almost the same, you may want to delete one. Thanks for telling me the first post was beautifully put by the way. I’m not sure where I made the mistake that kept it from posting correctly, but I’m sorry about that.

No problem!

Dear Ms Weiland, I love your beautifully crafted posts. And look at the marvellous comments they attract. What stimulating pages. You relate aesthetics to all kinds of writers. Thank you, Ianet Bastyan

Thanks for contributing yourself! 🙂

“Next week, we will officially kick off the series on archetypal character arcs with an introduction to the six primary Positive Change Arc character archetypes we will be studying.”

Do you think you’ll be covering Negative Change Arc archetypes at some point? I loves me some tragedy, and would love to dig into how we get from “Oedipus Rex” and “King Lear” to “Attack on Titan” and “Madoka Magica” (anime references; ask the kids).

Yes, the series will be a lengthy one that will also discuss “negative” shadow archetypes as well as “flat” or resting archetypes.

This sounds a great series. I am really looking forward to it.

Is Star Wars still revered because it got archetypes better than its imitators or just because it was more or less first on the Hero’s Journey? The beat I always think about is Han leaving- cause Harrison Ford is VERY convincing in that scene – and suddenly showing back up to save Luke. This is a great beat and I have never seen it done as effectively since. I think that is because Han shot Greedo, clearly showing he is an Outlaw only innit for himself. So I’m wondering: does this work due to careful writing, the novelty factor or because I was a kid when I saw it and was easily convinced?

A little of both, I think.

Such a fascinating discussion! I will definitely have to re-visit this post or queue up the podcast in the future 🙂 I remember my dad talking to me about archetypes when I was younger, and I like to think through them when it comes to making stories but I’ve never intentionally weaved them into my stories. I love how you talk about digging deeper and how fiction and these archetypes explore our humanity. Fantastic! 🙂

Yes, I’m sure you’re probably using them without even realizing it. There *are* many different types of archetypes. This series will only explore a few possible ones.

Not hating on your craft or anything negative, but I need to express that I’m not someone that archetypes work for. I consider all my characters their own people, regardless of how simple they seem or whether they even affect anything. Archetypes seem to box them in. But it’s mainly this one. (it may work for other stories I’d make to pass the time) A standalone fanfiction of my many characters, for lack of better word. Also, could you point me to your sources on villain motivation?

We’ve all got to find what works for us, absolutely. However, I would suggest that if you’re finding archetypes limiting, it may be because you’re interacting with them more as stereotypes.

As for antagonist motivation, you might find this post helpful: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/antagonists-motivations/

[…] are certain over-arching decisions to be made about your story. K.M. Weiland gives an introduction to archetypal stories, Clare Langley-Hawthorne looks at tense in a novel, and Tiffany Yates Martin demystifies the […]

[…] Here’s a link to the general overview of the ideas. To sum it up quickly, this is a sequence of six archetypes (including the Hero’s arc that is typical of a lot of stories) that can help guide characters through the major change arcs of life. It includes the negative reflections of those arcs, how the character might become twisted, and the kinds of antagonists they’ll face that are tailored to the struggles that they have. It also includes a series of flat arcs that go between each of the archetypes. Flat arcs being those where the character already knows the essential truth of the story and doesn’t need to change as much as they need to act on what they already know. […]

[…] An Introduction to Archetypal Stories […]

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• Literary Terms
• When & How to Write Archetypes
• Definition & Examples

How to write Archetypes

If you write stories, you’re probably already using archetypes without realizing it. These characters , symbols , and situations seem to bubble up from every human being’s subconscious mind when we create stories. That’s why so many of the world’s mythologies have similar plot lines and characters . Once you understand the concept of archetypes, you can look through your own writing to see which archetypes are most compelling to you. Perhaps you frequently write archetypal heroes (ordinary people called to adventure who are then transformed by that adventure). Or maybe there are symbolic archetypes, such as trees or rivers, that appear more frequently in your writing.

When to use Archetypes

Archetypes make for some of the best inspiration. When you’re writing a story, it’s often helpful to think about which archetypes you’d like to throw into it. Is your main character a hero? Or an anti-hero? Is there a trickster somewhere in the story? If so, does he/she ultimately end up being evil, or good? You can select archetypes the way a chef selects spices – experimenting with new combinations to see how the archetypes interact with each other within the story.

Although archetypes usually appear in fictional stories and myths , they may also have a place in non-fiction writing, especially biographies. If you’re writing a biography of a historical figure, say, you may gain insight into the story by thinking about which archetype the person best fits. If you were writing about Napoleon, for example, you might write him as an archetypal hero (emphasizing his ordinary upbringing and his call to adventure), or you might write him as a trickster (emphasizing the way that he embodied self-contradictions and appeared to have different attributes in different situations).

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
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Archetypes in The Dubliners

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Analysis of The Archetypes Presented in The Handmaid's Tale

Ambition without passion in goodman's "the company man", main features depicted in bastogne, what is a monster, relevant topics.

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What is an Archetype — Definition & Examples in Storytelling

W hat is an archetype? Archetypes play an integral role in how people understand each other – but what are they? We’re going to answer that question as we define archetype, then we’ll look at some archetype examples from classic literature and film. By the end, you’ll know why archetypes are so important for storytellers – and why they might explain something innate about the human condition.

Archetype Definition

First, let’s define archetype.

Archetypes may not have been formally defined until the 20th century, but they existed far before then. Archetypes are simply patterns that connect us across time and place. We’re going to look at some archetype examples in a bit – but first let’s formally outline an archetype definition.

ARCHETYPE DEFINITION

What is an archetype.

An archetype is a pattern that connects the people of the world across time and culture. The idea of the archetype was conceived by Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. In writing, archetypes are characters or symbols that are recognizable irrespective of their place or time of origin. 

Iconic Archetypes

• The Wise Old Man

For more on the foundation of archetypes, check out the video that asks, “What is an Archetype?” below.

What is an Archetype?

So, is an archetype simply a pattern? Well, yes and no.

