Narrative Structure: Exploring Character Archetypes.

Character Archetype
1.The Hero

Description
1. The Hero is a protagonist whose life is a series of wellmarked adventures. The circumstances of his birth are unusual, and he is raised by a guardian. He will have to leave his kingdom, only to return to it upon reaching manhood. Characterized by courage, strength, and honor, the hero will endure hardship, even risk his life for the good of all. Leaves the familiar to enter an unfamiliar and challenging world.

2. Young Man from the Provinces 3. The Initiates

2. The Hero returns to his home and heritage where he is a stranger who can see new problems and new solutions. 3. The Initiates are young heroes or heroines who must go through some training and ceremony before undertaking their quest.

4. Mentor

4. The Mentor is an older, wiser teacher to the initiates. He often serves as a father or mother figure. He gives the hero gifts (weapons, food, magic, information), serves as a role model or as heros conscience.

5. Mentor Pupil Relationship

5. In this relationship, the Mentor teaches the Hero/pupil the necessary skills for surviving the quest.

6. Father - Son Conflict

6. In this relationship, the tension is built due to separation from childhood or some other source when the two meet as men.

7. Hunting Group of Companions

7. These are loyal companions willing to face hardship and ordeal in order to stay together.

Character Archetype
8. Friendly Beast

Description
8. An animal companion showing that nature is on the side of the hero

9. The Shadow

9. A worthy opponent with whom the hero must struggle in a fight to the end. Must be destroyed or neutralized. Psychologically can represent the darker side of the heros own psyche.

10. The Devil Figure

10. This character is evil incarnate!

11. The Evil Figure with an Ultimately Good Heart

11. A devil figure with the potential to be good. This person is usually saved by the love of the hero.

12. A monster usually summoned from the deepest, 12. The Creature of Nightmare darkest part of the human psyche to threaten the lives of the hero/heroine. Often it is a perversion or desecration of the human body. 13. An animal, or more usually a human, whose death in a public ceremony expiates some taint or sin of a community. They are often more powerful in death than in life.

13. The Scapegoat

14. The Outcast

14. A character banished from a social group for some real or imagined crime against his fellow man, usually destined to wander form place to place.

15. The Platonic Ideal

15. A woman who is a source of inspiration to the hero, who has an intellectual rather than physical attraction to her.

Character Archetype
16. The Damsel in Distress

Description
16. A vulnerable woman who needs to be rescued by the hero. She is often used as a trap to ensnare the unsuspecting hero. 17. Symbolic of fruition, abundance, and fertility, this character traditionally offers spiritual and emotional nourishment to those with whom she comes in contact. Often depicted in earth colors, has large breasts and hips symbolic of her childbearing capacities.

17. The Earth Mother

18. The Temptress or Black Goddess

18. Characterized by sensuous beauty, this woman is one to whom the protagonist is physically attracted and who ultimately brings about his downfall. May appear as a witch or vampire. 19. Good, beautiful maiden, usually blond, may make an ideal marriage partner, often has religious or intellectual overtones.

19. The White Goddess

20. Star-Crossed Lovers

20. Two characters engaged in a love affair fated to end tragically for one or both due to the disapproval of society, friends, family, or some tragic situation.

Narrative Structure: Exploring Situational Archetypes Situational Archetype

1. The Quest

Description
1. This motif describes the search for some talisman which, when found and brought back, will restore fertility and prosperity to a wasted land which often has a corrupt or disabled ruler. 2. To save the kingdom, to win the fair lady, to identify himself so that he may resume his rightful position, the Hero must perform some super-human deed.

2. The Task

3. The Initiation

3. This usually takes the form of an initiation into life, that is, the depiction of an adolescent coming into maturity or adulthood with all the problems and responsibilities that this process involves. An awakening, an awareness, or an increased perception of the world and the people in it usually form the climax of this situational archetype. 4. Usually combined with any or all of the situational archetypes, The Journey is used to send The Hero in search of information or some intellectual truth.

4. The Journey

5. The Fall

5. This archetype describes a descent from a higher to a lower being. This experience involves spiritual defilement and/ or a loss of innocence and bliss. The Fall is also usually accompanied by expulsion from a kind of paradise as penalty for disobedience and moral transgression.

6. Death and Rebirth

6. The most common of all situational archetypes, this motif grows out of the parallel between the cycle of nature, and the cycle of life. Ex. Morning and springtime represent birth, youth, or rebirth Evening and winter suggest old age or death

Narrative Structure: Exploring Symbolic Archetypes Symbolic Archetype 1. Water Description 1. Associated with rebirth, fertility, purification and redemption, transitional phases of the life cycle Ex. Rain, ocean, river

2. The Sun

2. Enlightenment, wisdom, spiritual vision, passing of time Rising Sun= Birth Setting Sun= Death 3. Red=blood, passion, sexuality, violence Green= growth, hope, rebirth White=purity, innocence Black=evil, the unknown, death Blue=truth, religious feeling, security

3. Colors

4. Tree

4. denotes life and its regenerative processes. It stands for inexhaustible life and therefore, immorality

5. Garden

5. paradise, innocence, unspoiled beauty, fertility

6. Desert

6. Death, nihilism, hopelessness