Help me give my students access to a novel which has clear utilization of Joseph Campbell's character archetypes while incorporating diverse characters and situations.
My peers and I are helping my students become stronger readers by having them identify the common tropes in literature in order to help them predict the plot in novels. Joseph Campbell took psychologist Carl Jung's archetypal figures (the sage, the magician, the caregiver, etc.) and applied them to literature. We use Campbell’s archetypes to analyze literature’s themes and messages.
If the students can identify a character as an innocent then they know that a hero or caregiver will likely protect them in order to maintain their innocence.
If this protector doesn’t appear, we know the innocent will die or go through a coming-of-age transition with the loss of their naivety. Knowing this and being able to find archetypes will help students predict future events in texts not only from where the stories follow the archetypes but also seeing where the authors’ choose to deviate from them. When the students can find the archetypes, we can have more in depth conversations about characters and situations in the novel partially when the novel doesn’t fit into the archetypes precisely. What does it mean if the ruler is also an innocent? What happens if the hero doesn’t go back to the status quo at the end?
After learning about these models, our students are going to read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Coelho uses characters who largely fit into the archetypal models and my students can study where he chooses to deviate from these prototypes and how it adds to the meaning of the novel. It is also a short text and focuses on a diverse population.
More than a third of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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