Life of Pi

NOTES ON THE MYTHOLOGICAL / ARCHETYPAL APPROACH TO ITS LITERARY CRITISISM

Brought to you by: Wilfred Guerin, Michael Hall, Earle Labor, and Lee Morgan in: Lit: Literature and Interpretive Techniquespublished by HarperCollins College Division in 1985.

Some Terms that may need clarification…

A narrative has two meanings, one a literal or surface meaning (the story itself) and one a metaphorical meaning (the characters or actions or even the objects of which have a one-to-one equivalence with those of the literal narrative).

Frequently the allegory has distinct moral, political, or philosophical implications embedded in its body of symbols.

Allegory

Archetype

An image, motif, or thematic pattern that has recurred so regularly in history, literature, religion, or folkways as to have acquired transcendent symbolic force.

According to Jungian psychology, archetypes or "primordial images"" are myth-forming structural elements that are always present in the unconscious psyche;

they are not inherited ideas but "belong to the realm of activities of the instincts and in that sense...represent inherited forms of psychic behavior.”

MotifA theme, and image, a type of action, or an archetype that by its recurrent appearance traces itself through a work and heightens its aesthetic appeal.

In literature, it may become a sign or index for the meaning or experience of a work.

SymbolAn image or object or action that is

charged with meaning beyond its denotative value.

Although the term presents difficulty and perhaps should be used with caution and for relatively concrete objects, it is not altogether inaccurate to speak of a character's being a symbol.

In its most sophisticated forms, the symbol tend to become more and more indefinite in its meanings in contrast to the fixed meaning of allegory.

 

The Approach…

Mythological, ARCHETYPAL, and psychological criticism

are all very closely interrelated. This because Freud formulated many theories around the idea of

the social archetype and his pupil, Carl Jung, expanded and refined Freud’s theories into a

more cross-cultural philosophy.

The Approach Cont…

Critics who read texts with the mythological/archetypal approach are looking for symbols. Jung said that an archetype is

“a figure… that repeats itself in the course of history wherever create fantasy is fully manifested” (“The problem of types in poetry” 1923).

He believed that human beings were born innately knowing certain archetypes.

The evidence of this, Jung claimed, lies in the fact that some myths are repeated throughout history in cultures and eras that could not possibly have had any contact with one another.

Many stories in Greek and Roman mythology have counterparts in Chinese and Celtic mythology (long before the Greek and Roman Empires spread to Asia and northern Europe).

Most of the myths and symbols represent ideas that human beings could not otherwise explain (the origins of life, what happens after death, etc.)

The Approach Cont…

Every Culture has a creation story, a life after death belief,

and a reason for human failings, and these stories

(when studied comparatively) are far more similar than

different. When reading a work looking for archetypes or myths, critics look

for very general recurring themes, characters, and

situations.

In modern times, the same types of archetypes are used in film, which is why it has been so easy for filmmakers to take a work like Jane Austen’s Emma and adapt it into the typical Hollywood film Clueless.

By drawing on those feelings, thoughts, concerns and issues that have been a part of the human condition in every generation, modern authors allow readers to know the characters in a work with a little or no explanation.

Imagine how cluttered stories would be if the author had to give every detail about every single minor character that entered the work.

THREE MAIN POINTS OF STUDY:

Archetypal characters. Archetypal images.Archetypal situations.

Archetypal Characters

The Hero: A figure, larger then life, whose search for self-identity and/or self-fulfillment results in his own destruction (often accompanied by the destruction of the general society around him).

In the aftermath of the death of the hero, however, is progress toward some ideal.

While this applies to modern superheroes such as Superman (Clark Kent searching for the balance between his super self and his mortal self), it also applies to the Christian faiths Jesus Christ (a mortal man who comes to terms with his destiny as the messiah), and thousands of other literary and religious figures throughout history.

Some Variations Of The Hero Figure

Include:

The “orphaned” prince or the lost chieftains son raised ignorant of his heritage until he is rediscovered. (King Arthur)

The “scapegoat”: An innocent character on whom a situation is blamed, or who assumes the blame for the situation, and is punished in place of the truly guilty party, thus removing the guilt from the culprit and society.