It is a pattern, but it’s also something more than that. Many argue archetypes are intrinsic to human nature. Now let's look at some examples of these archetypal patterns in characters and symbols.

WHAT IS AN ARCHETYPE CHARACTER

Guide to archetypal characters .

As storytellers, we rely on archetypal characters to bridge the gap between people of different cultures. Take the hero for example: the hero is a character archetype that’s existed in stories all over the world for thousands of years.

And it existed in spite of the fact that there was little possibility that some communities were privy to the stories created by other communities. Take Gilgamesh for example – the character many historians regard as the first hero, and a direct inspiration for  Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey .

The Epic of Gilgamesh  established a stereotypically flawed hero that subsequently influenced Egyptian mythology and other river valley civilizations, via oral tradition. But why were other “Gilgamesh-esh” characters conceived in other parts of the world irrespective of the knowledge of their origin? Largely because they were archetypical – aka universally relatable.

Through a historical lens, we can see that heroic characters were conceived by Asian, European, African, and communities irrespective of one another. The hero is actually a subset of “the leader” archetype. For more on “the leader,” check out our video essay below.

Walter White is an Example of an Archetype  •   Subscribe on YouTube

Other subsets of the leader character type include: the antihero and the villain. In our video essay, we argue that “conflict is drama, drama is interesting, and leaders are conflict machines.” Thus, the leader is the perfect archetypal character for communicating drama. 

There are a lot of character types though. For more on this subject, check out our article on Character Archetypes Examples in Lit. & Film . 

Definition of Symbolic Patterns

Guide to archetypal symbols.

Archetypes aren’t just characters, they can be symbols or situations too. Anthropologists study patterns from different places and eras, to better understand world history. On a more micro level, this video looks at how symbols can influence cognition standards.

What is an Archetype? by Casual Cognition

Essentially, archetypes can affect the world on a macro and micro level. They can also explain innate aspects of the human mind. Think about it: if a star symbol that was discovered in different cultures around the world, is it possible that alien civilizations could use the same star symbol too? Or is the symbol simply a product of human creation? It’s fascinating stuff – and useful to think about for storytellers and anthropologists.

Archetypal Uses

What is the purpose of archetypes.

These archetypal patterns are universal and repeated ideas/symbols that unite the people of the world across time and space. We often focus on things that make us different from one another – but these patterns remind us that there’s an innateness of the human condition that makes us the same. 

Just take what writer/director Bong Joon-Ho had to say after he won out at the Golden Globes for Parasite :

I think we use only just one language: the cinema.

— Boog Joon-Ho

Cinema is just one medium through which we communicate the patterns that bind us together – there are dozens more. And whether you know it in the moment or not, you’re likely perpetuating archetypes everyday.

Related Posts

• What is Characterization? →
• Explaining the Mary Sue Character Trope →
• How the Foil Character Type Reveals Your Protagonist →

Archetype Examples in Lit. & Movies

We briefly touched on some of the different types of archetypal patterns, but there’s a lot more to characters than what we went over here. Up next, we break down a variety of examples from literature and movies. Follow along as we examine characters in Breaking Bad , The Lord of the Rings , and more.

Up Next: Character Types Explained →

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The Hero’s Journey Ultimate Writing Guide with Examples

by Alex Cabal

What do Star Wars , The Hobbit , and Harry Potter have in common? They’re all examples of a story archetype as old as time. You’ll see this universal narrative structure in books, films, and even video games.

This ultimate Hero’s Journey writing guide will define and explore all quintessential elements of the Hero’s Journey—character archetypes, themes, symbolism, the three act structure, as well as 12 stages of the Hero’s Journey. We’ll even provide a downloadable plot template, tips for writing the Hero’s Journey, and writing prompts to get the creative juices flowing.

What is the Hero’s Journey?

The Hero’s Journey is a universal story structure that follows the personal metamorphosis and psychological development of a protagonist on a heroic adventure. The protagonist goes through a series of stages to overcome adversity and complete a quest to attain an ultimate reward—whether that’s something tangible, like the holy grail, or something internal, like self confidence.

In the process of self-discovery, the archetypal Hero’s Journey is typically cyclical; it begins and ends in the same place (Think Frodo leaving and then returning to the Shire). After the epic quest or adventure has been completed by overcoming adversity and conflict—both physical and mental—the hero arrives where they once began, changed in some as they rose to meet the ultimate conflict or ordeal of the quest.

Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler

The Hero’s Journey has a long history of conversation around the form and its uses, with notable contributors including Joseph Campbell and the screenwriter Christopher Vogler , who later revised the steps of the Hero’s Journey.

Joseph Campbell’s “monomyth” framework is the traditional story structure of the Hero’s Journey archetype. Campbell developed it through analysis of ancient myths, folktales, and religious stories. It generally follows three acts in a cyclical, rather than a linear, way: a hero embarks on a journey, faces a crisis, and then returns home transformed and victorious.

Campbell’s ideation of the monomyth in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces was influenced by Carl Jung’s perspective of psychology and models of self-transformation , where the Hero’s Journey is a path of transformation to a higher self, psychological healing, and spiritual growth.

While Campbell’s original take on the monomyth included 17 steps within the three acts, Christopher Vogler, in his book The Writer’s Journey , refined those 17 steps into 12 stages—the common formula for the modern structure many writers use today.

It’s also worth checking out Maureen Murdock’s work on the archetype, “The Heroine’s Journey.” This takes a look at the female Hero’s Journey, which examines the traditionally masculine journey through a feminist lens.

Hero’s Journey diagram: acts, steps, and stages

Below, you can see the way Volger’s Hero’s Journey is broken into twelve story beats across three acts.

Why is the Hero’s Journey so popular?

The structure of the Hero’s Journey appears in many of our most beloved classic stories, and it continues to resonate over time because it explores the concept of personal transformation and growth through both physical and mental trials and tribulations. In some sense, every individual in this mythic structure experiences rites of passage, the search for home and the true authentic self, which is mirrored in a protagonist’s journey of overcoming obstacles while seeking to fulfill a goal.

