What is an Archetype?
If you’re curious about what an archetype is, then this is the page for you. Keep reading to learn about where our name Archetype comes from, and its significance to the process of art-making.
Let's start simple...
An archetype is a recurrent motif, a “first” form, or a set pattern of behaviour.
“Archetypes,” Carl Jung says, “are the living system of reactions and aptitudes that determine the individual’s life in invisible ways.”
We observe archetypes in every character of our personal dreams, the stories we read, the films we watch, the art we admire, and the collective myths we share.
Examples of common character archetypes include The Mother, The Father, The Child, The Shadow, The Persona, The Magician, The Hero, and The Trickster, among others. Each character acts out certain patterns of behaviour that we have become attuned to over time.
“The archetypes,” says Jungian psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz, “are inherited dispositions, which cause us to react in a typical way to basic human problems, inner or outer.”
Generally, archetypes influence our behaviour, trigger our emotions, and provide us with meaning.
Behaviour: Archetypes are “the forms which the instincts assume.” They’re sort of like 16Personalities for the soul.
Emotions: When you experience an emotion, it is the emotion of an archetype. For example, lovers are passionate, sadists are hateful, warriors are courageous.
Meaning: Archetypes help us make sense of our inner world and emotional life. Through archetypes, we are able to understand more about who we are and what drives us.
We see ourselves reflected in the images—known as archetypal images—of the archetypes that surround us, both in the world and in our unconscious. Radically, every word or image represents an archetype. They’re every where!
Alright, let’s get a bit more complicated with our second definition: An archetype is a universal, inborn model of people, behaviours, or personalities that play a role in influencing human behaviour. It is an archaic form of innate human knowledge passed down from our ancestors.
Archetypes represent universal patterns and images that are part of the collective unconscious, the part of the unconscious mind that is derived from ancestral memory and is common to all humankind. We inherit archetypes much the same way we inherent instinctive patterns of behaviour, passed down through the generations that came before us.
Writes Jung, “Man is not much interested in objective explanations of the obvious, but he has an imperative need—or rather, his unconscious psyche has an irresistible urge—to assimilate all outer sense experiences to inner, psychic events. It is not enough for man to see the sun rise and set; this external observation must at the same time be a psychic happening: the sun in its course must represent the fate of a god or hero who, in the last analysis, dwells nowhere except in the soul of man.” The outer happenings of life become “symbolic expressions of the inner, unconscious drama of the psyche which becomes accessible to man’s consciousness by way of projection.”
Ultimately, Jung argues that there is no limit to the number of archetypes that may exist. And while the existence of these archetypes cannot be observed directly, they can be inferred by looking at religion, dreams, art, and literature.
Generally, there are three basic forms of archetypes:
1. Situational Archetypes
Examples: The quest, the initiation, the journey, the fall, the death and rebirth, the task, the battle between good and evil, the ritual.
2. Symbolic Archetypes
Examples: Light vs. darkness, water vs. desert, haven vs. wilderness, ocean, fire, the colour black or the colour white.
3. Character Archetypes
Examples: The hero, the outcast, the temptress, the mentor-pupil relationship, the father-son conflict, the initiates, the wise old man.
When we put it all together, an archetype is a set pattern of behaviour shared collectively by people, passed down by our ancestral heritage, and discovered symbolically through the myths, stories, and art of the species.