Do Archetypes Define Us?

To What Extent Are We Moulded by Our Fiction? 

Finger Tapping a Few Ideas on my Grubby Keyboard... 

7 to 9 min read

Films, Books, T.V Boxed sets, have so many transitional archetypes, such as the bibles fall of Lucifer, along with the spiritual transformation of the disciples, there's the U-turn of Saul to Paul, who was temporarily blinded by the divine light of the alleged resurrected Christ. They all share something in common with us. 

Themes of Change 

Transition is a common theme with so many compelling characters. Look at Bruce Banner/Hulk or Bruce Wayne, the Batman.

Other examples are Beauty and the Beast, or the story of Anakin Skywalker who transformed into Darth Vader. None of us Brit's are a stranger to Doctor Who, the regenerating time lord. As you can plainly see there are innumerable stories with character transformation! 

Mythology and lore across Europe has cool shape-shifting pagan gods along with werewolves and vampires! Further east the account of the Buddha's awakening is venerated. We could compile a huge list as long as the country. 

Today the internet VSBattle Tiers rate characters on strength and ability. Fans create plausible fictional battles, for example, the cartoon version of Thundercats can be pitted against the Michael Bay Transformers movie. The magic is how fans meticulously follow the fiction, as well as how the fiction drives them to do so! 

The Mental and Psychological

However, transformation, the complete alteration of a person in the mundane world we live in, doesn't usually involve super powers, gods or aliens, but onset mental illness can feel just as dramatic. Sudden mental illness can be one of the most life changing experiences an individual might undergo. Anxiety disorders, diagnoses of mood or thought and other conditions of the mind, can re-write someone's world. 

Films such as A Beautiful Mind, help depict our struggles with Mental illness fairly. It follows Professor John Nash of Princeton university who had a significant diagnosis. Another interesting example is the 2002 film, The Hours, starring Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman. It portrays the lives of three people from different times, in various parts of the world, all of whom are connected by Virginia Woolf's fictional novel, Mrs Dalloway. We see key historical moments of Virginia Woolf's transition into illness, while she tries to write the book that impacts on the other characters. It is chaos theory, showing the interconnection between fact and fiction; overlapping time and distance. 

The Power of Influence 

When creative teams from within the arts use story arcs, archetypes and play on scenarios wisely, it can result with direct change in the real world.

No matter what torments us, learning to be self-reflective and able to recognise our own unhelpful beliefs or ideas, is good for personal growth. Valuable stories help this happen. They shape who we are no matter where you live: Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp were legends of the Old West who inspired cowboys! 

I'd like to think that most of us have our journey-like processes; not unlike those transformational archetypes we see in fiction. Actors study and imitate people in hope of nailing that Oscar winning performance; likewise, on the other end of the spectrum, when we feel deflated, we tend to watch them to feel better. Empathic creatures we are; our brains are packed with mirror neurons and as individuals we might borrow another person's idiosyncrasy, buzz phrase, mannerisms or jokes. It's fair to suggest single guys have tried the Eugene Fitzherbert smoulder from Disney's Tangled. Maybe Disney took inspiration from them?

Adopted mannerisms that hold charm or sexual appeal may well be recycled. However, these behaviours will more than likely furnish us with a temporary sense of self, the sort we look back on with embarrassment. As a kid I modelled myself on Rambo. I tried invoking his accent as well, to become just like the war hero, but the head master asked my mum if I'd acquired a head injury!

Han Solo types are imperfect personalities or the 'lovable rogue' or an 'anti-hero,' a non-conforming rebel, with a flawed character. Ignorant of norms and appealing to the empathy (and sometimes the envy) of the viewers. Growing up in the eighties, it was clear how many boys wanted to be Han Solo or Indiana Jones. It wasn't just me who wanted to be like my hero. 

Alan Watts, the spiritual teacher said: 

'Our normal sensation of self is a hoax, or, at best, a temporary role that we are playing with our own tacit consent, just as every hypnotised person is willing to be hypnotised. The most strongly enforced of all taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego.' 

Watts illustrates how 'the feeling of' who we are, in itself, is self-deceptive. Through time, who we believe we are, morphs into something else; I certainly don't want to wear a red headband and kill soldiers for the US anymore! Self-perception is malleable. This is just our outer superficial self, and we pay it lots of attention. 