Additionally, the Hero’s Journey typically includes commonly shared symbols and aspects of the human psyche—the trickster, the mother, the child, etc. These archetypes play a role in creating a story that the reader can recognize from similar dynamics in their own relationships, experiences, and familiar world. Archetypes allow the writer to use these “metaphorical truths”—a playful deceiver, a maternal bond, a person of innocence and purity—to deeply and empathetically connect with the reader through symbolism. That’s why they continue to appear in countless stories all around the world.

Hero’s Journey character archetypes

Character archetypes are literary devices based on a set of qualities that are easy for a reader to identify, empathize with, and understand, as these qualities and traits are common to the human experience.

It should be noted that character archetypes are not stereotypes . While stereotypes are oversimplifications of demographics or personality traits, an archetype is a symbol of a universal type of character that can be recognized either in one’s self or in others in real life.

The following archetypes are commonly used in a Hero’s Journey:

The hero is typically the protagonist or principal point-of-view character within a story. The hero transforms—internally, externally, often both—while on their journey as they experience tests and trials and are aided or hindered by the other archetypes they encounter. In general, the hero must rise to the challenge and at some point make an act of sacrifice for the ultimate greater good. In this way, the Hero’s Journey represents the reader’s own everyday battles and their power to overcome them.

Heroes may be willing or unwilling. Some can be downright unheroic to begin with. Antiheroes are notably flawed characters that must grow significantly before they achieve the status of true hero.

The mentor often possesses divine wisdom or direct experience with the special world, and has faith in the hero. They often give the hero a gift or supernatural aid, which is usually something important for the quest: either a weapon to destroy a monster, or a talisman to enlighten the hero. The mentor may also directly aid the hero or present challenges to them that force internal or external growth. After their meeting, the hero leaves stronger and better prepared for the road ahead.

The herald is the “call to adventure.” They announce the coming of significant change and become the reason the hero ventures out onto a mysterious adventure. The herald is a catalyst that enters the story and makes it impossible for the hero to remain in status quo. Existing in the form of a person or an event, or sometimes just as information, they shift the hero’s balance and change their world.

The Threshold Guardian

This archetype guards the first threshold—the major turning point of the story where the hero must make the true commitment of the journey and embark on their quest to achieve their destiny. Threshold guardians spice up the story by providing obstacles the hero must overcome, but they’re usually not the main antagonist.

The role of the threshold guardian is to help round out the hero along their journey. The threshold guardian will test the hero’s determination and commitment and will drive them forward as the hero enters the next stage of their journey, assisting the development of the hero’s character arc within the plot. The threshold guardian can be a friend who doesn’t believe in the hero’s quest, or a foe that makes the hero question themselves, their desires, or motives in an attempt to deter the hero from their journey. Ultimately, the role of the threshold guardian is to test the hero’s resolve on their quest.

The Shape Shifter

The shape shifter adds dramatic tension to the story and provides the hero with a puzzle to solve. They can seem to be one thing, but in fact be something else. They bring doubt and suspense to the story and test the hero’s ability to discern their path. The shape shifter may be a lover, friend, ally, or enemy that somehow reveals their true self from the hero’s preconceived notion. This often causes the hero internal turmoil, or creates additional challenges and tests to overcome.

The shadow is the “monster under the bed,” and could be repressed feelings, deep trauma, or festering guilt. These all possess the dark energy of the shadow. It is the dark force of the unexpressed, unrealized, rejected, feared aspects of the hero and is often, but not necessarily, represented by the main antagonist or villain.

However, other characters may take the form of the shadow at different stages of the story as “foil characters” that contrast against the hero. They might also represent what could happen if the hero fails to learn, transform, and grow to complete their quest. At times, a hero may even succumb to the shadow, from which they will need to make sacrifices to be redeemed to continue on their overall quest.

The Trickster

The trickster is the jester or fool of the story that not only provides comic relief, but may also act as a commentator as the events of the plot unfold. Tricksters are typically witty, clever, spontaneous, and sometimes even ridiculous. The trickster within a story can bring a light-hearted element to a challenge, or find a clever way to overcome an obstacle.

Hero’s Journey themes and symbols

Alongside character archetypes, there are also archetypes for settings, situations, and symbolic items that can offer meaning to the world within the story or support your story’s theme.

Archetypes of themes, symbols, and situations represent shared patterns of human existence. This familiarity can provide the reader insight into the deeper meaning of a story without the writer needing to explicitly tell them. There are a great number of archetypes and symbols that can be used to reinforce a theme. Some that are common to the Hero’s Journey include:

Situational archetypes

Light vs. dark and the battle of good vs. evil

Death, rebirth, and transformation in the cycle of life

Nature vs. technology, and the evolution of humanity

Rags to riches or vice versa, as commentary on the material world and social status

Wisdom vs. knowledge and innocence vs. experience, in the understanding of intuition and learned experience

Setting archetypes

Gardens may represent the taming of nature, or living in harmony with nature.

Forests may represent reconnection with nature or wildness, or the fear of the unknown.

Cities or small towns may represent humanity at its best and at its worst. A small town may offer comfort and rest, while simultaneously offering judgment; a city may represent danger while simultaneously championing diversity of ideas, beings, and cultures.

Water and fire within a landscape may represent danger, change, purification, and cleansing.

Symbolic items

Items of the past self. These items are generally tokens from home that remind the hero of where they came from and who or what they’re fighting for.

Gifts to the hero. These items may be given to the hero from a mentor, ally, or even a minor character they meet along the way. These items are typically hero talismans, and may or may not be magical, but will aid the hero on their journey.

Found items. These items are typically found along the journey and represent some sort of growth or change within the hero. After all, the hero would never have found the item had they not left their everyday life behind. These items may immediately seem unimportant, but often carry great significance.

Earned rewards. These items are generally earned by overcoming a test or trial, and often represent growth, or give aid in future trials, tests, and conflicts.

