Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction

Persephone at Mid-Life: Revisiting Feminist Archetypal Theory in a Personal Journey Through Menopause

“…They traced archetypal patterns and plots in women's literature including in and through the quest narrative. Annis Pratt et al (1982) explore the theme of rebirth in literature related to younger women and to older women. Pratt identifies two stages in a woman's life in particular when some women reject social norms with the aim of self-development: adolescence and mid/later life.…”

“…Pratt identifies two stages in a woman's life in particular when some women reject social norms with the aim of self-development: adolescence and mid/later life. At both stages, women make use of feminine archetypes, however fragmentary and intuitively, and Pratt et al (1982) note: 'For the woman past her "prime," as for the young heroine not yet approaching hers, visions of authenticity come more easily than to women in the midst of their social experience ' (p. 11). Indeed, Pratt traces the experience of 'rebirth' from a space configured by the patriarchy into one outside it, a transformation in which lost and repressed elements and values of the psyche are restored and a sense of balance achieved.…”

“…are located. Through exploration of women's novels, she identifies a structure of experience involving (1) an experience of nothingness, loss and confusion; (2) an awakening experience with 'mystical identification' with the natural world during which a fine line must be walked between the patriarchal association of women with nature, and women's own experience of liberation through nature (Pratt et al, 1982); and (3) a new relationship between self and world involving an experience of wholeness, 'a movement toward overcoming of dualisms of self and world, body and soul, nature and spirit' (Christ, 1995(Christ, [1980: 13). However, for Christ, being in the midst of social experience is no barrier to diving into the cosmic or spiritual realm.…”

“…I had loved these as a child, poring over tales of Athena, Ariadne and Hera, before puberty struck. From now on, I live my menopause transition against the backdrop of a tapestry of rich imagery, each deepening my understanding of the other in the process of 'unventing' as Pratt et al (1982) describe the experience drawing 'latent knowledge out of oneself in contrast to "invention" from scratch ' (p. 178).…”

Shakespeare and Canada: Remembrance of Ourselves

“…Robin is now fully immersed in comedy's middle phase, which Frye (Frye 2010a, 174) says is characterized by a "confusion of identity and sexual licence," 11 as in the cross-dressed antics of Rosalind in As You Like It or the expansive scenes of romance in Antony and Cleopatra, where Antony dons Cleopatra's "tires and mantles" while Cleopatra wears his "sword Philippan" (2.5.22-23). It is during the comic middle phase of confusion and loss of identity that Robin meets Danilo Adzic, an Eros figure whom we might regard, following Annis Pratt (1981), as a "green-world lover." In her feminist adaptation of Frye's comic theory to the archetypal patterns in women's fiction, Pratt has shown that the "green-world lover" is "closely associated with the naturalistic epiphany, a vision of the green world that calls up from the feminine unconscious the image of an ideal lover and almost always includes a rejection of social expectations concerning engagement and marriage " (1981, 22-3).…”