SYMBOLICSYMBOLICNames: Scholars

Concept: Myths and their elements are symbols which represent our external environment. Each object in nature is assigned a meaning and combined, these objects highlight a life lesson.

Examples:Heroes were considered symbols of the sunMonsters symbolized clouds and night

SYMBOLICSYMBOLICQuestions: What are the elements of the myth? In the external environment, in nature, what objects (sun, moon, etc.) do each of these elements represent? What do these natural objects symbolize (sun=light=goodness)? What larger conflict is exemplified by these elements, their symbolism, and their interaction. What is the message?

Value

To understand that there are larger forces than just ourselves and to provide meaning to everyday life.

PSYCHOLOGICALPSYCHOLOGICALNames: Sigmund Freud

Concept: Myth is an expression of an individual’s unconscious wishes, fears and drives

Examples:Heroes were considered infantile hostilityMonsters symbolized unconscious anti-social desires

PSYCHOLOGICALPSYCHOLOGICALQuestions: What basic or primitive emotions or desires are presented in the story? What subconscious elements are presented in the story? How do relationships reflect familial relationships and/or infantile “endopsychic” emotions? What’s the message?

Value

To understand internal unconscious conflicts and provide insight to an individual’s interaction within a community.

COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUSUNCONSCIOUSNames:

Carl Gustav Jung, Erich Neumann, Joseph Campbell

Concept: Myths are the expression of a universal, collective unconscious. The expression, through archetypes, of how people throughout the world respond to the process of living.

Examples:Common archetypes include: father/mother/child/hero/mentor/trickster

COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUSUNCONSCIOUSQuestions:

What archetypes are present in the story? How do these archetypes determine our response to the process of living? Through what specific elements does the story reveal/explore this response to the process of living? What’s the message

Value

To understand and identify important concepts to a community and demonstrate commonality between all human experience.

RELIGIOUSRELIGIOUS

Names: Mircea Eliade (religious historian)

Concept: Myths and their elements are expressions of genuine religious experiences. They explain the ways in which we experience the divine, and they explain our relation and experience with the divine.

Examples:Divinity; worship practices; afterlife

RELIGIOUSRELIGIOUS

Questions: Which elements of the myth are associated with the divine? Which actions, interactions suggest a divine or spiritual experience. What is the message?

Value

To provide spiritual insights and provide spiritual significance to human experience.

ECONOMICECONOMICNames: Paul Radin (anthropologist)

Concept: Myths and their elements express our struggle for survival due to economic uncertainty caused by no food and/or poor technology. A means of manipulating a group by the concept of work and reward.

Examples:Gods controlled the wealth/resourcesMonsters/humans/perpetrators were lower-class who desired more

ECONOMICECONOMICQuestions: What elements in the story can be used to control a group? How do these elements work to reveal the struggle to survive? What elements in the story represent money or economic structure? What is the structure? How does the inefficiency of the structure create a struggle to survive? What is the message?

Value

To understand how groups may be manipulated and controlled without their conscious knowledge.

ABSTRACT ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTIONALISTCONSTRUCTIONALIST

Names: Claude Levi-Strauss (anthropologist)

Concept: Myths and their elements are structures that are formed out of our basic thinking mechanisms and that express the tension in social relations, position of power or economic conditions. The story must be viewed in the historical context from which it developed for a true view of its significance.

Examples: Gender roles; views of authority; social ranks

ABSTRACT ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTIONALISTCONSTRUCTIONALIST

Questions: What elements in the myth represent opposing social positions? What are the social positions? What is the relationship between these positions? What tensions exist between these positions? How are the tensions manifested in the story? Are they resolved? What is the message?

ValueTo understand the historical framework of the myth and the evolution of the cultures surrounding the myth.

FEMINISTFEMINISTNames: Betty Friedan, Naomi Wolf

Concept: Myths and their elements establish and maintain women’s roles. They define woman as submissive or as the empowered goddess of creation without whom the world could not exist.

Examples:

Male / Female actions and effect on society

FEMINISTFEMINISTQuestions: How does the story portray females (submissive, disempowered, incapable, etc.)? How does the story portray males (oppressive, empowered, capable, etc.)? What are the characteristics of the roles determined and scripted by the characters and actions? What is the message?

Value

To understand how a culture both defines for and transfers to future generations its gender roles. Also to possibly redefine these roles.

What do you know about the What do you know about the Judeo-Christian story of the Judeo-Christian story of the

Fall of Man?Fall of Man?

SYMBOLICSYMBOLIC

Example:

God = Sun = Light = Day = Good

Serpent = Moon = Dark = Night = Evil

Adam/Eve = caught between the two

Apple = Knowledge of the difference between good & evil

Man is caught in the epic struggle between Good vs. Evil

PSYCHOLOGICALPSYCHOLOGICAL

Example:

God = Superego

Serpent = Id

Adam/Eve = Ego

Apple = Fruit of the woman; libido.

Unconscious drive for sex forces us to ignore the superego.

COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUSUNCONSCIOUS

Example:

God = Father

Serpent = Trickster

Adam/Eve = Child

Apple = The object of childhood rebellion.

Taking what belongs to father as a show of individual strength.

RELIGIOUSRELIGIOUS

Example:

God = Divine

Serpent = Temptation

Adam/Eve = Mankind

Apple = Distraction

Establishes Mankind’s separation from the Divine.

ECONOMICECONOMIC

Example:

God = Privileged; ruling class

Serpent =

Adam/Eve = Servant class

Apple = Resources

Punishment will come for taking that which does not belong to you.

ABSTRACT ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTIONALISTCONSTRUCTIONALIST

Example:

God =

Garden = Matriarchal culture

Serpent =

Adam/Eve = 1st Patriarch (Agrarian)

Apple = Godlike wisdomTakers act like God

FEMINISTFEMINIST

Example:

God = Patriarchy

Serpent = Representative of Matriarchal Goddess

Adam = Primary being; Weak

Eve = Secondary being; Weak/Evil/Temptress

Apple =Femininity is submissive and seductive