The “loner” or “outcast”: A character who is separated from (or separates him or herself from) society due to a physical impairment or an emotional or physiological realization that makes this character different. Jesus goes into the desert to discern his destiny; Buddha leaves society to come to terms with his philosophy. Victor Frankenstein travels to remote locales to avoid people when he realizes that he has created a monster. Often, the Hero is an outcast at some point in his or her Story.

The Common Variations Of The Loner Are:

The Underdog, the smaller, weaker, less-worldly-wise character, who usually emerges victorious at the end of the story;

The guilt ridden figure in search of redemption.

The Villain: the male or female personification of evil. Note that, while nearly all literature has an antagonist to provide conflict with the protagonist, not all antagonists are villains. Villains are indeed personifications of evil. Their malice is often apparently unmotivated, or motivated by a single wrong (or perceived wrong) from the past. The villain's malice often limitless, and rarely is the villain reformed within the context of the story. Examples of archetypal villains are Satan, The mad scientist, the bully, and LOKI (from Norse Mythology)

Other Archetypal Characters

The Temptress: the female who possesses what the male desires and uses his desire (either intentionally or unintentionally) as a means to his ultimate destruction. Examples are Eve, Juliet, Lady Macbeth.

THE EARTH MOTHER/GODDESS: Mother Nature, Mother earth-the nurturing, life giving aspect of femininity.

The Spirit or Intellect: The often unidentified feminine inspiration for works of art and literature. Examples would be Dante’s Beatrice, Shakespeare’s Dark Lady Ect.

The Sage: Largely of eastern origin, the sage is the elderly wise man; the teacher or mentor. Examples from Western literature would be Merlin and Tiresias. Yoda from Star Wars and Gandalf from The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings.

Some Variations Of the Sage Include:

The wise woman, the witch. Note that, while the male SAGE’s wisdom is usually spiritual or philosophical (often with political or military applications), the wise woman’s wisdom tends to be more an understanding of the workings of nature, thus the connection of the wise woman with witchcraft and all of the associated superstitions.

The stern, but loving authority figure.

The Oracle: male or female prophet, fortune teller, sooth-sayer.

Archetypal Images:

Colors: Red as blood, anger passion, violence; gold as greatness, value wealth; green as fertility, luxury, growth; blue (the color of the sky) as god-like holiness, Peace, Serenity; white as purity.

Numbers: Three for the Christian trinity; four for the four seasons, the four ancient elements (earth, water, fire, air); twelve for the months of the solar year; etc.

Water: the source of life and sustenance; cleansing or purification; baptism.

THE FOUR ANCIENT ELEMENTS: FIRE, WATER, AIR, AND EARTH.

Circle (sphere): wholeness, unity. An example would be the Yang-yin: A Chinese symbol representing the union of the opposite forces of the yang (masculine principle, light, activity, the conscious mind) and the yin (female principle, darkness, passivity, the unconscious). (Guerin162)

Basic Glossary of Archetypes for

Life of PiArchetypes are universal symbols. They are

symbols that have the same or SIMILAR MEANINGS FOR MOST IF NOT ALL OF PERSONKIND. They are usually symbols that occur in mythologies and literature from multiple cultures, continents, and

eras. The following are some of the archetypes and symbols that will be helpful in the current unit.*

*Adapted from A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature by Guerin, Labor, Morgan, Willingham, 1999. Dictionary of Symbolism: Cultural Icons and the Meanings Behind Them by Biedermann, translated by Hulbert, 1992. A Dictionary of Symbols by J.E. Cirlot.

COLORS

Red: blood, sacrifice, violent passion; disorder.

Green: growth; sensation; hope; fertility; in negative context may be associated with death and decay.

Blue: usually highly positive, associated with truth, religious feeling, security, spiritual purity (the color of the Great Mother or Holy Mother). (Guerin 161) Blue is also the color of levels—‘means height and depth (the blue sky above, the blue sea below…Dark blue is grouped with black….blue is darkness made visible …Dark blue with the sky and the night, and with the stormy sea. (Beiderman 54)

Colors Black (darkness): chaos, mystery,

the unknown; death; primal wisdom; the unconscious; evil; melancholy.