Unnecessarily, certain people work outside of contracted hours for free, because of their corporate identities. Concerning themselves with business matters of chief executives and upper management who earn way above their pay grade. A cage of one's own making. This is redefining yourself as person who is simply not you, it's unhealthy and goes against your nature. 

As we see with Arthur Fleck/Joker the anti-hero, but also a victim of societal injustice. In reality, here in the UK, the unfair distribution of wealth is also a daily torment; tired, numbing psychiatric treatment that Fleck righteously perseveres with, earns him the audience's sympathy. Our mental health care is awful, viewers can resonate with this film. The transforming factors of Fleck/Joker rests on his limited life chances and the harsh existence, which the corrupt city provides. Thomas Wayne is the face of the super-rich and surrounded by politicians, businessmen, and subordinates, who unapologetically, live extravagantly well in the presence of poverty.

Wayne thinks nothing of speaking out against the underprivileged on television. In the DC comic books, the philosophy of the Joker, in essence, explores how it only takes one truly bad day to become like him, a super villain. In the 2019 movie, Joker, Fleck experiences something akin to this process—like many people today. This anti-hero is the largest grossing movie; is this because the Joker resonates with our modern world? I believe so. 

Ebenezer's Breakdown: A Spiritual Awakening? 

The redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge. 
A lonely, isolated, miserable, penny-pincher who undergoes an awakening and begins to live with compassion. The Charles Dickens novella: A Christmas Carol, was carefully written. Described as hard and sharp as flint, we see Scrooge follow a karmic arc of change, a 'we reap what we sow' moral. The name Ebenezer Scrooge was chosen wisely because of what it signifies. It's a Hebrew place name meaning 'help-stone,' a monumental type stone of religious significance. 

In the book of Samuel, Eben-Ezer is a location where the Israelites fought the Philistines. It's as if Charles Dickens was seeking out a name that showed conflict; battles were fought at the religious help-stone, the duality of Ebenezer's nature is sealed in his name. Powerfully deep or coincidence? 

In Old English, the word Scrooge means 'to squeeze'. This is exactly what he did through the story. He denied his employee, Bob Cratchit time off for Christmas and paid the man very meagre wages, giving no festive bonus for his poor family. However, this conflicted help-stone, the sharp, hard flint of a man, did not start out this way.

We know he is visited by what Dickens described as ghosts. If we peel back these dramatic embellishments of the misers experience, we're left with something different entirely. A lonely, isolated and stubborn old man, who lost friendships and family. Haunted by his mistakes and regrets, but too proud to accept them. He was experiencing a real identity crisis in relation to his community and his mortality but wrapped up in Christmas paper. 

From the solitude of his house, he hears the city celebrating outside and denies the sentiment, bah humbug! Apart from his wealth, biased recollection is his only comfort. Scrooge is not the person he thinks he is, but instead, a self-justified persona based on his own poor reasoning. The three ghosts are polished and fanciful in the Novella and T.V productions for entertainment purposes, but; on a more realistic note, what Dickens described here is a man re-discovering who he really is, salvaging life! 

This is the human condition at its finest. This is reality and fantasy holding hands. Truth and fantasy explaining the same mystical awakening many experience across the globe daily.

Thomas Corbet: The Raven Baron of Caus

Norman Welsh Ties in the Old Welsh Marches.

4 to 5 minute read

Born around 1182, Thomas Corbet rose to become a fiercely loyal supporter of King Henry III. Remarkably, he lived to a venerable age during the savage thirteenth century – an era defined by castration, torture, religious zealotry, and burning people alive.

This Royalist Baron served as a military commander in the Welsh Wars of the 1250s. The Corbets sometimes lived as vassals for the Mortimers holding adjacent lands in Shropshire. Thomas, like Roger de Mortimer also descended from Norman blood; a lineage that had been intermarrying with Welsh and English noble families almost since their families arrival around tbe conquest. Unlike in mainland England, where nobility rarely took English brides, the Welsh Borderlands operated by different rules.

Hugh le Corbeau was the first Corbet to set foot in England, likely fighting at the Battle of Hastings. His sons, Roger and Robert FitzCorbet, appear in the Domesday Book of 1086 as vassals under the Marcher Lord Montgomery.

Rise to Power

After Earl Montgomery's failed rebellion in 1102, Henry I seized Pembroke Castle and entrusted the Corbet family with additional borderland territory. The family flourished.

The name Corbet means 'Corvid' or 'Raven' in Old French, reflected in Thomas Corbet's family heraldry. Thomas became Sheriff of Shropshire in 1249, his lands stretching as far as Devon.

