Archetypes

Archetypes (n.) – the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based

We live in a world full of archetypes. From the Disney princess series or Superman than young boys and girls love to watch, to the most recent movie, Beastly, archetypes prevail. Seeing the “same” characters or plots again and again sound like a bore, so why does movie goers and book readers never seem to get tired when they spot the villain and hero, or when they go watch a typical love story where “the boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy looses girl and boy wins girl back”? This is probably because these archetypes are deeply rooted in our thinking. People like to classify things. We learn by doing so. So when we see the familiar brave prince and damsel in distress, things just click into place and we smile knowingly at what is to come. A famous analytical physiologist, Carl Jung, puts this into his theory. He proposes that people’s minds consist of the ego, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is universal and inherited. He continues by stating that the collective unconscious is composed of archetypes. We think by dividing people in the world to the shadow, the anima, the animus and the self. This explains people’s tendency to sort things.