The three act structure of the Hero’s Journey

The structure of the Hero’s Journey, including all 12 steps, can be grouped into three stages that encompass each phase of the journey. These acts follow the the external and internal arc of the hero—the beginning, the initiation and transformation, and the return home.

Act One: Departure (Steps 1—5)

The first act introduces the hero within the ordinary world, as they are—original and untransformed. The first act will typically include the first five steps of the Hero’s Journey.

This section allows the writer to set the stage with details that show who the hero is before their metamorphosis—what is the environment of the ordinary world? What’s important to the hero? Why do they first refuse the call, and then, why do they ultimately accept and embark on the journey to meet with the conflict?

This stage introduces the first major plot point of the story, explores the conflict the hero confronts, and provides the opportunity for characterization for the hero and their companions.

The end of the first act generally occurs when the hero has fully committed to the journey and crossed the threshold of the ordinary world—where there is no turning back.

Act Two: Initiation (Steps 6—9)

Once the hero begins their journey, the second act marks the beginning of their true initiation into the unfamiliar world—they have crossed the threshold, and through this choice, have undergone their first transformation.

The second act is generally the longest of the three and includes steps six through nine.

In this act, the hero meets most of the characters that will be pivotal to the plot, including friends, enemies, and allies. It offers the rising action and other minor plot points related to the overarching conflict. The hero will overcome various trials, grow and transform, and navigate subplots—the additional and unforeseen complexity of the conflict.

This act generally ends when the hero has risen to the challenge to overcome the ordeal and receives their reward. At the end of this act, it’s common for the theme and moral of the story to be fully unveiled.

Act Three: Return (Steps 10—12)

The final stage typically includes steps 10—12, generally beginning with the road back—the point in the story where the hero must recommit to the journey and use all of the growth, transformation, gifts and tools acquired along the journey to bring a decisive victory against their final conflict.

From this event, the hero will also be “reborn,” either literally or metaphorically, and then beginning anew as a self-actualized being, equipped with internal knowledge about themselves, external knowledge about the world, and experience.

At the end of the third act, the hero returns home to the ordinary world, bringing back the gifts they earned on their journey. In the final passages, both the hero and their perception of the ordinary world are compared with what they once were.

The 12 steps of the Hero’s Journey

The following guide outlines the 12 steps of the Hero’s Journey and represents a framework for the creation of a Hero’s Journey story template. You don’t necessarily need to follow the explicit cadence of these steps in your own writing, but they should act as checkpoints to the overall story.

We’ll also use JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit as a literary example for each of these steps. The Hobbit does an exemplary job of following the Hero’s Journey, and it’s also an example of how checkpoints can exist in more than one place in a story, or how they may deviate from the typical 12-step process of the Hero’s Journey.

1. The Ordinary World

This stage in the Hero’s Journey is all about exposition. This introduces the hero’s backstory—who the hero is, where they come from, their worldview, culture, and so on. This offers the reader a chance to relate to the character in their untransformed form.

As the story and character arc develop, the reader is brought along the journey of transformation. By starting at the beginning, a reader has a basic understanding of what drives the hero, so they can understand why the hero makes the choices they do. The ordinary world shows the protagonist in their comfort zone, with their worldview being limited to the perspective of their everyday life.

Characters in the ordinary world may or may not be fully comfortable or satisfied, but they don’t have a point of reference to compare—they have yet to leave the ordinary world to gain the knowledge to do so.

Step One example

The Hobbit begins by introducing Bilbo in the Shire as a respectable and well-to-do member of the community. His ordinary world is utopian and comfortable. Yet, even within a village that is largely uninterested in the concerns of the world outside, the reader is provided a backstory: even though Bilbo buys into the comforts and normalcy of the Shire, he still yearns for adventure—something his neighbors frown upon. This ordinary world of the Shire is disrupted with the introduction of Gandalf—the “mentor”—who is somewhat uncomfortably invited to tea.

2. Call to Adventure

The call to adventure in the Hero’s Journey structure is the initial internal conflict that the protagonist hero faces, that drives them to the true conflict that they must overcome by the end of their journey.

The call occurs within the known world of the character. Here the writer can build on the characterization of the protagonist by detailing how they respond to the initial call. Are they hesitant, eager, excited, refusing, or willing to take a risk?

Step Two example

Bilbo’s call to adventure takes place at tea as the dwarves leisurely enter his home, followed by Gandalf, who identifies Bilbo as the group’s missing element—the burglar, and the lucky 14th member.

Bilbo and his ordinary world are emphasized by his discomfort with his rambunctious and careless guests. Yet as the dwarves sing stories of old adventures, caverns, and lineages, which introduce and foreshadow the conflict to come, a yearning for adventure is stirred. Though he still clings to his ordinary world and his life in the Shire, he’s conflicted. Should he leave the shire and experience the world, or stay in his comfortable home? Bilbo continues to refuse the call, but with mixed feelings.

3. Refusal of the Call

The refusal of the call in the Hero’s Journey showcases a “clinging” to one’s original self or world view. The initial refusal of the call represents a fear of change, as well as a resistance to the internal transformation that will occur after the adventure has begun.

The refusal reveals the risks that the protagonist faces if they were to answer the call, and shows what they’ll leave behind in the ordinary world once they accept.

The refusal of the call creates tension in the story, and should show the personal reasons why the hero is refusing—inner conflict, fear of change, hesitation, insecurity, etc. This helps make their character clearer for the reader.

These are all emotions a reader can relate to, and in presenting them through the hero, the writer deepens the reader’s relationship with them and helps the reader sympathize with the hero’s internal plight as they take the first step of transformation.

Step Three example

Bilbo refuses the call in his first encounter with Gandalf, and in his reaction to the dwarves during tea. Even though Bilbo’s “Tookish” tendencies make him yearn for adventure, he goes to bed that night still refusing the call. The next morning, as Bilbo awakes to an empty and almost fully clean hobbit home, he feels a slight disappointment for not joining the party, but quickly soothes his concerns by enjoying the comfort of his home—i.e. the ordinary world. Bilbo explores his hesitation to disembark from the ordinary world, questioning why a hobbit would become mixed up in the adventures of others, and choosing not to meet the dwarves at the designated location.

