What are the archetypal stories?

2,475 Views | 24 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by terata
Ulrich
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Two part question that I've been thinking about.

1. What stories stand the test of time and get told over and over, even if they change a little bit?

2. What is it about each story that makes it so durable and appealing? Both individually and generally.

I think of King Arthur and Odysseus as really good examples: legends 1500 / 2,800 years old that have been retold and reimagined ever since. I have read Campbell and I have a few of my own ideas, but I'm interested in getting some fresh thoughts from a thoughtful group of people with a lot of historical knowledge.
BQ78
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Robin Hood

The rich and powerful get their comeuppance. Gets retold in American folklore with Jesse James and Bonnie and Clyde.
BQ08
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BQ78 said:

Robin Hood

The rich and powerful get their comeuppance. Gets retold in American folklore with Jesse James and Bonnie and Clyde.


I'd add John Dillinger to that list as well.
Rabid Cougar
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Leonidas and the Spartans at Thermopylae. Every last stand battle for the last 2,000 years has been compared to it ... small band of soldiers fighting to the death against a dastardly horde.
one MEEN Ag
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The monomyth or 'Hero's Journey.'
aalan94
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This is a pretty good book I have. It's obviously about fiction writing, but some of the enduring history or quasi-history stories have these elements, which are why they appeal so much to us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Writer%27s_Journey:_Mythic_Structure_for_Writers
Ulrich
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aalan, thanks for the rec. Among my projects is a work of fiction, so I'll definitely pick that up.

Good call, Rabid Cougar, I hadn't though of Leonidas. Thanks to the others who have contributed as well.

So far I have Odysseus, Aeneis, Arthur, Christ, Gilgamesh, Robin Hood, Cuchhulainn, Buddha, William Wallace, Adam/Eve, Oedipus, Leonidas, and Prometheus. I'm thinking there's a native American one that I'm forgetting, but I'm sure I'll pick it up when I reread Campbell (who popularized the monomyth/heroes journey someone mentioned).
BQ78
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Add Dracula that centers on conquering death but being cursed with eternal life as a monster
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YZ250
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Romeo and Juliet
AgBQ-00
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The lost treasure hunt and recovery stories. See them across many time period/genre.
FTACo88-FDT24dad
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Boudreaux and Thibodeaux

Rabid Cougar
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Ulrich said:

aalan, thanks for the rec. Among my projects is a work of fiction, so I'll definitely pick that up.

Good call, Rabid Cougar, I hadn't though of Leonidas. Thanks to the others who have contributed as well.

So far I have Odysseus, Aeneis, Arthur, Christ, Gilgamesh, Robin Hood, Cuchhulainn, Buddha, William Wallace, Adam/Eve, Oedipus, Leonidas, and Prometheus. I'm thinking there's a native American one that I'm forgetting, but I'm sure I'll pick it up when I reread Campbell (who popularized the monomyth/heroes journey someone mentioned).
The "Noble Savage" in American literature. Uncorrupted by civilization thus symbolizing innate goodness.
Examples : "Last of the Mohicans" "Empire of the Summer Moon".

You can also say that Chief Joseph's quote of "I will fight no more forever"
Apache
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Quote:

Uncorrupted by civilization thus symbolizing innate goodness.

Examples : "Empire of the Summer Moon"

I didn't get that innate goodness interpretation of the Comanche out of EOTSM AT ALL!
oldarmy76
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User name checks out.
Rabid Cougar
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How many movies have been made about Geronimo or based on the Apache Wars? Nobel savage fighting evil white man invaders. AND a few hundred Mexican and American civilians killed... but that is beside the point.

Empire of the Summer Moon simply includes the reality.

On a side point that is brought out in Last of the Mohicans and Empire of the Summer Moon, ever notice how very little of the Native vs Native genocide is included in the modern day conversation? I wonder do modern day Natives still hold grudges against other Natives that were the scourge of their forefathers. Or does that part of their history seem to be put on the back burner.

BQ78
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The Noble Savage (Comanche) swinging the baby around to smash his head on a post, ah yes so noble.

That said, I know what you are saying the Noble Savage tradition is very strong in Germany.

Quote:

I wonder do modern day Natives still hold grudges against other Natives that were the scourge of their forefathers.
Nah, the evil white man wiped their grudge out while killing all of them and the buffalo.

I did find it ironic this summer when I was on the Crow Reservation in Montana that they were selling Sioux and Cheyenne themed T-Shirts.
Apache
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Quote:

Empire of the Summer Moon simply includes the reality.