In the Welsh Marches, he weathered attacks from Llewelyn the Last and Simon de Montfort during the rebellion against King Henry III. Thomas faced violence from both sides yet remained loyal – even as he experienced some of his retainers and Robert Corbet betray him.

The Man Behind the Title

What manner of man was Thomas Corbet? I imagine him as a chain-mailed warrior of considerable age—yet exceptionally bright. In his day, diplomacy required multilingualism, with numerous languages throughout England.

Along the Welsh borderlands, soldiers brought various French dialects. Flemish gained prominence too. Anglo-Saxon persisted alongside Latin, while our modern English was merely teething then, born from the displacement of Anglo-Saxons in 1066. We should also acknowledge Welsh, likely spoken by the Corbets themselves.

Life followed a relentless cycle of fighting, forging alliances, and quelling rebellions—endless tensions between Welsh and English and among rival Marcher Lords.

A Glimpse Through Time: My Ancestral Connection

Robert Page, my ancestor, was a free man, aging and weary in Drengeton (modern-day Drointon). He expected Baron Corbet to arrive seeking soldiers from local lords.

Several years later, in 1256, Shropshire, his son's wife Amice Page recorded:

The Testimony of Amice Page

Our Liege Lord Sir Roger de Eston went blind and suffered a slow death, creating uncomfortable circumstances. My husband William and I maintained our fiefdom maintaining some security for our boys, Henry and Stephen.

We were lucky, Margery de Eston, Roger's widow, was preparing to sue all the tenants on her late husband's land, demanding her dowry. Complaints circulated until our Lord Corbet intervened. Richard Pas maintained thirteen acres, while Jorvard held only four—smaller than our half-virgate.

Fortunately, William and I were excused from the land grab; The Lord of the Manor, Roger de Aston, granted Will his fiefdom before marrying Lady Margery. Lord Corbet declared other tenants would be safe if they provided proper charters. Everyone found a nrw respect for Lord Corbet, our Raven Baron for stepping up for us. 

Personal Feuds and Vindictiveness

In 1256, Thomas Corbet entered a dispute with Fulk FitzWarin IV over Alberbury—a substantial 120 acres. At the assizes, they exchanged insults, with Thomas unnecessarily insulting FitzWarin's deceased father. Despite losing, Thomas refused to accept defeat, revealing his battleaxe nature in his twilight years.

The Voice of William, Husband of Amice Page

By 1263, Caus Castle was being upgraded with towers as dangers increased. Thomas wrote directly to the King Henry III, mentioning myself, all the Corbet brothers, Sheriff Bagot, Master Burnell and even Richard Pas in his letter. I felt honoured.

The following years of castle seizing and violence across the Marches halted for a while, after Roger de Mortimer took De Montfort's head at the Battle of Evesham. 

Thomas Corbet died in 1274, a truly sorrowful time. His son Robert succeeded him.

Time Moves On

The Corbet family continued to play a significant role for centuries in Shropshire but to a lesser degree. William Page survived the wars, and his grandson Richard received land in Eaton, who later passed it on to his son, John of Oxenbold, who repeated thevtradition with his son, William—my direct ancestral line.

Llewelyn II, or Llewelyn the last, ultimately faced the conquest of the ruthless King Edward I. Marcher Lords struck the Welsh Prince down at the battle of Orewin Bridge in 1282. Neither the Welsh prince nor Roger de Mortimer survived the conflict.

Compelling Characters Maus

Reviewing Maus: A Classic Graphic Novel on Survival and The Past

•Vladek Spiegelman•Art Spiegelman•Maus Review Spiegelman•Vladek Spiegelman• ArtSpiegelman• Maus Review

5 min read

Looking Back 

Years ago, Art Spiegelman set to work, hoping to create a personal meaningful book; a comic book, ink on paper depicting the horrendous experiences endured by his family in Poland during the late thirties and the second world war. Art Spiegelman's book brings a unique take of Vladek, his father’s direct accounts. Vladek experienced first hand memories and reflections of what life was like during that time.

Throughout the story, we see that Vladek Spiegelman did not share his information with his son as readily and openly as he could have, as Art grew up. The Holocaust, the survival strategies used in his Jewish community, every part of it holds a sobering sadness and a warning that evil once abundantly channelled through the fibre of humankind. 

