Archetypal Theory

•Archetypal Theory may also be referred to as mythography / myth criticism.

•Close to the fields of religion and anthropology

•Assumption that there are a series of universal myths, rituals, patterns, motifs and archetypes that appear in art culture, art, and literature.

The reproduction of such universal features endow literature with a sense of timelessness, and history with a sense of it being cyclical.

•Does Of Mice and Men make a clear-cut distinction between good and evil? What would such Manichean outlook possibly have to do with the concept of myth?

•How is Of Mice and Men a symbolic microcosm of the universal (or at least western) condition of man? What would such structuring have to do with myth criticism?

•Does the novella instill a sense of tragedy/melodrama/comedy? How deterministic is it and what does that have to do with the concepts of myth and ritual?

What ritualistic patterns can you find in the story? Can you from thereon infer the meaning of ritual and its relation to myth?

Complex of stories – some no doubt fact, and some fantasy – which, for various reasons, human beings regard as demonstrations of the inner meaning of the universe and of human life

Analytical category that helps us deal with the chaos of human experience and put it into a coherent framework.

An element that is recurrent in the narrative and whose symbolic significance is strengthened by that recurrence. Their appearance helps to structure and order the narrative, creating recognizable patterns for the reader.

In reference to characters, they indicate symbolic prototypes that are recurrent in myths and which face prototypical actions that are to be ritualistically confronted. It assumes that all cultures share a basic symbolic system in which archetypal figures are systematized.

•Influence of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.

•The knightly loyalty, the pursuit of the vision, the creation of a bond (shared briefly by Candy and Brooks) and its destruction by an at least potentially adulterous relationship

•Grail as symbol of the Paradise Lost, the fall of man, motifs of the rabbits, the ‘couple of acres’ as a safe place, ultimate search for the Garden of Eden

•Male bonding and concern for the less priviledged

-The Dream as the final step in the quest

•Paradox of the Grail, implied sacrifice through the symbol of blood

•Guinevere = Curley’s wife, loss of Lancelot’s virginal purity, loss of destiny to find the Grail= Eve

•The man who overcomes the temptress is the hero = relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene = Galahad’s liberation of the Castle of Maidens

Candy = Father-like figure whose flaw is overcome by the son (= Lancelot & Galahad, Galahad is the only one to whom the secrets of the Grail are revealed; he is also the one to undertake, alone, the last part of the quest).

•“The one obvious Arthurian hangover is George, who is not only remarkably loyal to his charge – the feeble-minded Lennie – but also remarkably pure” (French qtd. Bloom 2006, 73).

•“George is a last Galahad, dismounted, armed only with a failing dream, a long way from Camelot” (French qtd. Bloom 2006, 75).

•George = purity, honor, brotherhood, loyalty, virtue of the Knights of Camelot à yet final, ironic twist on the predestination of Galahad

-The closest they come to the Grail is when the triumvirate of masculine-based loyalty is established: George – Lennie – Candy , the strong and the weak, the young and the old, the reasoning and the passionate come together.

-Cain and Abel, am I my brother's keeper?