NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Mythology and Archetypes in Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird Of all the various approaches to criticism, the Mythological/Archetypal achieves the greatest impact over the entire literary scope, because the themes and patterns unearthed apply universally to all works, yielding results that can be applied to a great many texts. This is because the very nature of the Mythological/Archetypal approach is the exploration of the canon for widespread and pervading symbols, plots, and characters. These are all greatly extant in Harper Lees classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, an extraordinary examination of the Depression-era South through the eyes of a young girl with rare intelligence and insight, living in a small town which is filled with these archetypal images. To Kill a Mockingbird, when approached from the Mythological/Archetypal viewpoint, is a prime example of the three primary elements that the method of criticism inspects: universality in character, symbol, and plot.
Universal characters in To Kill a Mockingbird are present, and well documented. For example, Jem and Scout embody the ideals of youth and the naivety of innocence, while Tom Robinson with his withered arm symbolizes the crippled powerlessness of the black community. The scene where Tom is revealed to be physically handicapped is particularly strong: Tom Robinsons powerful shoulders rippled under his thin shirt. He rose to his feet and stood with his right hand on the back of his chair. He looked oddly off balance, but it was not from the way he was standing. His left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side.
It ended in a small shriveled hand, and from as far away as the balcony I could see it was of no use to him. (TKAM 186) This scene skillfully alerts the reader to his injury, which is much more than just one mans disfigurement, for the book points out that not just Tom Robinson is on trial, but an entire system of injustice. Through Tom, the legal and social rights of the entire community are called into question. Toms injury, therefore, represents the injury of all the people he epitomizes. These symbols can be illustrated many places elsewhere in the literary canon. For example, the archetypal character of the crippled man symbolizing a crippled society can be perceived in the character of Benjy Compton in William Faulkner's tremendously symbolic novel The Sound and the Fury; Benjy, who is severely mentally challenged, has no concept of time and is preyed upon by vulturous members of his world, including his black care-giver and his older brother Jason. Benjy represents Faulkner's conception of the decaying Southern gentility; that the sense of time is skewed (with its emphasis on the conservative old ways and the antebellum morality, the South, like Benjy, is living in a mixed world of past and present which is largely responsible for its failure and decline) and that its fate is beyond its control.
Harper Lees use of Tom Robinson is very similar: the arm, destroyed by a cotton gin (possibly symbolizing the damaging mechanization of modern society), represents the black communities lack of power and strength; however, all is not negative: Tom has a fundamental morality and a strong sense of integrity and empathy, and it can be implied that the community he represents does also. Benjy Compton and Tom Robinson are both examples of the same archetype: the individual who stands for an entire select citizenry. Harper Lee might have drawn on other examples of this archetype, that of crippled character portraying crippled community. Some of these could be: Clifford Chatterly in D.
H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterlys Lover, who is severely physically handicapped, representing insular upper-crust English society as sterile and undermined by the working class; and Jake Barnes in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, who portrays the war-ravaged youth of the Lost Generation and their quest for identity and love in an era which threatened to eradicate both. The two children (who portray not a larger body of people but rather the abstract concept of the ideals of youth) are also represented elsewhere in literature: John T. Unger in F. Scott Fitzgeralds story The Diamond as Big as the Ritz (Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 182 - 216) is really no more than a child who embodies the traits of honesty, sincerity, and honor (just as Jem and Scout do) who is thrust into an unjust world he has trouble adjusting to, similar to Jem and Scout, who have difficulty adapting to the adult world they are suddenly faced with; likewise Holden Caulfield in J.
D. Salingers novel The Catcher in the Rye is essentially a child who embodies and values innocence to such an extent he goes to great length to preserve it, and has so has immense trouble adapting to the troubling world of adults he encounters, perhaps best depicted by the episode with the whore in the New York hotel. Lee also uses some other standard archetypes of characters. Atticus Finch, the father, at once embodies the character type of wise man, or sage; this character is seen in various works from Owl Eyes in The Great Gatsby to Don Juan Makes in The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda to the immortal character of Sherlock Holmes in A. Conan Doyles tales; Atticus also fills in the traditional hero-warrior roles (especially in the scene with the rabid dog and the scene where he defends the courthouse from the lynch mob) which is typified by such diverse models as Beowulf, Santiago in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Tom Jones in the eponymous book by Henry Fielding.
From a Mythological standpoint, To Kill a Mockingbird contains vivid archetypes of several universal characters. Symbols pervasive in all literature can also be found in Lees novel. For instance, the watch attached to the knife found in the Radley's tree clearly symbolizes the linkage of time and the destruction or decay. A similar symbol can be seen in The Sound and the Fury, in the stopped watch which Quentin Compton mulls over before committing suicide. A typical symbol emphasized by archetypal critics is that of trees, which symbolize safety and sanctuary; in the text this proves to be so, for the tree in the Radley's yard allows the children a harmless and secure means of communicating with Arthur Radley, and their rescue from the murderous hands of Bob Ewell comes in a grove of trees. The archetype of white as pure is upheld also, for the central objects representing the color white in the novel are Mrs.
Duboses white camellias, which are explained to be her pride and joy. When it is later learned that she is addicted to morphine, her pride and reverence for one of the only truly pure things in her life falls neatly into place: the flowers represent the purity she herself cannot achieve until later in the book, but by that time Jem has already cut them down. Another interpretation is that the whiteness of the flowers represents the racism on the behalf of the whites; this Jem is not attacking flowers, but racism. Therefore the scenes where Jem must work to rebuild the destroyed plant show that racism is deeply seated and insidious, and will require more than rash actions to remove. A line from the book supports this, spoken by Mrs. Dubose: Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you?
