SR: Literature&Religion

Welcome all in the arena of literary realm!

Lets see how literature has a connection with religion, how it is signifying some "archetypal images/symbols/situations and places". But if it does then how such categories can be analyzed and if it is justifiable, then what it will take the same shape as assumed by the director/writer/ somethingelse!

"Ritual, Myth and the Archetypesof literature"

What is ritual?

Ritual is one type of belief
 from culture to culture/religion to religion/business to business, noone can escape from ritual, as it has been integrated with religion and politics(if a politician is speaking specifically, it can be also considered as ritual, as he/she has planned out a strategy to gain his/her aimed object) and when it is earned the aim is considered as a mile stone  like achievement.

It can be classified into two categories:

Voluntary

Involuntary

Nature is associated with "atmospheric effort" as birds mating dance could almost be called rituals.

While human beings are doing "voluntary effort" to recapture the lost rapport with the natural cycle.

For example: 

• To sacrifice a goat: it prevails in "Hindu"(they says they bestow this gift to their God) as well as in "muslim religion"(this is almost based on a myth like concept, of Almighty having gifted "Ibrahim" A.S. with sheep for sacrificing, as he was about to kill his own son. Since then this ritual is prevailing).
•  From child's birth to its death, whatever is done, is by following the myth(when a child is named by his/her parents, if couple don't have child, in that case, people are praying or doing some rituals[for having a blessed baby by God]) If the baby's health isn't running well then also having a ritual in the form of remedy(superstitions, magic[taaviz dhaaga] to retain the child's health healthy). Also performing ritual to protect their house, hanging "lemon and chilly" to protect their house/place from evil's eyes and archetype of its significance is, the house will retain as pious and as clean, as it is. 

• Besides this, there are many myths prevailing in the name of rituals in various respective religions, which I amn't going to discuss.

Moving to "involuntary effort". When the farmers are indulging in "harvesting activity" to synergize natural energies with human, from their also many rituals are unconsciously generating like:

Harvest songs

Harvest sacrifices

 Harvest folk customs

Besides this we also find the origin of narrative, which will be based on "purity", while here "rituals" can't be pure as it has some fictional elements in it. It is a temporal sequence of acts, in which conscious meaning and significance is latent, can be only seen by "an observer", but is largely concealed from the participatory itself.

For example: In "Solitary Reaper" a lass is singing a sad song, she is just expressing her emotions in ignorance, not knowing that passerby is listening to her. But here "Wordsworth" says that "the girl" can't be hold or disturbed by external forces, let her be in her own realm.

See some of the lines from "Solitary reaper" - William Wordsworth:

"Behold her, single in the field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass"!

Thus we learnt here how rituals is the way of life, but by paying due importance to it, its outcomes became the archetypal image and it is also associated with it(e.g: if we are expecting either good or bad, it is because of our action towards something unusual happened with us, and by involving ourselves in it, we're trying to console us).

What is Myth?

"Myth" is a conception which runs through many areas of contemporary thought : anthropology, psychology, comparative religion, sociology and several others.

Anthropology is its root, can be seen in many aspects, societal, cultural, evolution etc.  Where we can learn people's origination, and  can identify that people living at specific time, what were their activities, how they were indulged into and how much they were used to give that particular activity due importance.

For example: "Darwin's scientific evolution theory". Perhaps that time also some myths were prevailing, and it may have been in unconscious state, and as the time passed it came to recognition and so it has been named as "myth".

Psycology  if seeing in this context, we can examine by remainings of pre-monolithic age/ancient times people, how the people were existing at that time, having the growth of psychology, at what extent they were indulged in such mythological activities(E.g: Tribal people: used to worship nature). Every aspects has it's own psycology, so obviously myth may have. But perhaps it was developed unconsciously, with innocence and as it is said by Northrop Frye, it was observed by an observer, and was inscribed with his/her own contemplated narrative. Likewise "comparative religion" and "Sociology" can be interpreted, though in different manner.

 While the specific work or theory, when remains idle for long time, it can be also considered as "myth". As theory of physics, postulated by "Aristotle", "Isaac Newton", "Hubble" etc. Those are being modified by one another to establish their own point of view's significance. So in existence of one's theory, another is casted behind.

"The myth is the 'central informing power' that gives archetypal significance to the ritual":

For example: if a conceiving woman wants the child pre-maturely by seizurian, society/family will perhaps oppose as according to them "a baby" should be for 9 months in his/her mother's womb and if not so, then the baby will become "abnormal". It has been proved scientifically, that this type of birth may have unusual consequences. While in era of "smart & technology" people also have become smart and are able to find its solutions in many ways.

As we are unable to know what will be the aftermath of any action,  and we have so many things stuffed in mind, which is going to happen. While "the oracle" as it is mentioned in "Northrop Frye's essay" he/she will narrate according to his/her encyclopedic understanding as it also has this element in myth.

We can say myth only, when refering to narrative, archetype when speaking of significance.