I know what you are saying... a "Noble Savage" trope is definitely a thing... but EOTSM does nothing to promote the myth.

With regards to Native v. Native combat, there was a scene I recall in Dances with Wolves where Costner helped the Sioux slaughter some other tribe that came to attack them... maybe Pawnee?
FTACo88-FDT24dad
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Rabid Cougar said:

Ulrich said:

aalan, thanks for the rec. Among my projects is a work of fiction, so I'll definitely pick that up.

Good call, Rabid Cougar, I hadn't though of Leonidas. Thanks to the others who have contributed as well.

So far I have Odysseus, Aeneis, Arthur, Christ, Gilgamesh, Robin Hood, Cuchhulainn, Buddha, William Wallace, Adam/Eve, Oedipus, Leonidas, and Prometheus. I'm thinking there's a native American one that I'm forgetting, but I'm sure I'll pick it up when I reread Campbell (who popularized the monomyth/heroes journey someone mentioned).
The "Noble Savage" in American literature. Uncorrupted by civilization thus symbolizing innate goodness.
Examples : "Last of the Mohicans" "Empire of the Summer Moon".

You can also say that Chief Joseph's quote of "I will fight no more forever"


Man, I never got a romantic vibe from EOTSM..
Ulrich
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Noble Savage is more a European Romantic thing a la Rousseau (certainly goes back much farther), but the whole "back before civilization ruined everything" trope that the Noble Savage falls into is a recurring theme... shares aspects with both Adam/Eve and Prometheus, where knowledge and sophistication brought pain and a fall from grace. Thanks for bringing that up.
Ciboag96
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I'll throw out the obvious. The story of Jesus Christ. God becoming fully man to redeem the fallen world through his blood atonement. So many storied can be linked back to that original story. Harry Potter is a recent example.
cavscout96
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Arthurian Legends and the subsequent redux
AndesAg92
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Star Wars: A New Hope
terata
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"The "Noble Savage" " - There is no such thing.

OldArmy71
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The central archetype of classic American literature--somewhat related to the Noble Savage--is the American Adam.

R.W.B. Lewis. The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1955.

Leo Marx. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. London: Oxford UP, 1973.


Pastoral refers to a genre of European literature whose basic design outlines the longing of someone trapped in the complexities of civilization and "modern" life to withdraw from the city and retreat to a simpler, less complicated existence located in an idealized natural setting.

This pastoral literature eventually became linked to the quest for a perfect life of innocence and simplicity: the Golden Age; the Garden of Eden.

Combining some observations on the pastoral by M.H. Abrams and Northrup Frye, one can say that the search for the pastoral landscape becomes a journey in search of healing and innocence and rebirth: the seeker leaves behind the civilized world and enters the "Green World" of the pastoral, a place of transformation and regeneration and spiritual rebirth. This rebirth is not necessarily easy: it may require the overcoming of obstacles, some sort of "dying" away from society, or a loss of some aspect of the questor. In the pastoral, however, the tone is ultimately optimistic and hopeful. The questor, having been energized and reborn, returns to civilization but is now operating on a higher spiritual plane.

Importantly, this quest is not necessarily successful. If there is pastoral literature, there is also ANTI-pastoral literature. Two forces operate to threaten the pastoral quest: (a) the death that nature implicitly holds in store for us all, and (b) the evil within each human soul. So anti-pastoral authors argue against the notion that humans can reach the Garden. The tone is nostalgic or elegiac.

NOW: On to America.

When Columbus landed in America, his discovery of a seemingly "empty" landscape (the Indians notwithstanding) seemed to give a real existence to what had previously been the realm of myth. The "fresh green breast of the New World," as Fitzgerald calls it at the end of The Great Gatsby, became the repository of all sorts of fantasies and longings for a perfect garden that endure down to the present day. The dominant metaphor that came to describe America was that it was a gardenin fact, THE Gardenof Eden.

If America is the Garden, then who lives here? Adam, of course (and sometimes Eve). So the classic American character is a naif, the American Adam; the central American story is the depiction of how this innocent encounters the world. Most American writers take the pastoral quest for the Garden and mock it or show that it is an unrealistic, hopeless longing (as Fitzgerald reminds us on the last page of Gatsby and as Melville shows in Billy Budd).

Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman present a positive side to the American Adam; Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville present the negative side.

terata
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