Archetypes as the Mirror Images of Never To Be Seen Self

ARCHETYPAL APPROACH

I.INTRODUCTION

Creating this introduction about The Tale of Genji inspired to the author- the life story of Lady Murasaki that have been read by the blog of Cartwright. According to him, The Tale of Genji was written by the Japanese novelist and poet of Heian Period, Murasaki Shikibu or also known as Lady Murasaki. According to many scholars, "Murasaki's" name was not her real name because it is only descriptive and her personal name is unknown. She got married at the very young age and gave birth to a child and right after giving birth, her husband died. She served the Empress Shoshi as a lady-in-waiting, in which she started to write. Her work is considered substantial for writing for it reflect the creation and development of Japanese writings. The story of Antigone was written by Sophocles. Sophocles was one of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. He was born in Hippeious Colonus, Athens, Greece at 496 BCE. He was considered the Shakespearean dramatist. He wrote 120 dramas but unfortunately, few of them had survived and one of these is the Antigone. Sophocles made new ideas in tragedy. The most famous story he had created was inspired when his son Iophon took him to court to prove he was incompetent. He was acquitted on reciting part of the play he was writing in Oedipus at Colonus.

The Tale of Genji was inspired by Lady Murasaki's extreme knowledge of affairs in Japan. This work of her tells a story of a man who is extremely intelligent and beautiful, but he cannot have it because of Hus mother's rank in the society. Murasaki's Tale of Genji was important because her writings was about a time of greatness that was no longer prevalent because the Emperor had lost much of his power and the ruling families were very critical of who could someone else can obtsin power. Antigone was atragedy written around 442 BCE by the ancient Greek playwright, Sophocles. The story -action of Antigone was inspired from the Theban civil war. The story was set in the city-state of Thebes about a generation before the Trojan War, the play was actually written in Athens during the ruling of Pericles.

II. DICUSSION

As cited in the book of The Hero with thousand faces written by the American scholar Joseph Campbell an Archetypes are recurring patterns of human behavior, symbolized by standard types of character in movies and stories. One of the type characters he mentioned in the book is the Hero character. Heroes are the central figures in the stories. Everyone is hero of his or her own myth.

According to Campbell, the hero’s journey is a pattern of narrative that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual and psychological development. In the beginning of the story of tale of Genji; Genji himself introduces immediately as the son of the Emperor, therefore he is expected to serve and do political works. Referring to Campbell’s hero’s quest in which he quoted “the call to adventure”. The call to adventure is something that shakes up the situation either from the external pressure or for something rising up from deep within therefore, the hero must face the beginning of changes. Genji as the son of Emperor, he is one of the higher positioned men in their place. One thing more about Genji is he is the most favorite son of his father. And because of his status in the community he has the power to manipulate the government system.

He therefore accepts his journey as a commoner and will do what is needed politically. Since, Genji is considered as the hero in this novel, apparently, he faces different obstacles and difficulties as his quest emerges. Of those many and different obstacles he faces, one is his conflict within his brother Emperor Suzaku and to his mother empress. The conflict between them arises when Genji holds the trust of his father to be the next potential leader of their community, however the empress’ son was not chosen to be the next crowned leader and to be the emperor’s heirs, considering Suzaki is more competent rather than Genji according to the Empress.

Genji recognizes the danger he is facing of, knowing that the empress has the desire to replace him into the position and place her son Suzaku. Upon recognizing his danger, he puts himself into exile. Another adventure that Genji undertakes is the involvement with the different women, this quest is so called the lover’s quest. Wherein as we look closely to his relationships with the various women we might say the most extreme and very impacting to his life is his infatuation with Fujitsibo, the fact that Fujitsibo is the wife of his father. And the major sin that Genji commits is when he has the physical relationship with Fujitsibo that lead into giving birth to a child, when his father was still alive.

Upon his guilt over his relationship with Fujitsibo, it leads into his isolation and completion of his quest. Genji is describes as the man with emotional and political runners once again according to Campbell, therefore he must face his own sin he has committed and face its consequences and be reborn as a new person. After the Emperor Suzaku permits Genji to return; Genji is more mature and at ease with his position in life, basically, it’s a manifestation of a renewed or reborn new person.