4. Meeting the Mentor

Meeting the mentor in the Hero’s Journey is the stage that provides the hero protagonist with a guide, relationship, and/or informational asset that has experience outside the ordinary world. The mentor offers confidence, advice, wisdom, training, insight, tools, items, or gifts of supernatural wonder that the hero will use along the journey and in overcoming the ultimate conflict.

The mentor often represents someone who has attempted to overcome, or actually has overcome, an obstacle, and encourages the hero to pursue their calling, regardless of the hero’s weaknesses or insecurities. The mentor may also explicitly point out the hero’s weaknesses, forcing them to reckon with and accept them, which is the first step to their personal transformation.

Note that not all mentors need to be a character . They can also be objects or knowledge that has been instilled in the hero somehow—cultural ethics, spiritual guidance, training of a particular skill, a map, book, diary, or object that illuminates the path forward, etc. In essence, the mentor character or object has a role in offering the protagonist outside help and guidance along the Hero’s Journey, and plays a key role in the protagonist’s transition from normalcy to heroism.

The mentor figure also offers the writer the opportunity to incorporate new information by expanding upon the story, plot, or backstory in unique ways. They do this by giving the hero information that would otherwise be difficult for the writer to convey naturally.

The mentor may accompany the hero throughout most of the story, or they may only periodically be included to facilitate changes and transformation within them.

Step Four example

The mentor, Gandalf, is introduced almost immediately. Gandalf is shown to be the mentor, firstly through his arrival from—and wisdom of—the outside world; and secondly, through his selection of Bilbo for the dwarven party by identifying the unique characteristics Bilbo has that are essential to overcoming the challenges in the journey. Gandalf doesn’t accompany Bilbo and the company through all of the trials and tribulations of the plot, but he does play a key role in offering guidance and assistance, and saves the group in times of dire peril.

5. Crossing the Threshold

As the hero crosses the first threshold, they begin their personal quest toward self-transformation. Crossing the threshold means that the character has committed to the journey, and has stepped outside of the ordinary world in the pursuit of their goal. This typically marks the conclusion of the first act.

The threshold lies between the ordinary world and the special world, and marks the point of the story where the hero fully commits to the road ahead. It’s a crucial stage in the Hero’s Journey, as the hero wouldn’t be able to grow and transform by staying in the ordinary world where they’re comfortable and their world view can’t change.

The threshold isn’t necessarily a specific place within the world of the story, though a place can symbolize the threshold—for example a border, gateway, or crossroads that separate what is safe and “known” from what is potentially dangerous. It can also be a moment or experience that causes the hero to recognize that the comforts and routine of their world no longer apply—like the loss of someone or something close to the hero, for example. The purpose of the threshold is to take the hero out of their element and force them, and the reader, to adapt from the known to the unknown.

This moment is crucial to the story’s tension. It marks the first true shift in the character arc and the moment the adventure has truly begun. The threshold commonly forces the hero into a situation where there’s no turning back. This is sometimes called the initiation stage or the departure stage.

Step Five example

The threshold moment in The Hobbit occurs when the party experiences true danger as a group for the first time. Bilbo, voted as scout by the party and eager to prove his burglar abilities, sneaks upon a lone fire in the forest where he finds three large trolls. Rather than turn back empty-handed—as he initially wants to—Bilbo chooses to prove himself, plucking up the courage to pickpocket the trolls—but is caught in the process. The dwarves are also captured and fortunately, Gandalf, the mentor, comes to save the party.

Bilbo’s character arc is solidified in this threshold moment. He experiences his first transformation when he casts aside fear and seeks to prove himself as a burglar, and as an official member of the party. This moment also provides further characterization of the party as a whole, proving the loyalty of the group in seeking out their captured member.

Gandalf’s position as the mentor is also firmly established as he returns to ultimately save all of the members of the party from being eaten by trolls. The chapter ends with Bilbo taking ownership of his first hero talisman—the sword that will accompany him through the rest of the adventure.

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies

Once the hero has crossed the threshold, they must now encounter tests of courage, make allies, and inevitably confront enemies. All these elements force the hero to learn the new ways of the special world and how it differs from the hero’s ordinary world—i.e. how the rules have changed, the conditions of the special world vs. the ordinary world, and the various beings and places within it.

All these elements spark stages of transformation within the hero—learning who they can trust and who they can’t, learning new skills, seeking training from the mentor, and overcoming challenges that force and drive them to grow and transform.

The hero may both succeed and fail at various points of this stage, which will test their commitment to the journey. The writer can create tension by making it clear that the hero may or may not succeed at the critical moment of crisis. These crises can be external or internal.

External conflicts are issues that the character must face and overcome within the plot—e.g. the enemy has a sword drawn and the hero must fight to survive.

Internal conflicts occur inside the hero. For example, the hero has reached safety, but their ally is in peril; will they step outside their comfort zone and rise to the occasion and save their friend? Or will they return home to their old life and the safety of the ordinary world?

Tests are conflicts and threats that the hero must face before they reach the true conflict, or ordeal, of the story. These tests set the stage and prime the hero to meet and achieve the ultimate goal. They provide the writer the opportunity to further the character development of the hero through their actions, inactions, and reactions to what they encounter. The various challenges they face will teach them valuable lessons, as well as keep the story compelling and the reader engaged.

Allies represent the characters that offer support to the protagonist along the journey. Some allies may be introduced from the beginning, while others may be gained along the journey. Secondary characters and allies provide additional nuance for the hero, through interactions, events, and relationships that further show who the hero is at heart, what they believe in, and what they’re willing to fight for. The role of the allies is to bring hope, inspiration, and further drive the hero to do what needs to be done.

