Archetypes & Stereotypes

Archetypes & Stereotypes The Literature Based Research Paper

How do you feel when you're hanging out with your best friend? Your funny cousin? Your grumpy boss? People affect our moods and feelings every day. Characters, who are written to take on a life of their own, affect the mood of other characters in the story. Authors often model characters after people, not necessarily people who have lived or are living; authors combine characteristics that we know to be true in human nature. We recognize certain personality types in the people in our lives and in the characters in our literature.

We all know someone who is: a clown a romantic a hard worker a bossy tyrant a leader These people embody certain characteristics.

What have you been labeled as? • How do people decide upon these labels? • Do the labels represent the individuals fully? What are five characteristics of your “group”?

Archetypes are mental fingerprints revealing the details of a person’s personality The archetype tells the reader about the most basic instincts of the hero: how he thinks, how he feels, what drives him and why he chooses both his goals and his methods.

Stereotypes are flat Based only on surface characteristics Stereotypes and Archetypes

Archetypes • Archetypes are rich • Archetypes are a skeleton on which the author builds the flesh and soul of the character. • Shakespeare used the blueprint of the lover when he created Romeo, but he enriched the character with unique characteristics, such as his loyalty to Mercutio. Characters have many layers, but the archetype is often the root of their actions in a story.

Looking for an example?

Your task? Exploring archetypes

The wise man. The honest man. The faithful man. The humble man. A valiant man. The patient man. The true friend. The truly Noble. The good magistrate. The penitent. The hypocrite. The busybody. The superstitious. The profane. The malcontent. The unconstant. The flatterer. The slothful. The covetous. The vainglorious. The presumptuous. The distrustful. The ambitious. The unthrift. The envious. Joseph Hall’s Characters of Vertues and Vices (1608)

The character of the wise man. • THERE is nothing that he desires not to know; but most and first, himself: and not so much his own strength as his weaknesses. • Neither is his knowledge reduced to discourse, but practice. • Every care hath his just order; neither is there any one either neglected or misplaced. • He loves to be guessed at, not known; and to see the world, unseen; and when he is forced into the light, shows, by his actions, that his obscurity was neither from affectation nor weakness.

The character of the wise man. • He is both an apt scholar and an excellent master; for both every thing he sees informs him, and his mind, enriched with plentiful observation, can give the best precepts. • In all his just and worthy designs he is never at a loss, but hath so projected all his courses that a second begins where the first failed, and fetcheth strength from that which succeeded not. • He confineth himself in the circle of his own affairs, and lists not to thrust his finger into a needless fire.

The character of the wise man. • Finally, his wit hath cost him much, and he can both keep and value and employ it. He is his own lawyer, the treasury of knowledge, the oracle of counsel; blind in no man's cause, best sighted in his own.

Your Homework: Complete the body map for an archetype in both Hamlet and a main character for your outside reading novel! You will want to print out your archetype info – this will be a source! http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/hallch.htm

The Assignment . . . Choose an archetype from Hall’s work and trace its development from the 17th century in Shakespeare’s Hamlet through literature and media of the modern era. Discuss how your archetype is illustrated both in Shakespeare’s play and in contemporary sources. Finally, analyze how the archetype has adapted or how society’s perception of it has altered and what this alteration implies about our cultural values.

Everything must be fiction! • You must address whether or not the archetype stays the same or changes! • Due Dates: TBA • Thesis and ROUGH outline –Rough Draft Final Draft – Lots of choices here

Remember . . . • What the character doesis not the defining element. The defining element is WHY the character does what he does. • “Any archetype can do anything – the question will always be why.” • Archetypes are not stereotypes; they are not cookie cutters. They can be considered a framework, or even better, a lump of clay of a particular color and consistency.

Sample Thesis Statements • Name the archetype • Changed/Stayed the Same • Media • From 17th century to Today

Sample Thesis Statements • The Ambitious Man has not only adapted to fit the ever-changing trends of the modern era but also established a desire for variation in today's society.

The archetype of the Malcontent has remained prevalent throughout literature and has continued to transition to meet society's need for change for centuries on end.

The adaptation of the envious archetype portrayed by seventeenth century literature through today's contemporary literature implies society's exceptional need for change.

The Honest Man archetype has been used for decades, and will continue to be used in the future as it evolves along with society.

The Ambitious Man has not only adapted to fit the ever-changing trends of the modern era but also established a desire for variation in today's society.

Although society's definition of ambition has changed, the ambitious archetype remains virtually untouched since the early 17th century.

Archetypes & Stereotypes