The two quests of Genji as described are the Hero’s quest and the lover’s quest. His great heartache and failures in his quest he encounters contribute a lot in terms of becoming a better person, where he encounters challenges, difficulties and troubles that lead into his success. The key to his success lies on his pitfalls as defined in the model of Campbell. Without those pitfalls, the hero would no longer learn and never develop. Those pitfalls that Genji has encounter are just the challenges he must face in order to measure his capabilities.

Genji might be considered as different from any other heroes for he has the intimate Lover’s quest that contributes major role in the success of Genji’s quest.

Antigone

According to Buren (2013), archetypes re a reflection of recurring elements from life which have been transplanted into stories. The major archetypes such as king, messenger, and hero reflect their values and the focus of their society’s mythology and customs. In the story of “Antigone”, the characters possessed a behavior that can be seen as different. It symbolizes something wherein as a reader, it can be a little confusing idea why suicidal is the last option of the main character namely Antigone and it also practiced by the others except from the guards who witnessed their unacceptable solution to their problem. It was not an ideal thing seeing that Creon being a leader of a famous place shows his anima or the feminine part of a male personality because as a head, a leader should not show that kind of weakness to his men that leads to mistrust him in ruling his territory. Though he has the reason why such things happened, he should also consider the feelings of others especially his fellowship in Thebes before that tragic event happened to his family.

As cited by Adam (2014), there are twelve main archetypes that fit all people’s personality, their motivations, and desires and these symbols bare being observed from the characters in the story. Maybe Antigone can be considered as heroine as she was observed of being brave and having a good quality in the first part of the story but in the latter part, she still give up and took a suicide to escape from the pain she is suffering. On the other hand, the man named Haemon who truly loved her killed himself after the discovery of Antigone’s death wherein his favor to his father is to free Antigone on the sentence of death. In this action they both possess the persona or personality of an individual wherein they both show that they are weak individuals after killing themselves.

Their suicides symbolize archetypal as they showed their own weaknesses. The power also makes brothers wild, to be more cruel and even if they are brothers, they intentionally killed each other to get the throne they are wanting for so long and each of them never give a way for each other's happiness. They only think for their own desires and never think people in Thebes. Unfortunately, Creon, their uncle got the throne and became a king. As stated by Buren (2013), the major archetypes present in the Antigone serve to show the Greek s life in relation to the Gods and fate. The archetypes in the story, such as king, messenger, and the hero reflect their values and it also shows what kind of society and customs they have. Creon's loss of family, loss of trust, son, and loss of his wife is a last punishment for him and this these events symbolize for his loss of everything including his being powerful before. The “king” also is a title given to Creon which symbolizes and representing of the male power and authority, even cruelty is considered as an expressive quality of this character type. Antigone as a heroine and tragic archetype struggle her life but shows her power as she bury his brother Poleneices without the knowledge of her much weaker sister named, Someone and though this action of her illegal to do so, she still insisted her own wants to give a proper burial for Poleneices. Ismene is said to be too weak and afraid and illustrates how individual fear and weakness are problem in human nature. Her character is something opposite from her sister. As stated by Aristotle, tragic hero must be of high social standing. The tragic hero in Antigone is Creon, the king. Creon is considered as of high social standing because he is the king of Thebes and his character can be seen as arrogant as he punished Antigone and is like being proud for himself in doing that thing. Even if a tragic obscene was experienced by Creon he can also be considered as hero in a situation where he became a king when Poleneices and his brother died. The pressure he feels is to make things right and fix what the two brothers left behind. In this first act if stress, Creon decided to make a law which he should not have made. Antigone had told Creon that the law he implemented is somehow ridiculous once je had no right to make a law that belongs to the Gods.

