SYMBOLIC Names: Scholars Concept: Myths and their elements are symbols which represent our external environment. Each object in nature is assigned a meaning and combined, these objects highlight a life lesson. Examples: Heroes were considered symbols of the sun Monsters symbolized clouds and night

SYMBOLIC Questions: What are the elements of the myth? In the external environment, in nature, what objects (sun, moon, etc.) do each of these elements represent? What do these natural objects symbolize (sun=light=goodness)? What larger conflict is exemplified by these elements, their symbolism, and their interaction. What is the message? Value To understand that there are larger forces than just ourselves and to provide meaning to everyday life.

PSYCHOLOGICAL Names: Sigmund Freud Concept: Myth is an expression of an individual’s unconscious wishes, fears and drives Examples: Heroes were considered infantile hostility Monsters symbolized unconscious anti-social desires

PSYCHOLOGICAL Questions: What basic or primitive emotions or desires are presented in the story? What subconscious elements are presented in the story? How do relationships reflect familial relationships and/or infantile “endopsychic” emotions? What’s the message? Value To understand internal unconscious conflicts and provide insight to an individual’s interaction within a community.

COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS Names: Carl Gustav Jung, Erich Neumann, Joseph Campbell Concept: Myths are the expression of a universal, collective unconscious. The expression, through archetypes, of how people throughout the world respond to the process of living. Examples: Common archetypes include: father/mother/child/hero/mentor/trickster

COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS Questions: What archetypes are present in the story? How do these archetypes determine our response to the process of living? Through what specific elements does the story reveal/explore this response to the process of living? What’s the message Value To understand and identify important concepts to a community and demonstrate commonality between all human experience.

RELIGIOUS Names: Mircea Eliade (religious historian) Concept: Myths and their elements are expressions of genuine religious experiences. They explain the ways in which we experience the divine, and they explain our relation and experience with the divine. Examples: Divinity; worship practices; afterlife

RELIGIOUS Questions: Which elements of the myth are associated with the divine? Which actions, interactions suggest a divine or spiritual experience. What is the message? Value To provide spiritual insights and provide spiritual significance to human experience.

ECONOMIC Names: Paul Radin (anthropologist) Concept: Myths and their elements express our struggle for survival due to economic uncertainty caused by no food and/or poor technology. A means of manipulating a group by the concept of work and reward. Examples: Gods controlled the wealth/resources Monsters/humans/perpetrators were lower-class who desired more

ECONOMIC Questions: What elements in the story can be used to control a group? How do these elements work to reveal the struggle to survive? What elements in the story represent money or economic structure? What is the structure? How does the inefficiency of the structure create a struggle to survive? What is the message? Value To understand how groups may be manipulated and controlled without their conscious knowledge.

ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTIONALIST Names: Claude Levi-Strauss (anthropologist) Concept: Myths and their elements are structures that are formed out of our basic thinking mechanisms and that express the tension in social relations, position of power or economic conditions. The story must be viewed in the historical context from which it developed for a true view of its significance. Examples: Gender roles; views of authority; social ranks

ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTIONALIST Questions: What elements in the myth represent opposing social positions? What are the social positions? What is the relationship between these positions? What tensions exist between these positions? How are the tensions manifested in the story? Are they resolved? What is the message? Value To understand the historical framework of the myth and the evolution of the cultures surrounding the myth.

FEMINIST Names: Betty Friedan, Naomi Wolf Concept: Myths and their elements establish and maintain women’s roles. They define woman as submissive or as the empowered goddess of creation without whom the world could not exist. Examples: Male / Female actions and effect on society

FEMINIST Questions: How does the story portray females (submissive, disempowered, incapable, etc.)? How does the story portray males (oppressive, empowered, capable, etc.)? What are the characteristics of the roles determined and scripted by the characters and actions? What is the message? Value To understand how a culture both defines for and transfers to future generations its gender roles. Also to possibly redefine these roles.

What do you know about the Judeo-Christian story of the Fall of Man?

SYMBOLIC Example: God = Sun = Light = Day = Good Serpent = Moon = Dark = Night = Evil Adam/Eve = caught between the two Apple = Knowledge of the difference between good & evil Man is caught in the epic struggle between Good vs. Evil

PSYCHOLOGICAL Example: God = Superego Serpent = Id Adam/Eve = Ego Apple = Fruit of the woman; libido. Unconscious drive for sex forces us to ignore the superego.

COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS Example: God = Father Serpent = Trickster Adam/Eve = Child Apple = The object of childhood rebellion. Taking what belongs to father as a show of individual strength.

RELIGIOUS Example: God = Divine Serpent = Temptation Adam/Eve = Mankind Apple = Distraction Establishes Mankind’s separation from the Divine.

ECONOMIC Example: God = Privileged; ruling class Serpent = Adam/Eve = Servant class Apple = Resources Punishment will come for taking that which does not belong to you.

ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTIONALIST Example: God = Garden = Matriarchal culture Serpent = Adam/Eve = 1st Patriarch (Agrarian) Apple = Godlike wisdom Takers act like God

FEMINIST Example: God = Patriarchy Serpent = Representative of Matriarchal Goddess Adam = Primary being; Weak Eve = Secondary being; Weak/Evil/Temptress Apple = Femininity is submissive and seductive