[UA] Stereotypes and archetypes

Greg Stolze holycrow at mindspring.com
Tue Jul 17 05:41:12 PDT 2001


>Well, I think that most of the literature on human archetypes (a la C.G.
>Jung) is pretty unambiguous on this point: certain pieces of art
>(literature and film among them) resonate more deeply with people
>because they explore archetpyes that _are_ more real. Good writers (or
>other artists) are distinguished by their insight into the _truth_ of
>various archetpyes and their ability to represent said archetypes in
>their art. When the same archetype shows up in one story after another,
>it's no longer a question of "one writer's perceptions".

See, my take on that -- in the UnAverse -- is that those things resonate
not because the artist CREATED an archetype, but because he PERCEIVED one
correctly.  He saw something that existed in reality and depicted it.  When
you pull something out of your ass, it may resonate strongly because it's
what people want to see (Superman, anybody?) but it still has not basis in
reality.  In fact, it probably appeals BECAUSE it has no basis in reality.

-G.

If the reinstatement of capital punishment was clearly doing nothing to
reduce the number of murders in those states permitting it, it certainly
appeared to be cutting down on the number of confessions.
        -Dr. Douglas Ubelaker

www.waylay.com
www.thehungersite.com



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