The conception of archetypal plots and characters is closely associated with the theories of the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, who argues that every person is born equipped with the collective unconscious, a set of images consisting of universal fiction characters。 Our attraction to specific types of stores and characters originates in their appeal to our collective unconscious(Jung 1959:3)。 

Jung says, “Archetypes are universal symbols, which recur again and again in cultures so remote in space and time that there is no likelihood of any historical influence and causal connection among them”(Jung 1959:25)。 Stressing the collective, universal and impersonal nature of the collective unconscious, Jung continues that it is identical in all inpiduals。 “This accounts for commonalities among dreams, myths, legends, religions, visual arts and literature, for the same threads running through human imaginative work throughout ages and across cultures”。(Jung 1959:38)来:自[优.尔]论,文-网www.chuibin.com +QQ752018766-

In crucial correlation to the idea of the collective unconscious, Jung identifies certain universal figures as archetypal, stating that ‘as far as the collective unconscious contents are concerned we are dealing with archaic or - I would say - primordial types, that is, with universal images that have existed since the remotest times’ (Jung 1959:42)。

Northrop Frye develops Jung’s theory。 “In literary criticism, myth means mythos, a structural organizing principle of literal form”(Frye 1994: 434)。 

In Anatomy of Criticism, Frye gives a definition of archetype。 He defines that archetypes is “the communicable unit which recurs again and again in literature” (Frye 1994:427)。 They can be “a literary symbol, or cluster of symbols, which are used recurrently throughout literature, and thereby become conventional” (Frye 1994:434)。So archetypes which represent the power of literary tradition combine the isolated pieces into a whole unit。

According to Frye’s theory, literature takes its roots in myth-archetype and myth is the most fundamental mode。 He also contends that archetypal criticism provides an effective means of deriving the structural principles of literature because it assumes a larger context of literature as a whole。