Antigone on the other hand is the character who has “the Unhealable wound” because she was torn apart upon noticing that all of her family were dead. This makes her very stressful and that could have affected the way she did things without thinking clearly. Her only desire is to give a proper burial for his brother Poleneices. According to Sophocles, the Antigone is considered a tragedy and all plays must have catharsis, a tragic hero, a change in fortune within a character must be poetic and happen in one location, in one day and it is all closely related. Catharsis is having pity or terror. A character must scare the audience or make the audience feel bad for them, like what Creon did to Antigone. In this line of Creon, “let us say death is going to come between”. Here Creon is telling Ismene that he does not care if Antigone is Harmon’s fiancé, she will die for what she has done. Showing of being a poetic, another line was uttered by Creon, "And I find intolerable the man who puts is country second to his friends..... Never could I make my country's enemy my private friend". Here, Creon is telling the leader that he promises nothing but loyalty to his country unlike all the other peoples or rulers. Antigone also shows her being poetic as she said "Friends, countrymen my last farewell I make; my journey's done. One last fond, lingering, longing look I take, at the bright sun". Antigone uttered this when she was sentenced death by Creon and bidding for a farewell. According to Aristotle's logic, there should be no preference for rule to be designated to either a good man or a good citizen. In this statement, he is referring not only to Creon but for any men ruling a particular constituents. A good leader should excels in each and every aspect and with this, Creon as a king should have and possess this kind of character but unfortunately he is not.

For Aristotle, for the rule of a single good man is equivalent to a constitution of kingship. The Hero's quest is also an archetype as Creon's task is to bring Thebes back up. He promises nothing but loyalty to his countrymen and because of this he feels under pressure to make things better. One of the things that he wanted to fix is an issue with Antigone. Creon punished Antigone by disobeying in his law. Creon chooses to execute Antigone by sealing her in a tomb alive. Antigone's live entombment is a symbol of Creon immorality of the natural order of things which violate the social and religious customs of death and an immoral practice was done by him which affects his son's life after knowing that Antigone is dead. As cited by Garduno (2016), Sophocles strategy on using characters react under stress or under pressure can support situational archetypes used in Antigone. They are referring to the situations that appear over and over again in any kinds. Haemon as Antigone's lover did not accept the fact that is why he also killed himself. According to Aristotle's rules, Antigone is a tragedy and something bad in their character, or make a bad decisions that ruins a lot of people's lives.

III.CONCLUSION

Reading involves great dedication, focus and importantly your interest to a particular topic you're going to read because you will only be able to understand the meaning out of a certain topic once you have the interest, and always bare it in your mind that through reading you can gain enough knowledge or ideas. Everyone has a story and that story we learned not only through self-experience but also through others experience. Archetypal plays a big role in the actions and attitudes of the characters and it gives symbols which can be given a different interpretation by the readers. It can be observed that some archetypes and events in this story is unbelievable while others happened in reality. Maybe it is because people don't live in the same period of time and it is possible that can individual no longer relate their society to the other society or to the old one. The major archetypes present in Antigone serve to show the Greek's life in relation to the Gods and Fate. The actions of the characters involved in the story can be seen what their social and religious culture. In the dialogue of The Tale of Genji "He faced mounting unpleasantness in a hostile world, and he knew that ignore it might well provoke still worse".

LIST OF REFERENCES

Andamo, J.(2014), Archetypes in Antigone retrieved from

https://prezi.com/m/z_lb4tgfuxyo/archetypes -in-antigone/

Buren, Sydney (Sept.2013), Archetypes in Antigone, retrieved from https://

prezi.com/m/akjvcrvpjth8/archetypes- in -antigone/

Campbell, J. (1949), The Hero with a Thousand faces, retrieved on August 22, 2017 from

https://www.shmoop.com/hero-with-a-thousand-faces/summary.html

Cartwright,M. (2017), Tale of Genji, retrieved on August 22, 2017 from

http://www.ancient.eu/Tale_of_Genji

Garduno, Jasmine (2016),Copy of Archetypes in Antigone retrieved from

https://prezi.com/m/fh_utjjjrrnh/copy-of-archetypes-in-antigone

Spark notes Editorial Team, Summary of Antigone, retrieved from

https://m.sparknotes.com/drama/antigone/summary.html

Shikibu. M., Translated by Royall Tyler (2001), The tale of Genji Retrieved om August 22,

2017 from http://www.learner.org/courses/worldlit/the-tale-of-genji/read/