Enemies represent a foil to the allies. While allies bring hope and inspiration, enemies will provide challenges, conflicts, tests, and challenges. Both allies and enemies may instigate transformative growth, but enemies do so in a way that fosters conflict and struggle.

Characterization of enemies can also enhance the development of the hero through how they interact and the lessons learned through those interactions. Is the hero easily duped, forgiving, empathetic, merciful? Do they hold a grudge and seek revenge? Who is the hero now that they have been harmed, faced an enemy, and lost pieces of their innocent worldview? To answer that, the hero is still transforming and gestating with every lesson, test, and enemy faced along the way.

Step Six example

As the plot of The Hobbit carries on, Bilbo encounters many tests, allies, and enemies that all drive complexity in the story. A few examples include:

The first major obstacle that Bilbo faces occurs within the dark and damp cave hidden in the goblin town. All alone, Bilbo must pluck up the wit and courage to outriddle a creature named Gollum. In doing so, Bilbo discovers the secret power of a golden ring (another hero talisman) that will aid him and the party through the rest of the journey.

The elves encountered after Bilbo “crosses the threshold” are presented as allies in the story. The hero receives gifts of food, a safe place to rest, and insight and guidance that allows the party to continue on their journey. While the party doesn’t dwell long with the elves, the elves also provide further character development for the party at large: the serious dwarf personalities are juxtaposed against the playful elvish ones, and the elves offer valuable historical insight with backstory to the weapons the party gathered from the troll encounter.

Goblins are a recurring enemy within the story that the hero and party must continue to face, fight, and run from. The goblins present consistent challenges that force Bilbo to face fear and learn and adapt, not only to survive but to save his friends.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave

The approach to the inmost cave of the Hero’s Journey is the tense quiet before the storm; it’s the part of the story right before the hero faces their greatest fear, and it can be positioned in a few different ways. By now, the hero has overcome obstacles, setbacks, and tests, gained and lost allies and enemies, and has transformed in some way from the original protagonist first introduced in the ordinary world.

The moment when the hero approaches the inmost cave can be a moment of reflection, reorganization, and rekindling of morale. It presents an opportunity for the main characters of the story to come together in a moment of empathy for losses along the journey; a moment of planning and plotting next steps; an opportunity for the mentor to teach a final lesson to the hero; or a moment for the hero to sit quietly and reflect upon surmounting the challenge they have been journeying toward for the length of their adventure.

The “cave” may or may not be a physical place where the ultimate ordeal and conflict will occur. The approach represents the momentary period where the hero assumes their final preparation for the overall challenge that must be overcome. It’s a time for the hero and their allies, as well as the reader, to pause and reflect on the events of the story that have already occurred, and to consider the internal and external growth and transformation of the hero.

Having gained physical and/or emotional strength and fortitude through their trials and tests, learned more rules about the special world, found and lost allies and friends, is the hero prepared to face danger and their ultimate foe? Reflection, tension, and anticipation are the key elements of crafting the approach to the cave.

Step Seven example

The approach to the cave in The Hobbit occurs as the party enters the tunnel of the Lonely Mountain. The tunnel is the access point to the ultimate goal—Thorin’s familial treasure, as well as the ultimate test—the formidable dragon Smaug. During this part of the story, the party must hide, plot, and plan their approach to the final conflict. It’s at this time that Bilbo realizes he must go alone to scout out and face the dragon.

8. The Ordeal

The ordeal is the foreshadowed conflict that the hero must face, and represents the midpoint of the story. While the ordeal is the ultimate conflict that the hero knows they must overcome, it’s a false climax to the complete story—there’s still much ground to cover in the journey, and the hero will still be tested after completing this, the greatest challenge. In writing the ordeal phase of the Hero’s Journey, the writer should craft this as if it actually were the climax to the tale, even though it isn’t.

The first act, and the beginning of the second act, have built up to the ordeal with characterization and the transformation of the hero through their overcoming tests and trials. This growth—both internal and external—has all occurred to set the hero up to handle this major ordeal.

As this stage commences, the hero is typically faced with fresh challenges to make the ordeal even more difficult than they previously conceived. This may include additional setbacks for the hero, the hero’s realization that they were misinformed about the gravity of the situation, or additional conflicts that make the ordeal seem insurmountable.

These setbacks cause the hero to confront their greatest fears and build tension for both the hero and the reader, as they both question if the hero will ultimately succeed or fail. In an epic fantasy tale, this may mean a life-or-death moment for the hero, or experiencing death through the loss of an important ally or the mentor. In a romance, it may be the moment of crisis where a relationship ends or a partner reveals their dark side or true self, causing the hero great strife.

This is the rock-bottom moment for the hero, where they lose hope, courage, and faith. At this point, even though the hero has already crossed the threshold, this part of the story shows how the hero has changed in such a way that they can never return to their original self: even if they return to the ordinary world, they’ll never be the same; their perception of the world has been modified forever.

Choosing to endure against all odds and costs to face the ordeal represents the loss of the hero’s original self from the ordinary world, and a huge internal transformation occurs within the hero as they must rise and continue forth to complete their journey and do what they set out to do from the beginning.

The ordeal may also be positioned as an introduction to the greater villain through a trial with a shadow villain, where the hero realizes that the greatest conflict is unveiled as something else, still yet to come. In these instances, the hero may fail, or barely succeed, but must learn a crucial lesson and be metaphorically resurrected through their failure to rise again and overcome the greater challenge.

Step Eight example

Bilbo must now face his ultimate challenge: burgle the treasure from the dragon. This is the challenge that was set forth from the beginning, as it’s his purpose as the party’s 14th member, the burglar, anointed by Gandalf, the mentor. Additional conflicts arise as Bilbo realizes that he must face the dragon alone, and in doing so, must rely on all of the skills and gifts in the form of talismans and tokens he has gained throughout the adventure.

