Archetypes

Stories

Joseph Campbell, the author of The Power of Myth argues that people have always felt the need to be able to explain things and to understand their world, and have relied on stories (or myths) that helped them to make sense of their world, even alongside scientific explanations. In fact, myths have played, and continue to play a pivotal role in our psychosocial development, primarily because they are often based on archetypes.

Archetypes

Archetypes, according to psychologist Carl Jung, are expressions of the collective unconscious and are present in all of our storytelling to help us make sense of our collective reality. You may notice that stories across time and space contain many similar elements, whether similar characters, plots, settings, or symbols. It is useful to become familiar with these similarities so that you can examine how a text creator uses or deviates from archetypes to create a unique and compelling story. They are also helpful for understanding how characters, events, settings, and other items can act as symbols for ideas within a text.

The Hero's Journey & the Monomyth