White: highly multivalent, signifying in its positive aspects, light, purity, innocence, and timelessness; in its negative aspects, death, terror, the supernatural, and the blinding truth of an inscrutable cosmic mystery. (Guerin 161)

Yellow: warmth, sunshine, summer, happiness, and wealth. Or cowardice and sickness.

Images Tree: “In its most general sense, the symbolism of

the tree denotes life of the cosmos: its consistence, growth, proliferation, generative and regenerative processes.

It stands for inexhaustible life, and is therefore the equivalent of a symbol of immortality” (Cirlot 328; c.f. the depiction of the cross of redemption as the tree of life in Christian iconography). (Guerin, 165)

It can also symbolize a connection between things earthly (rooted in the ground) and heavenly (branches reaching for the heavens.) (Cirlot 350)

ImagesSun: (fire and sky are closely related): creative energy; law in nature; consciousness (thinking, enlightenment, wisdom, spiritual vision); father principle; passage of time and life.a. Rising sun: birth; creation;

enlightenment.b.Setting sun: death. (Guerin 161)

ImagesStars: In many mythic traditions the

stars are understood as resulting from the metamorphoses of those who have died…harmonious groups of heavenly spirits…

The Incas of Peru believed that the stars were the handmaidens of the moon, and therefore gave them the chamber next to their mistress, so that they might be at her beck and call.

ImagesFixed stars light the heavens at night and

are considered symbols of cosmic order because of the regularity of their movement around the pole star; they also stand for the “light from above,”

Ancient cultures had differing interpretations for shooting stars—they marked the death of important men (ancient China) or the birth of a child, whose soul was descending from heaven to earth, where it would come to life. (Cirlot 321-324)

Images

Moon: Female, because of its passivity as the receiver of the sun’s light (as in the yin), and also because of similarities between the lunar month and the menstrual cycle.

The waxing and waning of the moon, and the inevitable return of the same lunar form, marks a striking symbol for all of the philosophies combining death and rebirth…

the three most striking phases of the moon (first quarter, full, and dark or new) are associated with the three phases of a woman’s life (maiden, mother, old woman)(Cirlot 224-5).

Elements: Fire

The apparently living ELEMENT, which consumes, warms, and illuminates, but can also bring pain and death, has conflicting symbolic association. It can represent wisdom, enlightenment, or energy (quest for fire). Fire can be positive: it can purify and destroy evil or the physical forms of witches and other possessed beings; erasing the blemish of sin.It can also destroy life as in the fires of hell, lightning bolts, volcanic fires (all seen as punishment of mankind from some heavenly forces) (Cirlot 129-30)

Elements: Fire

Fire: Ambiguously both protective and destructive; on an archetypal level, fire symbolizes human knowledge and industry (Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humankind when there were no other gifts left to give.

Elements: Water

The mystery of creation; birth-death-resurrection; purification and redemption; fertility and growth. According to Carl Jung, water is also the commonest symbol for the unconscious. Specifically, rivers symbolize death and rebirth (baptism); the flowing of time into eternity; transitional phases of the life cycle; incarnations of deities. (Guerin 161)

Numbers1 – Symbolizes the primitive or the divine, perfect entity - the beginning of the self, and of loneliness.2 – Symbolizes division, duality – the binary principal (good/evil, light/dark, day/night, sun/moon, man/woman).3 – THE MOST POSITIVE NUMBER IN SYMBOLISM, RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, LEGEND, MYTHOLOGY, ETC. IT SYMBOLIZES HARMONY, STRENGTH, AND LUCK. VISUALLY REPRESENTED WITH A TRIANGLE. EXAMPLES: TRINITY, THE NUMBER OF BUDDHIST HOLY SCRIPTURE, THREE WISHES, TRIADS, THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM, THREE FEATS, FAMILY TRIAD, OLYMPIC TRIAD – ZEUS, HADES, AND POSEIDON, THREE GRACES, FATES, FURIES, GORGONS.

