Archetypes

Archetypes

In our Monday lesson with Mr Stephens, we looked at archetypes, commonly used in Shakespeare's plays.

1. What is an archetype?

An archetype is a typical figure commonly used in literature or plays. 

2. What do we understand about the four archetypes?

The four archetypes we explored in our lesson were:

Trickster

Warrior

Sovereign

Carer

Firstly, we looked at the Sovereign (a figure of royalty and prestige). We explored the character by placing both hands like a crown on our hand and moved around the space as our character. We took the same process for all the different archetypes. We also had a discussion about the 'typical traits' of each character. For example, we described 'The Carer' as loving, under appreciated by others, selfless and compassionate. In contrast, the trickster was described as 'mischievous, cheeky, the joker and intelligent'. 

Next, we were asked to identify the archetype we identified most with at that moment in time and I picked the Trickster. In our groups, we discussed and wrote down all the positive aspects about that archetype that drew us to it and then we did the same with the least identifiable archetype, from me the Sovereign and discussed the negative aspects of that character too. 

Our final activity was to match lines from A Midsummer Night's Dream such as "Lord, what fools these mortals be" to one of the four archetypes we had previously looked at. The class was very conflicted at the some points as you could interpret the character and the lines differently to others.

At the end of the lesson, we were told that it was Puck (the trickster like character in the play) who had said all the lines, which was surprising to the class.s

3. How will our understanding of archetypes help us create a character?

From this lesson, I have been able to understand that there will always be archetypes of characters. Identifying the lines connected to the characters seemed simple because you could match it to any character depending on your interpretation but finding out that they were all said by Puck shows that a character doesn't just have one layer. A 'Sovereign' for example, might not just be royal and prestige, they might also be calm and caring too. You cannot base a character off assumptions and stereotypes, otherwise your character will be really two dimensional and boring.