During the ordeal, Bilbo uses the courage he has gained by surmounting the story’s previous trials; he’s bolstered by his loyalty to the group and relies upon the skills and tools he has earned in previous trials. Much as he outwitted Gollum in the cave, Bilbo now uses his wit as well as his magical ring to defeat Smaug in a game of riddles, which ultimately leads Smaug out of the lair so that Bilbo can complete what he was set out to do—steal the treasure.

The reward of the Hero’s Journey is a moment of triumph, celebration, or change as the hero achieves their first major victory. This is a moment of reflection for both the reader and the hero, to take a breath to contemplate and acknowledge the growth, development, and transformation that has occurred so far.

The reward is the boon that the hero learns, is granted, or steals, that will be crucial to facing the true climax of the story that is yet to come. The reward may be a physical object, special knowledge, or reconciliation of some sort, but it’s always a thing that allows for some form of celebration or replenishment and provides the drive to succeed before the journey continues.

Note that the reward may not always be overtly positive—it may also be a double-edged sword that could harm them physically or spiritually. This type of reward typically triggers yet another internal transformation within the hero, one that grants them the knowledge and personal drive to complete the journey and face their remaining challenges.

From the reward, the hero is no longer externally driven to complete the journey, but has evolved to take on the onus of doing so.

Examples of rewards may include:

A weapon, elixir, or object that will be necessary to complete the quest.

Special knowledge, or a personal transformation to use against a foe.

An eye-opening experience that provides deep insight and fundamentally changes the hero and their position within the story and world.

Reconciliation with another character, or with themselves.

No matter what the reward is, the hero should experience some emotional or spiritual revelation and a semblance of inner peace or personal resolve to continue the journey. Even if the reward is not overtly positive, the hero and the reader deserve a moment of celebration for facing the great challenge they set out to overcome.

Step Nine example

Bilbo defeats the dragon at a battle of wits and riddles, and now receives his reward. He keeps the gifts he has earned, both the dagger and the gold ring. He is also granted his slice of the treasure, and the Lonely Mountain is returned to Thorin. The party at large is rewarded for completing the quest and challenge they set out to do.

However, Tolkien writes the reward to be more complex than it first appears. The party remains trapped and hungry within the Mountain as events unfold outside of it. Laketown has been attacked by Smaug, and the defenders will want compensation for the damage to their homes and for their having to kill the dragon. Bilbo discovers, and then hides, the Arkenstone (a symbolic double edged reward) to protect it from Thorin’s selfishness and greed.

10. The Road Back

The road back in the Hero’s Journey is the beginning of the third act, and represents a turning point within the story. The hero must recommit to the journey, alongside the new stakes and challenges that have arisen from the completion of the original goal.

The road back presents roadblocks—new and unforeseen challenges to the hero that they must now face on their journey back to the ordinary world. The trials aren’t over yet, and the stakes are raised just enough to keep the story compelling before the final and ultimate conflict—the hero’s resurrection—is revealed in the middle of the third act.

The hero has overcome their greatest challenge in the Ordeal and they aren’t the same person they were when they started. This stage of the story often sees the hero making a choice, or reflecting on their transformed state compared to their state at the start of the journey.

The writer’s purpose in the third act is not to eclipse the upcoming and final conflict, but to up the stakes, show the true risk of the final climax, and to reflect on what it will take for the hero to ultimately prevail. The road back should offer a glimmer of hope—the light at the end of the tunnel—and should let the reader know the dramatic finale is about to arrive.

Step Ten example

What was once a journey to steal treasure and slay a dragon has developed new complications. Our hero, Bilbo, must now use all of the powers granted in his personal transformation, as well as the gifts and rewards he earned on the quest, to complete the final stages of the journey.

This is the crisis moment of The Hobbit ; the armies of Laketown are prepared for battle to claim their reward for killing Smaug; the fearless leader of their party, Thorin, has lost reason and succumbed to greed; and Bilbo makes a crucial choice based his personal growth: he gives the Arkenstone to the king as a bargaining chip for peace. Bilbo also briefly reconnects with the mentor, Gandalf, who warns him of the unpleasant times ahead, but comforts Bilbo by saying that things may yet turn out for the best. Bilbo then loyally returns to his friends, the party of dwarves, to stand alongside them in the final battle.

11. Resurrection

The resurrection stage of the Hero’s Journey is the final climax of the story, and the heart of the third act. By now the hero has experienced internal and external transformation and a loss of innocence, coming out with newfound knowledge. They’re fully rooted in the special world, know its rules, and have made choices that underline this new understanding.

The hero must now overcome the final crisis of their external quest. In an epic fantasy tale, this may be the last battle of light versus darkness, good versus evil, a cumulation of fabulous forces. In a thriller, the hero might ultimately face their own morality as they approach the killer. In a drama or romance, the final and pivotal encounter in a relationship occurs and the hero puts their morality ahead of their immediate desires.

The stakes are the highest they’ve ever been, and the hero must often choose to make a sacrifice. The sacrifice may occur as a metaphoric or symbolic death of the self in some way; letting go of a relationship, title, or mental/emotional image of the self that a hero once used as a critical aspect of their identity, or perhaps even a metaphoric physical death—getting knocked out or incapacitated, losing a limb, etc.

Through whatever the great sacrifice is, be it loss or a metaphoric death, the hero will experience a form of resurrection, purification, or internal cleansing that is their final internal transformation.

In this stage, the hero’s character arc comes to an end, and balance is restored to the world. The theme of the story is fully fleshed out and the hero, having reached some form of self-actualization, is forever changed. Both the reader and the hero experience catharsis—the relief, insight, peace, closure, and purging of fear that had once held the hero back from their final transformation.

Step Eleven example

All the armies have gathered, and the final battle takes place. Just before the battle commences, Bilbo tells Thorin that it was he who gave the Arkenstone to the city of men and offers to sacrifice his reward of gold for taking the stone. Gandalf, the mentor, arrives, standing beside Bilbo and his decision. Bilbo is shunned by Thorin and is asked to leave the party for his betrayal.

