Elements of Language and Literature: CONCRETE and ABSTRACT LANGUAGE


ARCHETYPES: Universal Human Experience in August Wilson's Fences

... the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes ... Carl Jung

Most of us have sat in a classroom at one time or another and listened to a student expound on the nature of a character or the MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE of a story as we sat there astounded, scratching our head wondering, "WHERE DID HE/SHE GET THAT??? Well, if the student's not parroting (squak!) back what he/she read somewhere else, most likely the student has moved from talking about the CONCRETE (plot, character, setting) to talking about the ABSTRACT (significance, meaning of: plot, character, setting). Sure, but where does this MEANING or SIGNIFICANCE come from? Did the student just "make something up"? Maybe, but there's a pattern to the stories we read, the lives we lead, and these patterns are referred to as ARCHETYPES, meaning a collection of universal experiences all humans encounter, regardless of time and place. Here is a list of some of the ARCHETYPES reflected in the literature we read...notice how every one of the examples contains an ABSTRACT element? Struggles with nature Survival of the fittest Coming of age The power of love The loss of innocence Struggles with self Disillusionment with life Scientific progress The power of nature Alienation and isolation Honoring the historical or cultural past Good overcoming evil Tolerance (or intolerance) of the atypical Human ambition, sacrifice, courage, greed, jealousy, forgiveness, loneliness, repentance, suffering or happiness Words like "nature, love, innocence, self, progress, good, evil, isolation, tolerence, disillusionment" are all ABSTRACTIONS...they are tough to define or identify absolutely without a surrounding CONTEXT (circumstances, details), a STORY if you will. We might call these patterns RITES of LITERATURE, kind of like RITES of PASSAGE in life; literature continually returns to study these RITES and comment on them from different perspectives: different points in time, from different cultures, with new characters, and new contexts. These individual comments are THEMES. Take Fences, for example...have a look at a passage from Fences that might provide some insight into one of the above ARCHETYPES/UNIVERSALS. Look how the CONCRETE elements (character, dialogue, setting, images, style) help provide an IMPRESSION of the THEME: Fences: Finding Theme in Concrete Details

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