The Art of Art Spiegelman’s Maus

This is not just Schindlers List crossed with the Beano. Admittedly, I remember opening Maus for the first time: you see, after reading many modern comics made with collaborative, advanced digital techniques; I wondered what earned this basic, hand-drawn graphic novel such a great repuration—then I got it! Yes, indeed, it's the only graphic novel ever to win a pulitzer to this day, but the real wizardry is that the book feels alive somehow. As if the spirit of that very Jewish-Polish community was transmuted into the books pages. 

I imagine, Alan Moore would most likely agree, the magic here rests with Arthur Spiegelman.

Vladek Spiegelman: A Compelling Survivor

Old Vladek is ballsy, sometimes cantankerous, giving a sense of how he affected those around him

An mature mouse; one who once lived besides predatory cats, as well as other hungry and unpredictable creatures in very hateful times. I could visualise the real man, a survivor hardened by a harsh, traumatic life. It's not a surprise to see people so traumatised become sociopaths or broken somehow. We've seen the damaged Bruce Wayne rebel archetype, but Vladek Spiegelman never sat on gargoyles to scope out the city. In his prime, young Vladek Spiegelman's wardrobe didn't include spandex, he didn’t punch bank robbers in the street — his life was real, but he was heroic by necessity, in his story to Art.

Oppression and Hatred

For the Jews, from the nineteen thirties onward; their standards of life, social standing, employment and their rights, were gradually becoming squashed under Nazi oppression.

From a family of factory owners and businessmen, Vladek Spiegelman was reduced to trading all sorts of cheap tat on the black market to support Anja, his wife who he loved dearly. 

He learnt to disguise himself, to wheel and deal and negotiate his way around people who would otherwise kill him. Vladek Spiegelman helped his Jewish community as much as he could—he fought the evil regime, despite being powerless. However, how the evil regime got to Vladek is open to interpretation.

Auschwitz and the Cost of Survival

Upon arrival in Auschwitz – a place that was garnished with hellish rumours – Vladek immediately sought out opportunities for betterment, to indulge his wife whenever possible. Treated like vermin, with not enough food or money, Vladek Spiegelman had to employ his networking skills, buy, sell, steal, work with allies.

During the most harsh and ungodly of times, his attitude was to be thankful for his luck.
It is in his senior years, however, when this altered Vladek, medicated, and poor in temperament, shared his past with Art, his son, something clicked with me. 

I suspected something. Maybe, Vladek developed a kind of dark worldview in his later years—something specific and personal haunted him that he could not put to rest. We know that beneath the physical injuries acquired in the camps there was invisible psychological strain.

Character and Strength 

His determination to survive the war, seeing friends executed, fear, guilt and conflicting thoughts; surely, it changed his cognitive behaviour in later life. Paranoid daily living, dangerous transactions in Auschwitz or Nazi Poland could alter many things in a person. Camp lifestyle was an institutionalising experience; possibly reprogramming how Vladek conducted himself with his new freedom. 

Sadly Anja took her own life, at home in the USA years after avoiding Nazi execution. It was damaging for the family and Vladek Spiegelman's mental wellbeing is not illustrated or explored in-depth, but; he was distraught at her funeral. The human mind has a self defense mechanism against facts or situations we are too ashamed or cannot accept—it dissociates.

The Lost Voice of Anja Spiegelman

In his later marriage, Vladek was tight with money, overly technical with every domestic job, one such task was counting every one of his pills, for example. Perfectionism.  In his young days, Vladek helped his wife, Anja through her darkest days against strong suicidal desires. A very good husband.

Much to his son's disappointment; Vladek got rid of Anja's Auschwitz and war time diary's. In the graphic novel, Art portrayed his father's modus operandi during the war as strong, to soldier on, to struggle and to never give up—ignoring the pain, while carrying his wife. It is sad that the writings of Anja Spiegelman are absent.

Only Vladek Spiegelman knew what happened to him and his peers during that vile period in history. I hope his account helped him defeat some of his demons. Regardless, all survivors of the Holocaust deserve everyone's utmost respect.

Conclusion: The Lasting Impact of Maus

Art Spiegelman’s Maus transcended the conventional limits of graphic novels. It vividly portrayed the horrors of the Holocaust and the scars it left. Vladek Spiegelman’s survival story is not just a story of resilience, but also a reflection of how history shapes family dynamics and us as human beings. Maus invites you to to reread it, as it sits on the bookshelf appreciating its artistic expression of humanity resembled as the animals we are!