The Universal Archetype Theory
“Only birth can conquer death – the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new. Within the soul, within the body social, there must be – if we are to experience long survival – a continuous ‘recurrence of birth’ to nullify the unremitting recurrences of death.”
– Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Origins of the Theory:
1900 – Sigmund Freud (Austrian) proposes the revolutionary idea that every human’s mind is structured in the same way and in two parts:
1. The conscious mind (which everybody knew about)
2. The unconscious mind (which was his idea, or at least the idea for which history has largely given him credit)
In a (very small) nutshell:
Freud’s theory was that people behave the way that they do because of the unconscious part of their brains.
The catch was that he reduced everything down to the sexual desires of the unconscious.
He then became the father of psychoanalysis – the analysis of the psyche to find patterns and neuroses based on these sexual desires (the Oedipus complex and the lesser know Electra complex).
In 1930, Freud’s most promising student, Carl Jung (also Austrian), split from his mentor.
L Jung’s theories were based on Freudian analysis except, rather than reducing everything to sexual urges (which he didn’t like), he proposed that the bottom-most layer of our unconscious is the universal recognition of archetypes.
The archetype theory – archetypes are a template for human experiences that come up over and over again. Jung’s theory is that we are pre-programmed with this template as a means of explaining theses experiences through
mythology, religion, language, culture
þ These archetypes are the core of the unconscious mind.
þ We have this information burned into our collective brains and therefore religions, myths and folktales all contain the same basic patterns through all of history and from culture to culture.
The formula:
Existing Patterns = Archetypes =
Our decoder ring to explain the Collective Unconscious we all share.
þ Jung became the first mythologist
þ Jung and others began studying myths from all times in history and in all places
þ Recognized evidence of the unconscious – saw the same stories told and retold
This template served to prepare humans for their own life journeys.
One of the basic myths is the hero’s quest.
þ The hero’s quest mirrors human experiences across cultures and across time.
þ Take away the cultural trappings, like costumes and names, and the basic story is essentially the same again and again.
Basic Elements – Theorized by Carl Jung, popularized by Joseph Campbell:
1. The land is sick (evil spirits, evil force, pestilence, etc.)
þ Ex. Arthurian legend – Arthur searching for the grail to “cure” his mortality
þ Ex. When Osiris dies, there is a pestilence in the land. Likewise, when Scar kills Mufasa, the once green land is gray and lifeless
þ Ex. In Star Wars, the Empire is oppressive – this sickness is represented in the inhospitable desert of Tatooine
2. There is a chosen one – a hero
þ The chosen one is often of noble birth – he has the blood of kings or is related to gods (Ex. Luke – son of Vader, Maximus (in The Gladiator) is the king’s son, Simba is Mufasa’s son and the rightful king)
3. The Call to Adventure
ü “This first stage of the mythological journey – which we have designated the ‘call to adventure’ – signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown.” – Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
4. The refusal of the call
þ “The myths and folktales of the whole world make clear that the refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one’s own interests.”
–Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
þ Simba doesn’t want to give up his life of leisure in the jungle (“Hakuna Matata”), Luke is kind of a whiney baby who just wants to get power converters, Buffy just wants to be a normal high school kid, Neo thinks it might be easier to just slosh around in goo.
5. A wise old sage/supernatural aid
ü “For those who have not refused the call, the first encounter of the hero-journey is with a protective figure (often a little old crone or old man) who provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass.” –Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
þ Yoda, Ben Kanobi, Carl in Billy Madison, Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rafiki, Mr. Freeman, etc
þ The sage often seems like a fool
þ It is the sage’s job to prepare the hero for the quest
6. crossing of the first threshold
þ “With the personifications of his destiny to guide and aid him, the hero goes forward in his adventure until he comes to the ‘threshold guardian’ at the entrance to the zone of magnified power…Beyond them is darkness, the unknown, and danger; just as beyond the parental watch is danger to the infant and beyond the protection of his society danger to the member of the tribe.” –Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
þ “The regions of the unknown (desert, jungle, deep sea, alien land, etc.) are free fields for the projection of unconscious content.” –Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
separation – initiation – return
áthe hero comes back with the power
to bestow boons on his fellow man
The conscious plane ® ------
¯ The descent into self/region of supernatural wonder
þ 1st danger of the outside world – surrounded by people who are from the outside
þ We engage in this cycle over and over again (kindergarten, middle school, high school, college, marriage, first job) and we can fail at any time, just like all heroes
7. The road of trials
ü “Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials. This is a favorite phase of myth-adventure. It has produced a world literature of miraculous tests and ordeals. The hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets, and secret agents of his supernatural helper whom he has met before his entrance into this region. Or it may be that he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage.” –Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Face
ü The sage/supernatural aid often presents the hero with magic weapons (Gaining Skills)
þ Ex. Light sabers, actual weapons, strength and agility, truth
þ The real world version of this is education, talent and skill (your most fierce weapons)
ü Luckily, just like us, the hero has helpers (Gaining Allies)
þ They often save the day in subtle ways
þ They are often comic relief
þ Ex. R2D2 and C3P0, romantic partners, Buffy’s “Scooby Gang,” Veronica Vaughan, Pumba and Timon
8. All of this leads up the hero’s confrontation with the dark power, takes place on the turf of evil or the belly of the whale where the climax happens
ü “This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation…the hero goes inward, to be born again.” –Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Face
þ The hero often descends into the underworld
þ It is often an enclosed space
þ Ex. Neo goes to earth, Luke fights on the Death Star, Jonah battles in the whale, Simba fights on Pride Rock
ü In the the belly of the whale, the hero sometimes make a self sacrifice to defeat the dark power
þ “No creature…can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist. Indeed, the physical body of the hero may be slain, dismembered and scattered over the land or the sea.” –Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Face
þ It often looks like the hero will defeat the dark power in a physical way, but fails
þ The hero then realizes that it isn’t a physical struggle, and that he must sacrifice himself or something else for the good of the land or else he might become the dark power (like when Two Face tells Batman that, “you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.”)
þ Ex, Luke loses his hand, Simba gives up his freedom in the jungle, Buffy sacrifices her life
9. It is then that the hero realizes that the dark power is not out there, but in himself and that the land and the king are one as he begins to know his deeper self
ü Simba realizes that his insecurity is his real issue and that he was once like Scar in that he wanted to be king just for the sake of having power (“I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” abusing his authority to enter the elephant graveyard, etc.)
10. The hero returns to the village and brings new understanding to the everyday and lives this new understanding
þ Sometimes the hero is derided by the people of the village and learns that you can’t go back home
þ Ex. Gilgamesh seems like a failure because he has learned to appreciate human mortality instead of becoming immortal
þ Ex. When we come back from college, sometimes it’s difficult to relate to high school friends because they’re at different stages and don’t share your new understanding.
11. The hero then awaits the next call and the cycle begins again
This story is our story –we are the heroes and need to continually cross various
thresholds with varying degrees of success.
This is what Carl Jung called individuation
His practice was based on the hero’s journey. Using psychoanalysis and dream study, patients discovered their path, their sage/supernatural power, the dark force they were fighting, etc.
This was not new, as myths prove this kind of self-examination has been going on since the beginning of time.