M.A sem 2 Department of English M K Bhavnagar University. Paper No-109 Literary Theory and criticism and Indian aesthetics

1. Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Date: 9 April 2024
Asha Rathod
Sem 2 | Batch 2023-25
Carl Jung’s Theory of
Archetypes

2. Carl Jung’s Theory of
Archetypes
Presented by Asha Rathod

3. Personal Information
● Name: Asha Rathod
● Roll No: 03
● Email : asharathod1451@gmail.com
● M.A Sem: 2 (2023-25)
● Paper No: 109
● Paper Name: Literary Theory & Criticism & Indian Aesthetics
● Submitted to smt. S. B. Gardi Department of
English, Bhavnagar

4. Table of contents
WHAT ARE
ARCHETYPES?
01.
03.
02.
05.
> <
<
> <
<
04.
ARCHETYPES IN
LITERATURE
The Origins of
Jungian
Archetypes
JUNG'S FOUR
MAJOR
ARCHETYPES
CONCLUSION

5. WHAT ARE ARCHETYPES?
❏ According to Jung, archetypes are inherited potentials that are actualized
when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on
interaction with the outside world.
❏ In literary criticism the term archetype denotes narrative designs, patterns of
action, character types, themes, and images which recur in a wide variety of
works of literature, as well as in myths, dreams, and even social rituals. Such
recurrent items are often claimed to be the result of elemental and universal
patterns in the human psyche, whose effective embodiment in a literary work
evokes a profound response from the attentive reader, because he or she
shares the psychic archetypes expressed by the author.

6. ARCHETYPES IN LITERATURE
❏ Archetypal literary criticism is a type of analytical theory that interprets a text by focusing
on recurring myths and archetypes (from the Greek arche, "beginning", and typos,
"imprint") in the narrative, symbols, images, and character types in literary works. As an
acknowledged form of literary criticism, it dates back to 1934 when Classical scholar
Maud Bodkin published Archetypal Patterns in Poetry.
❏ Bodkin was the first who applied Jung's theories about the collective unconscious,
archetypes, and primordial image to literature. But Northrop Frye purely theorized
archetypal criticism in literary terms.
❏ For Frye, literary archetypes "play an essential role in refashioning the material
universe into an alternative verbal universe that is humanly intelligible and viable,
because it is adapted to essential human needs and concerns" (M.G.H)

7. Continue….
While Frazer's work deals with mythology and archetypes
in material terms, the work of Carl Gustav Jung, the
Swiss-born founder of analytical psychology, is, in
contrast, immaterial in its focus. Jung's work theorizes
about myths and archetypes in relation to the
unconscious, an inaccessible part of the mind. From a
Jungian perspective, myths are the "culturally elaborated
representations of the contents of the deepest recess of
the human psyche: the world of the Stream Yard

8. The Origins of Jungian Archetypes
❏ Jung believed that archetypes come from the collective unconscious. He
suggested that these models are innate, universal, unlearned, and hereditary.
Archetypes organize how we experience certain things.
❏ "All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes," Jung explained in
his book, "The Structure of the Psyche."
❏ Jung believed that each archetype played a role in personality, but felt that
most people were dominated by one specific archetype. According to Jung, the
actual way in which an archetype is expressed or realized depends upon a
number of factors, including an individual's cultural influences and uniquely
personal experiences.(Cherry)

9. JUNG'S FOUR MAJOR ARCHETYPES
❏ While Jung agreed with Freud that the unconscious
played an important role in personality and behavior, he
expanded on Freud's idea of the personal unconscious to
include what Jung called the collective unconscious.
❏ Jung believed that the human psyche was composed of
the three components:
❏ The Ego that reflects the conscious mind.
❏ The personal unconscious, which is unique to each of
us. It contains suppressed memories.
❏ The collective unconscious that reflects share memories with whole of humanity.
❏ According to Jung, the ego represents the conscious mind while the personal unconscious
contains memories including those that have been suppressed.archetypes"

10. The Main Archetypes
04 The Self
02 The Shadow
01
The Persona
03
The Anima or
Animus

11. The Persona
❏ The persona is how we present ourselves to the world. The word
"persona" is derived from a Latin word that literally means
"mask."
❏ The persona represents all of the different social masks that we
wear among various groups and situations. It acts to shield the
ego from negative images.
❏ According to Jung, the persona may appear in dreams and take
different forms.
❏ The persona archetype allows people to adapt to the world around them and fit in with
the society in which they live. However, becoming too closely identified with this
archetype can lead people to lose sight of their true selves.(Cherry)

12. The Shadow
❏ The shadow is a Jungian archetype that consists of sex and life instincts. The
shadow exists as part of the unconscious mind and is composed of repressed
ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts, and shortcomings.
❏ Jung suggested that the shadow can appear in dreams or visions and may take
a variety of forms. It might appear as a snake, a monster, a demon, a dragon, or
some other dark, wild, or exotic figure.
❏ This archetype is often described as the
darker side of the psyche, representing
wildness, chaos, and the unknown. These
latent dispositions are present in all of us,
Jung believed, although people sometimes
deny this element of their own psyche and
instead project it onto others.(Cherry)
❏

13. The Anima or Animus
❏ The anima is a feminine image in the male psyche, and the animus is a male image in
the female psyche.
❏ The anima/animus represents the "true self" rather than the image we present to
others and serves as the primary source of communication with the collective
unconscious.
❏ Jung believed that physiological changes as
well as social influences contributed to the
development of sex roles and gender
identities.
❏ The combined anima and animus is known as
the syzygy or the divine couple. The syzygy
represents completion, unification, and
wholeness.(Cherry)

14. The Self
❏ The self is an archetype that represents the unified
unconsciousness and consciousness of an
individual. Jung often represented the self as a circle,
square, or mandala.
❏ Jung believed that disharmony between the
unconscious and the conscious mind could lead to
psychological problems.
❏ You can think of this by imagining a circle with a dot
right at the center. The entire circle makes up the
self, where the small dot in the middle represents the
ego.(Cherry)
❏

15. Conclusion
Result
analysis
❏ An archetype in the collective unconscious, as quoted from Leitch,
is "irrepresentable, but has effects which make visualizations of it
possible, namely, the archetypal images and ideas
❏ In short, Jung conceptualized our psyche as a place, that many
archetypes and personalities are being stored.
❏ Many psychoanalysts, Jung regarded that a psyche as a loose
collection of partially integrated personalities.

16. Resources
Cherry, Kendra. “12 Archetypes: Definition, Theory, and Types.” Verywell Mind, 11 March 2023,
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-are-jungs-4-major-archetypes-2795439. Accessed 4 April 2024.
Ernst Falzeder. “Freud and Jung, Freudians and Jungians.” Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, vol. 6,
no. 3, 2012, pp. 24–43. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1525/jung.2012.6.3.24. Accessed 4 Apr. 2024.
Fordham, Frieda and Fordham, Michael S.M.. "Carl Jung". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Mar. 2024,
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung. Accessed 4 April 2024.
M. G. W., and H. W. L. “ARCHETYPES IN LITERATURE.” The Yale University Library Gazette, vol.
31, no. 2, 1956, pp. 90–91. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40857735. Accessed 4 Apr. 2024.
ZOLLA, ELÉMIRE. “Archetypes.” The American Scholar, vol. 48, no. 2, 1979, pp. 191–207. JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41210505. Accessed 4 Apr. 2024.

17. Thank
You