Well Jessie says the tops growing back out. Next time youll know how to do it right, wont you? Youll pull it up by the roots, wont you? (TKAM 116) The message applying to racism is clear; Jem and Scout, however, are the effective roots of the society they will eventually inherit, and so by simply becoming tolerant and open-minded Jem and Scout will uproot the problem of racism. Another floral symbol are the red geraniums in the yard of the Ewell's which seem to accent the basic goodness of humanity, even when surrounded by corruption and evil. The snowman that Jem and Scout construct signifies the mixing of races (made from black and white snow), while the fire that burns down Miss Maudies house and melts the snowman represents the moral outrage and fear of such a mixing, and also stands for the communities fiery stance on such a thing existing (Symbolism and Allegory).
Finally, the names of the characters are profoundly symbolic, with interesting Greek origins: Atticus most likely refers to Attica (or that area of Greece ruled directly by Athens), while Heck Tate refers directly to Hector from the Iliad, bringer of justice; Dolphus recalls the dolphin mythology of Dionysus (who also connects to Dolphus through the parallel of alcohol), while the word Ewell visually evokes the word evil (Allusory Justice). These mythological aspects of the novel transform the characters from mere residents of the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama into archetypal figures whose roles become significant through the invocation of their namesakes. Using symbolic naming as well as more obvious symbolism, Lee seeds the text with traditional archetypal figures and objects, and by doing so allows the reader and scholar both to see the allusions to objects and characters from other works; this has a decided advantage, for it allows many outside factors to be introduced to the novel. The critic may examine other functions that these archetypes and myths have served in different works, and compare and contrast them to Lees story, and by doing so enhance and enrich it.
For example, if the watch symbol in The Sound and the Fury is scrutinized, and the observation made on how time oppresses Quentin Compton, who is obsessed with trying to turn back the events in his life and return to an earlier state, the contrast is set up between Faulkner's image to the watch imagery in To Kill A Mockingbird. The watch in Lees novel, instead of oppressing the children, spurns their curiosity and fills them with wonder and not horror. In this way the archetypal symbols used by Lee can be applied to many other books in the literary canon. The next factor to be considered is the archetypal plots used traditionally by authors. Some archetypal plots include The Quest, The Search for Self, The Initiation, and The Epic. The main plot archetype used in To Kill A Mockingbird is that of The Rite of Passage.
Both Jem and Scout undergo an odyssey which entails a loss of innocence but rewards them with experience and knowledge as well as access into the world of maturity during their meandering journey towards adulthood; their rite of passage is completed by their survival of the attempt on their lives by Bob Ewell. Having survived that, and confronted the moral evil of the town successfully, as well as Scouts mature realization that Arthur Radley is a bashful human being and not a monster or a malevolent phantom (TKAM 8) as she had supposed him to be, the rite of passage is complete. This plot is used very frequently, from The Catcher in the Rye where Holden Caulfield makes his way on an odyssey through New York City, to Stephen Daedelus in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man where Stephen, in his rite of passage, rejects religion and gradually accepts his role as an artist. This theme is intensified in Lees work because there are two main characters who undergo separate transformations during their journey. Like A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, Jem and Scout swerve from the traditions and values of their communities (Stephen turns away from organized religion, while Jem and Scout reject racism and injustice), and like Holden, Jem and Scout stand up for the cause they know and believe is right (Holden defends the preservation of innocence, while Jem and Scout defend their fathers reputation as a nigger lover and in supporting him promote the basic rights and humanity of all people regardless of color); this, then, indicates that the archetypal rite of passage is a coming-of-age paired with a discovery-of-self, and is often painful. Lee masterfully constructs the rite of passage tale which adheres to its mythological guidelines and yet is intensely unique.
Another archetypal theme which Lee slyly references is loss of innocence. However, Lee turns this common subject on its head by inverting it: here, loss of innocence is positive, because the two children gain a positive moral outlook, a tolerance for all races, a humanistic attitude, and a general faith in the underlying benevolence of humanity. This is in contrast to books like William Golding's The Lord of the Flies, John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men, or F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, where the narrator, Nick, loses his innocence but gains nothing but sorrow, disappointment, and a more fatalistic outlook on life.
Another traditional use of loss of innocence in literature (and perhaps the most important) is to be found in John Milton's Paradise Lost; the entire poem deals with the theme of lost innocence. Paradise Lost inspects the very first loss of innocence by humankind, that of Adam and Eve when falling from grace. To Kill A Mockingbird inverts Paradise Lost in several ways; the two principal characters in Lees novel learn more about the world in a constructive way which will help them lead their future lives, while Milton's poem ends with two Biblical figures cast out of Eden and facing a new life of labor, hardship, disease, and death. Secondly, Lee structures the plot so that Jem and Scout lose their naivete as a result of uncontrollable outside influences, while Milton blames Adam and Eves loss on their own internal weakness and pride. So when Harper Lee uses the plotting archetypes she is at once conformist and rebel; while adhering to the rite of passage design, she radically reinvents the way the topic of loss of innocence is dealt with. In conclusion, a great amount of insight is gained when Harper Lees novel To Kill A Mockingbird is approached from a Archetypal/Mythological perspective; information on all the characters, as well as the plot development and the symbols utilized is produced.
The intriguing aspect of the Archetypal viewpoint is that along with information on the text at hand, the reader gains insights into all the other works of the literary canon. New connections, comparisons and contrasts can be fashioned where before there was no apparent connection. In Lees novel, the three major sections of Archetypal criticism, characterization, symbolism, and plotting are handled with style and intelligence. To Kill A Mockingbird proves to be a novel rich in allusions to other characters, symbols, and plots in the literature 334
Free research essays on topics related to: jem and scout, artist as a young man, rite of passage, kill a mockingbird, f scott fitzgeralds
Research essay sample on F Scott Fitzgeralds Kill A Mockingbird