Numbers4 – Symbolizes completion, solidity, and comprehensiveness. Visually represented by a square. It is the doubling of duality (2). Examples: four elements, four seasons, four phases of the moon, four elements of the compass, four weeks, four horsemen of the apocalypse, four winds.5 – Linked with humanity. Visually represented by a pentagram or a man whose head and outstretched limbs form a five-pointed star. 6 – Symbolizes union and equilibrium. Visually represented by the hexagram – combining two triangles, one pointing up (male, fire, heaven), and pointing down (female, water, earth), creation of the universe in Christian bible.

Numbers7 – A SACRED, MYSTICAL AND

MAGIC NUMBER, SYMBOLIZING COSMIC AND SPIRITUAL ORDER AND PERFECTION

THE COMPLETION OF A NATURAL CYCLE.

EXAMPLES: SEVEN CELESTIAL BODIES, DAYS OF THE WEEK, 7-DAY PHASES OF THE MOON, SEVEN SEAS, SEVEN HEAVENS, SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM, SEVEN DEADLY SINS, SEVEN LEVELS OF DANTE’S INFERNO, ETC.

Archetypal Images Cont.

Gardens: Natural abundance; easy, beautiful life; new birth, hope; Eden, the original Paradise from which humankind was expelled.

Geometric Shapes: a triangle from the trinity; a circle for perfection and eternity, wholeness, union.

Celestial Bodies: The sun (masculine) is both the giver and destroyer of life; the moon (feminine) marks the passage of time and controls the course of human events. Seedtime, harvest, etc., are all determined more by the phases of the sun.

Masculine Images/symbols: columns, towers, boats, trees, etc.

Archetypal Images Continued

Feminine Images/Symbols: Bodies of water, caves, doorways, windows.

Caves: ambiguously can represent the womb (the source of life) and the grave; often represent the entrance to the underworld (related to the grave); as well as to the unexplored regions of the human soul.

Yin and Yang: any scheme that suggests that each of a pair of opposites partakes of the other’s nature, complements the other, the essentially completes the other; without balance, the world would erupt into chaos.

Archetypal Situations:

The Quest:The Hero’s endeavor to

establish his or her identity or fulfill his or her

destiny.

Variations Of The Quest:

The Faustian bargain: the selling of one’s soul to the devil (metaphorically representing the notion that one would “give anything” in order to…) in exchange for unlimited power, knowledge, wealth, etc. Examples include King Midas.

The pursuit of revenge for a real or perceived wrong.

The descent into the underworld. (Note that this is usually one part of the quest rather than the entire quest itself.)

The Renewal of life: death and rebirth, resurrection as seen in the cycle of the seasons, the phases of the day, sleeping and waking. Examples are “sleeping beauty,” “the secret garden.”

Variations Of The Quest Cont.

Initiation: Coming of age, rites of passage. Some examples include the first hunt, weddings, teenage angst films.

The Fall: any event that marks a loss of innocence, a devolution from paradisiacal life and viewpoint to a tainted one.

Redemptive Sacrifice: any voluntary loss, especially a loss of life, that results in another’s gaining or regaining a desired state.

The Catalog Of Difficult Tasks: (Labors of Hercules, Cinderella’s treatment by her step mother and stepsisters.

The End Of The World: Usually apocalyptic, involving warfare, a huge battle, a metaphoric final battle between good and evil.

Variations On The End Of The World!

Armageddon: The final battle between good and evil according to the Christian New Testament (book of Revelation), in which evil is finally vanquished, evildoers receive their eternal punishment, and God reigns over a newly-created Heaven and Earth.

Ragnarok: The final battle between two feuding segments of the Norse pantheon. Both sides are largely decimated, as is the human race. Two humans survive to repopulate the human world and worship a new pantheon formed of the gods who survived the battle.

The great flood The taboo: the commission of a culturally

forbidden act (incest, patricide), often unknowingly or inevitably. Any act or attitude that could be seen as “unnatural,” a crime against the ways nature is supposed to operate.

THE BANQUET: FELLOWSHIP; COMMUNION NOURISHMENT OF THE BODY AND SOUL; DISPLAY OF WEALTH; OFTEN USED AS A SYMBOL FOR SALVATION, HEAVEN.