For example: If a cat confronts someone, it is a belief that something "ill-omen" is going to happen with that person and if not everything will work smoothly in usual manner(a narrative[myth]). Suppose if a person faces as predicted by its confrontation with something inauspicious thing, then he will start believing in it, and will try to refrain from it(so it has negative connotative archetypal significance) and if not believing and something bad & good happens, one will be considered as non-believer of myth and have become amiable with science&technology(which has positive connotative meaning). We also have an illustration to illustrate(Alexander Pope: Black cat[In which the protagonist of the short story is very much amiable and caring for cat, but later his love turns into hatred and whatever happens in his life, he made responsibe "black cat" for everything, and his psycology works likewise, at last the cat is only reason for revealing his sin, which is hidden inside the wall, as he has murdered his own wide])

It can be also related with "Mobydick novel" as sometimes "Ahab" also consider "the white whale" as suggesting bad luck for him.

Meditation is also one kind of myth(but with positivity) as we have seen in "Joseph Conrad's novel", Charles Marlowe is meditating and as it is the idea, relating to India, it has now been accepted as "sooth sayer" all over the world.

Perhaps the rules and regulations can be inserted in "myths" which we are forced to do, if it is done properly then it will have its significant/beneficial outcomes and if not then it will lead to dire consequences.

Archetypal Criticism
An essential principle - Northrop Frye:

"The individual and the universal forms of an image are identical".

 To understand the aforementioned statement coined by "Northrop Frye" :

As philosophy constituted of all universal forms, it influences both; negative as well as amiable personality. If a person, for example like; "Ahab" is philosophized character, but he has, instead of including all the earthly beast, centralized man and so he thought that "how a mere creature, who is only to flutter in sea, cut out his leg.

Also we may have an example of "Tughlaq" from "Girish Karnard's drama" he is also an individual philosophized character, but his tyranny aspect of traits, have turned the whole region into chaos.

Then comparatively we also have "Charles Marlowe" (Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness)with same traits, but using for the welfare of his own friend "Kurtz" .

Likewise "universal forms" of anything, if it is social, philosophical, cultural, scientific etc. It also has both connotative aspect; negative or positive.

Archetypal criticism in two terms: Comic and Tragic:

Comical archetypal images

In the comic vision, the human world is a "community" or a "hero" who represents "the wish fulfillment of the reader".

The comic archetypal images are as follows-

Images of symposium(revelry in "Thomas Hardy's: Far from the madding crowd: Where feast for wedding party is going on, especially here concerning "Troy" and the other "workers of Bathsheba's farm".)-communion-(congregation in Father mapple's church, where all the sailors have gathered and Father is passing on his sermons)order-(In any comedy an order is always maintained, though in some not(The marriage proposal- Anton Chekhov) here we see farcical type of comic elements)friendship-love: we also have many examples like; Shakespeare's "as you like it", "measure for measure"(based on moral and civil injustice), "All is well that ends well"(based on love story between Bertram[A warrior in Italy] and Helena[a Spanish ward representing lower status).
It also comprises animals(who represents idyllness,  romance etc), vegetable world(can be seen in terms of Shakespeare's forest comedies  and Marvel's green world, we may also have some examples from "Wordswothian poetries"), mineral world(we can refer some of the pieties of "John Donne" and also some of the epiphanies from novel{Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" where "Charles Marlowe is looking for map) and there are many scenes from where we can learn the geometry of "Congo" or other continents described in it also with "informed world".

Tragical archetypal images

Here also we have an ample of examples to associate with archetypal images, but we still take some of the few from each five types of "tragically visions":

Tyranny/Anarchy/individual and isolated man: For example: "Tughlaq-Girish Karnard".

Refer to the below mentioned link, for the entire idea of this drama:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_bin_Tughluq

Animal world:

Is seen in terms of beasts, birds of prey, serpents, dragons and the like.

For example: beasts/serpent(Milton's Paradise lost, Heart of darkness(tribal savages in congo) dragons(In Beowulf).


Likewise the rest connotative archetypal images can be taken from the rest other three "tragically visions" images are as follows; heath or wilderness, deserts/rocks/ruins and combination of sea and beast images(Leviathan as introduced in "Paradise lost" also has connection with myth).

All three visions of "Northrop Frye" can be merged into it, though it has different outcomes concerning each vision.

Seeing these three aspects in contemporary times:

If we look into these three aspects called; archetypes, religion and rituals. We will come to know here that religion and rituals are now going to fade away, as science & technology, programming language has taken over. Who knows in coming time, we will also see some sprinkling words from "coding language" and gradually as "in Renaissance period" English language had spread its roots, it is also going to. But this only the time will say.


For example: we have (super30) where we have seen the influence of smartness along with numerical language(maths), then in "Mission mangal" only to make people realise that they are forgetting their old manner of living (so they emphasized on domestic life).
If we see the recent movie called "Chapaak" where "Deepika Padukone" is assaulted with "acid attack" which reminds us of, past tendency of time, where these tendency was prevailing in on and off manner, but now as "women empowerment is widespreaded" , "a girl child" has adequate knowledge of her rights" so it won't but who knows in "backward state/region" it is still prevailing.

Hence we learnt  here how rituals, myths and archetypal images have linear connection with each other, as it is there, then only those can be differentiated otherwise those would have merged into each other also how is their present state in contemporary times.


Thankyou
Samiya Kagdi
A learner at PG center
Department of English
MKBU

Applied sources:
https://dilipbarad.blogspot.com/2014/12/northrop-frye-archetypes-of-literature.html
Many images taken from internet.
Some applied from my own understanding.