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Archetypes

Introduction

An archetype may be defined as an original pattern or model that provides a source from which all other similar things are made. Archetypes help authors in creating Maven project templates that users may apply to generate Maven projects. An archetype is a universally accepted and understood symbol, term, or behaviour from which other patterns are emulated. It may also refer to personality or behaviour in psychology, for example, a mother figure may be taken as an archetype that could be identified in many characters with non generic personalities.

Archetypal characters appear over and over again in legends worldwide. Angel is an archetype as a tragic hero who is trying to overcome the evils in his past. Many literature theories classify archetypes by their roles or purpose the character represents in the story. The classifications are protagonist, antagonist, reason, emotion, sidekick, sceptic, guardian, and contagonist.

Caught in the Widow’s Web

Caught in the Widow’s web is a story written by Gordon Rice, which can be divided into three structural archetype types. These archetypal structures are character archetype, plot archetype, and setting archetype. The characters, setting, and plot archetypes that are believed to be the most important to this story have been well used by the author to convey a very complex psychological and philosophical narrative. Archetypes main purpose is to produce certain psychic forms, their description, and various means of demonstration.

Character archetypes

The character archetypes in this narrative include the hunter, black widow, child, mother, and scavenger. Given that the story is in first person view point, the reader gains access to the narrators mind. In this case, the heroic hunter is the narrator, who is a hero in his own narrative; He embarks on a quest to find black widows in the village and neighbourhood. He found them in discarded wheels and tyres, house foundations and cellars, automotive shops and tool sheds, and water meters and rock gardens. Other character archetypes are the villain and the town that is revealed in the first paragraph.

The character archetype is the black widow as she is the object of the hunter’s fury, and the heroic hunter seeks and destroys as many villains as possible. The black widow archetype character is an illusion of something evil, and any bad thing that happens in a person’s life is associated to the active malevolent. Black widows always waited in the dark to ambush their victims. A black widow in somebody’s life cannot be reasoned with, just like the hero cannot reason with their nemesis. Grice also sees the tiny spider as a villain who represents the black widow. The hero hunts them wherever he goes, and at the same time he fears them and realizes that they are too many to hunt, as much as he resolved to hunt them in the whole town. Black widow in this narrative is seen as the ultimate villain, yet it is a small and malevolent creature with a high potential to for mass destruction. It possesses venom that contains neurotoxin that produces sweats, vomiting, swelling, convulsions, and a number of other symptoms. The author also despises widows and sees them as abominations of nature which is good in the world.

Setting Archetypes

The setting archetypes in this narrative include the town, the web, and the cosmos or universe. This narrative is filled with material demonstrating archetypal forms that when pieced together reveals a web of intricacies that have the ability to overwhelm even the most analytical eye. The town is the main setting archetype which provides the battling ground between the villain and the hero throughout the story. The town represents the area in which the heroic hunter searches and destroys the black widow.

When the heroic hunter goes throughout the town and neighbourhood, he found the black widows in many archetypal settings like house foundations and cellars, implying that he always hunted for the web and always found and destroyed them. The dark places that the black widow hides are another setting archetype, since evil things dwells and comes from dark places.

Plot archetypes

The plot archetypes in the narrative are the hero’s quest, child’s journey, and the villains fall. The battle between good and evil is part of the archetypal plot in the story. The author or the heroic hunter represents all that is good, and the spider or the black widow represents all that is evil. This is a struggle that permeates in many stories whether fiction or nonfiction, in a dream or reality. The heroic hunter projects archetypal terrors onto the black widows, When the heroic hunter sees the the spider wriggling in pain, thriving, malevolent little creature reminds the hunter that this is a negativity that exists in the universe.

Work cited

Miller G. “Caught in the Widow’s Web”. The Prentice Hall Reader. University Press of Mississippi.(2000). Print