The Virgin's Promise. Kim Hudson
death?” His journey is towards physical independence.
Myth presents a world or circumstance that is absolutely unique (Bettelheim, 37). This is compatible with the Hero’s journey to a foreign land. Surrounded by the unfamiliar, the Hero faces the challenge of learning the physical boundaries within which he can survive.
When the Hero explores his boundaries he is pushing the edges of mortality. He is tampering with the boundaries between mortals and gods, because immortality is a right of the gods. Heroes, therefore, find themselves battling with villains who seem immortal in stories of grand proportions. The Hero is often unknowingly of half-immortal parentage, a metaphor for questing for the boundaries of his mortality. These features associate Hero stories with myths.
Another feature distinguishing fairy tales and myths is that the characters in fairy tales are generic and common (Bettelheim, 1989, 40). They are father, mother, a princess, king or prince. Only the main figure has a name and often not in the title. It is Beauty and the Beast, any beauty and any beast. The Goose Girl and The Ugly Duckling both use general descriptions rather than names. Characters in myths, on the other hand, are very specific (Bettelheim, 40). It is the myth of These us and the Minotaur, rather than the general story of a hero and a beast. This again speaks to the general and casual atmosphere of fairy tales and the portrayal of a unique circumstance in myths.
Both fairy tales and myths acknowledge the difficulties of life and offer solutions. The fairy tale has a happy and optimistic style with the assurance of a resolution and a happily-ever-after ending. Our enjoyment of a fairy tale induces us to respond to the message of the story. As with the Virgin, it is a pull towards joy that drives her transformation. The Hero is driven by the need to conquer fear. The my this more often a tragic tale of hardship with an overall pessimism (Bettelheim, 37, 43).
The happily-ever-after ending of fairy tales (Zipes, 9) also speaks to the spiritual nature of the Virgin story. Magic and optimism are metaphors for the belief that something greater than ourselves is at work for us. The pessimism of myths connects with the Hero’s need to face hardship and the fact of death and deal with the fear in a physical way.
James Hollis, a Jungian theorist, describes the study of myth as an avenue to understanding the meaning in life. The stuff of myths is “that which connects us most deeply with our own nature and our place in the cosmos” (Hollis, 2004, 8). With the introduction of the Virgin archetypal structure, I would argue that the same is true for the study of fairy tales.
Archetypal Themes
In addition to being symbolic characters, archetypes model pathways for the universal transformations in life. The work of Joseph Campbell, later customized for the movie industry by Christopher Vogler in his book The Writer’s Journey (1998), captures the twelve beats of the Hero’s Journey. In a similar way, this book offers anew theory that lays out thirteen beats common to the Virgin Story.
Comprehensive analyses of the beats for the other core archetypes are not yet available but I believe that if there are two archetypal journeys, there are more. The following description of the essential nature of the Virgin, Whore, Hero, Coward, Lover/king, Tyrant, Mother/Goddess, Femme Fatale, Mentor, Miser, Crone and Hag may provide the groundwork for that future analysis. A basic understanding of these archetypes is also useful for creating strong characters.
These archetypes represent the three stages or acts of life: beginning, middle and end; child, adult, and elder. A movie generally follows a protagonist through one of the stages showing the arc of that transformation. It may also be peopled with characters at various different stages, all interacting with each other ’s journeys. A character may represent a different archetype for some parts of the movie, but a dominant thread for one archetypal transformation is generally woven through the movie.
The Virgin, the Whore, the Hero and the Coward all represent the beginning stage of the three acts of life. Born into a dependent situation, every human must know who they are as an individual before they can reach their potential. Therefore, these four archetypes are concerned with the relationship a person has with oneself. It is the time for learning to stand on your own and take up your power.
The Virgin takes on the task of claiming her personal authority, even against the wishes of others. A big part of her story therefore is how she is viewed by society. Initially she is a valued commodity for being pure, untouched, good, kind, nice, compliant, agreeable, or helpful. She carries the hope for continuation of the virtues of a society. Through her journey she learns to redefine her values and bring her true self into being. She is well represented in movies like Bend It Like Beckham, Billy Elliot, and Shakespeare in Love.
The Hero takes on the task of expanding his boundaries in the world, at the risk of death. Driven by a desire to help his community, the Hero travels to a foreign land and learns to survive in and influence the big world. Classic Heroes are Neo in The Matrix and Luke Sky walker in Star Wars.
Together, the Virgin and the Hero represent the processes of knowing yourself as an individual, internally and externally. They also represent the two halves of having a relationship with your self: self-fulfillment and self-sacrifice.
From a power perspective, the Virgin and the Hero are moving from knowing themselves as dependent on people to knowing their own power. The Virgin gains the power to be all that she can be. It is the power to fulfill her greatest potential. The Hero gains the power to overcome his fear and shape and protect his world, even against the will of others.
The Virgin and the Hero represent the positive aspects of taking up individual power. Both separate themselves from the power structures they are born into such as being the daughter or son of… or the religious traditions of… and find a power they have earned through their own actions. The Virgin creates an emotional separation while the Hero separates himself physically from the people on which he was once dependent.
The Whore and the Coward represent the shadow side of failing to take up individual power. The Whore is caught in a life that ser vices the needs, values, and directions of others, to her own detriment and neglect. The Coward is so fearful of death that his life occupies a very small space.
The Virgin and the Whore carry the values of their community. As a shadow side, the Whore represents what is of low value. She is often seen as dirty, used, debased, weak, pathetic, and ruined beyond repair. Her sexuality is a metaphor for her spiritual essence or soul that is used in the service of others. The Whore is selling her soul to conform to the expectations of others. She is the scapegoat: blamed for all manner of sins and then run out of town literally or emotionally through the shaming and shunning of her and her bastard children. Societal judgments promote a downward spiral for the Whore into a complete loss of self and isolation, depression, insanity, or suicide. Anne Boleyn plays the Whore as she complies with her family’s plan to gain social power in The Other Boleyn Girl.
The Whore is selling her soul because she is completely out of touch with it or because she feels like a victim who lacks the power of an individual. The selling of the Whore’s soul does not have to be sexual. The husband who feels powerless to leave a self-destructive marriage because of low self-esteem, or the worker who hates her job because she has no personal expression also embody this shadow archetype. Belle in Beauty and the Beast plays the Whore when she exchanges her life for her father’s and then devotes herself to the transformation of the Beast (Zipes, 37).
The Coward fails to explore the world beyond his safe village and therefore has no confidence he can survive on his own. He lies, cheats, shirks, and bullies people to avoid being challenged in his ability to provide for himself. He avoids any thing that could lead to death or the fear of death or even hardship. Cypher (The Matrix) is the ultimate Coward when he betrays the last settlement of free humans because he wants the comforts of ignorance. He wants to be rich and have good food and a comfy bed. Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) is another good example of the Coward archetype where his notorious failure to separate from his mother makes him an ideal candidate for brainwashing.
These shadow archetypes are doomed to believe they must stay attached to other people to survive. The Whore believes she must appease or please people and is thereby