Chapter 7: Mythological
Approaches
A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature
I. Definitions and Misconceptions

Myth criticism deals with what Joseph
Campbell called a “very deep chord” shared by
all humans; the myth critic seeks out those
mysterious elements that inform literary works
and elicit near-universal human reactions,
though there is no completely universal symbol.

Why do certain works become classics?

Archetypes

Connections with psychological approaches and
Literary Darwinism

Myth not a fiction, not just Greek and Roman
mythology or children’s fables
II. Some Examples of Archetypes
A. Images

Water, sun, colors, circle, serpent, numbers, archetypal
woman (Good Mother, Terrible Mother, anima or soul-mate),
demon lover, wise old man, trickster, garden, tree, desert,
mountain
B. Archetypal Motifs or Patterns

Creation, immortality, hero/heroine (quest, initiation,
scapegoat)
II. Some Examples of Archetypes
C. Archetypes as Genres

Northrop Frye, genres as seasons:
 spring/comedy
 summer/romance
 autumn/tragedy
 winter/irony
III. Myth Criticism in Practice
A. Anthropology and Its Uses

Cambridge Hellenists, Sir James Frazer’s The Golden
Bough and archetype of sacrificed king/scapegoat;
Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex as example
1. The Sacrificial Hero: Hamlet

Gilbert Murray and Frances Fergusson read Hamlet
as the story of a natural rhythm of the kingdom
disturbed by sin so that Hamlet must avenge and
restore order in atonement/catharsis
2. Archetypes of Time and Immortality: “To
His Coy Mistress”

Poem about time—its conclusion offers an escape
from historical into cyclical time and hence
immortality
III. Myth Criticism in Practice
B. Jungian Psychology and Its Archetypal Insights

Life and career of Carl Gustav Jung; theory of the
collective unconscious and archetypes; connections
between dreams and myths
1. Some Special Archetypes: Shadow, Persona,
and
Anima
2. “Young Goodman Brown”: A Failure of
Individuation

Brown is unable to reconcile his shadow, persona,
and anima—cannot individuate
III. Myth Criticism in Practice
in
3. Creator or Creator: Who is the Real Monster
Frankenstein?

Victor suffers a failure of individuation in that his
selfishness divides him from everyone, but also from
nature

Jung: “It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man
bungles his own life and the lives of others yet
remains totally incapable of seeing how much the
whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he
continually feeds it and keeps it going.”
4. Syntheses of Jung and Anthropology

James Baird’s archetypal reading of Moby-Dick
III. Myth Criticism in Practice
C. Myth Criticism and the American Dream: Huckleberry Finn as
the American Adam

Definition of the American Adam; myths of New World as Eden

George Baxter Adams (germ theory); Frederick Jackson Turner
(frontier theory)

Mythic elements of quest, water symbolism, shadow, trickster,
wise old man, archetypal woman, initiation
D. “Everyday Use”: The Great [Grand]Mother