Archetypal Theory
It may also be referred to as mythography. It is close to the fields of religion and anthropology.
Assumptions that there are a series of universal myths, rituals, patterns, motifs and archetypes
that appear in art culture, art and literature and the reproduction of these endow literature with a
sense of timelessness and history with a sense of it being cyclical.
Keywords:
•Myth: signifies both fable and plot. Is fundamental, the dramatic representation of our
deepest instinctual life. It may be defined as a complex of stories which human beings
regard as demonstrations of the inner meaning of the universe and of human life.
• Ritual: analytical category that helps us deal with the chaos of human experience and
put it into a coherent framework.
•Motif: element that is recurrent in the narrative and whose symbolic significance is
strengthened by that recurrence
• Archetype: in reference to the characters, they indicate symbolic prototypes that are
recurrent in myth and which face prototypical actions that are to be confronted.
As archetypal patterns in Of Mice and Men, there is the Arthurian legends, Cain and Abel (read
more)
Marxism
Notion that whoever owns the means of production in a society controls society itself. The
forces of production shape a society in owning the means of production. Society is divided into
bourgeoisie and proletariat.
Keywords:
• Alienation: capitalist process whereby the worker feels detached, foreign to the
products of his/her labor. Results from selling one’s labor-power for a wage, as if it
were a property.
•Commodity: an external object, a thing which through its qualities sarisfies human need
of whatever kind and is then exchanged for something else
• Use-value: related to the physical properties of the commodity, material uses that fulfil
human needs
• Exchange-value: capitalist deformation of use-value through the mediation of market
money
• Proletariat: lower/working class that under capitalism must sell their labor to earn a
living
• Ideology: the ideas, value and feelings by which men experience their societies and
cultures at various times
•Capitilism: socio-economic system based on private ownership of the means of
production and the exploitation of labor force
• Historical materialism: based in the idea that material condition and productive capacity
of society determine human consciousness and relations