Bilbo experiences a symbolic death when he’s knocked out by a stone. Upon awakening, Bilbo is brought to a dying Thorin, who forgives him of his betrayal, and acknowledges that Bilbo’s actions were truly the right thing to do. The theme of the story is fully unveiled: that bravery and courage comes in all sizes and forms, and that greed and gold are less worthy than a life rich in experiences and relationships.

12. Return with the Elixir

The elixir in the Hero’s Journey is the final reward the hero brings with them on their return, bridging their two worlds. It’s a reward hard earned through the various relationships, tests, and growth the hero has experienced along their journey. The “elixir” can be a magical potion, treasure, or object, but it can also be intangible—love, wisdom, knowledge, or experience.

The return is key to the circular nature of the Hero’s Journey. It offers a resolution to both the reader and the hero, and a comparison of their growth from when the journey began.

Without the return, the story would have a linear nature, a beginning and an end. In bringing the self-actualized hero home to the ordinary world, the character arc is completed, and the changes they’ve undergone through the journey are solidified. They’ve overcome the unknown, and though they’re returning home, they can no longer resume their old life because of their new insight and experiences.

Step Twelve example

The small yet mighty hero Bilbo is accompanied on his journey home by his mentor Gandalf, as well as the allies he gathered along his journey. He returns with many rewards—his dagger, his golden ring, and his 1/14th split of the treasure—yet his greatest rewards are his experience and the friends he has made along the way. Upon entering the Shire Bilbo sings a song of adventure, and the mentor Gandalf remarks, “My dear Bilbo! Something is the matter with you, you are not the hobbit you were.”

The final pages of The Hobbit explore Bilbo’s new self in the Shire, and how the community now sees him as a changed hobbit—no longer quite as respectable as he once was, with odd guests who visit from time to time. Bilbo also composes his story “There and Back Again,” a tale of his experiences, underlining his greatest reward—stepping outside of the Shire and into the unknown, then returning home, a changed hobbit.

Books that follow the Hero’s Journey

One of the best ways to become familiar with the plot structure of the Hero’s Journey is to read stories and books that successfully use it to tell a powerful tale. Maybe they’ll inspire you to use the hero’s journey in your own writing!

The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien.

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.

The Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin.

The Odyssey by Homer.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Writing tips for the Hero’s Journey

Writing a Hero’s Journey story often requires planning beforehand to organize the plot, structure, and events of the story. Here are some tips to use the hero’s journey archetype in a story:

Use a template or note cards to organize and store your ideas. This can assist in ensuring that you tie up any loose ends in the plot, and that the cadence of your story is already outlined before you begin writing.

Use word count goals for writing different sections of your story. This can help you keep pace while you plan and write the first draft. You can always revise, edit, and add in detail at later stages of development, but getting the ideas written without bogging them down with details can assist in preparing your outline, and may perhaps provide additional inspiration and guidance along the way.

Lean into creativity and be flexible with the 12 steps. They don’t need to occur in the exact order we’ve listed above, but that ordering can offer great checkpoint moments for your story.

Invest in characterization and ensure that your main character is balanced with credible strengths and weaknesses. A perfect, pure hero has no room to grow. A one-dimensional villain who relies on the trope of “pure evil” without any motivations for their actions is boring and predictable.

Ensure tension and urgency is woven into the story. An epic tale to the grocery store for baby formula may still be fraught with danger, and the price of failure is a hungry child. Without urgency, tension, and risk, a Hero’s Journey will fall flat.

Be hard on your characters. Give them deep conflicts that truly test their nature, and their mental, physical, and spiritual selves. An easy journey isn’t a memorable one.

Have a balance of scenes that play on both positive and negative emotions and outcomes for the hero to create a compelling plot line that continues to engage your reader. A story that’s relentlessly positive doesn’t provide a pathway for the hero to transform. Likewise, a story that’s nothing but doom, strife, and turmoil, without a light at the end of the tunnel or an opportunity for growth, can make a story feel stagnant and unengaging.

Reward your characters and your reader. Personal transformation and the road to the authentic self may be grueling, but there’s peace or joy at the end of the tunnel. Even if your character doesn’t fully saved the world, they—and the reader—should be rewarded with catharsis, a new perspective, or personal insight at the end of the tale.

Hero’s Journey templates

Download these free templates to help you plan out your Hero’s Journey:

Download the Hero’s Journey template template (docx) Download the Hero’s Journey template template (pdf)

Prompts and practices to help you write your own Hero’s Journey

Use the downloadable template listed below for the following exercises:

Read a book or watch a movie that follows the Hero’s Journey. Use the template to fill in when each step occurs or is completed. Make note of themes and symbols, character arcs, the main plot, and the subplots that drive complexity in the story.

When writing, use a timer set to 2—5 minutes per section to facilitate bursts of creativity. Brainstorm ideas for cadence, plot, and characters within the story. The outline you create can always be modified, but the timer ensures you can get ideas on paper without a commitment; you’re simply jotting down ideas as quickly as you can.

Use the downloadable template above to generate outlines based on the following prompts.

A woman’s estranged mother has died. A friend of the mother arrives at the woman’s home to tell her that her mother has left all her belongings to her daughter, and hands her a letter. The letter details the mother’s life, and the daughter must visit certain places and people to find her mother’s house and all the belongings in it—learning more about her mother’s life, and herself, along the way.

The last tree on earth has fallen, and technology can no longer sustain human life on Earth. An engineer, having long ago received alien radio signals from a tower in their backyard, has dedicated their life to building a spaceship in their garage. The time has come to launch, and the engineer must select a group of allies to bring with them to the stars, on a search for a new life, a new home, and “the others” out there in the universe.

A detective is given a new case: to find a much-talked-about murderer. The twist is, the murderer has sent a letter to the detective agency, quietly outing a homicidal politician who is up for re-election and is a major financial contributor to the police. In the letter, the murderer states that if the politician doesn’t come clean about their crimes, the murderer will kill the politician on the night of the election. The detective must solve the case before the election, and come to terms with their own feelings of justice and morality.

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