The formation of the mother archetype in world culture and literature

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The formation of the mother archetype in world culture and literature

Luzanova Olena

For all the differences in assessments of women, femininity has long been associated in all cultures with motherhood, love of children, the role of a reliable homemaker, family support, support and assistance to a man, compassion, and mercy. These are the so-called prescribed gender roles of a woman, her socio-cultural constructs. The social role of the mother as the main one has been assigned to women and is still fundamental today. Motherhood as the main hypostasis of femininity runs through the entire history of our civilization. The role of a woman as a good housewife and mother has always occupied one of the most important places in the structure of the ideal of femininity. Social institutions, such as the church, supported and imposed the dependent position of women, the secondary nature of their social roles, thereby building a gendered system of power and subordination [2, p. 155].

Motherhood from philosophical positions is seen as the most important foundation of the general cultural development of mankind because the woman is the guardian not only of the home. The woman is the custodian not only of the home, but also of moral values, traditions, rituals, and national culture. The core of culture, represented by value priorities, is brought up and formed by the mother, adjusted by society, and transmitted to the younger generations.

Literature, as a means of universal communication between people, anticipates the future, focusing its attention on current phenomena still waiting for its scientific study. This is especially true for those genres, which are characterized by emphatic socialization, the portrayal of a person in the specific context of economic, social, and political relations so that the literary character acquires clear socio-psychological outlines.

Artistic images, combining rational and emotional principles, have the full embodiment of the ideal of personality. The image absorbs typical features of reality, reveals social problems, personal dramas, and conflicts. At the same time, it sets the future, reference points of self-determination. Literary texts allow you to reproduce the history of a woman's existence, and also denote the idea of femininity from the standpoint of anthropology, and in the metaphorical, semiotic, philosophical understanding of this phenomenon. As example, in lithographs and sculptures by Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) the image of the mother, who spreads her arms over her children with a protective gesture, appears to be a representative interpretation of the term motherhood [8, p. 15].

The appeal to certain archetypal images in literary texts is due to their activity or passivity in the author's consciousness, as well as the internal needs of society. Literature uses such an important property of the archetype as the ability to change while maintaining its values and functions unchanged at different historical stages. The archetype can change beyond recognition, embodied in the work of various authors, but it retains the value-semantic core, which is unchanged and provides high stability of the archetypal model [3, p. 178]. Carl Jung also drew attention to the role of the archetype in the creative process, in particular to the emergence of the idea from the reservoir of the figurative unconscious, to the variable repetition of the prototype as an ideal model. Literary archetype is a model that, while maintaining the core, is variable and variable in the work of different writers. women mother archetype culture literary

The theory of archetypes was created by Carl Gustav Jung [7]. The starting point of the theory is mythology, as the source of all artistic creativity and the main element of the collective unconscious, that is, a means of transferring human experience from generation to generation. Over time, myths turned into archetypes, something similar for all people. According to the Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory, archetype is «a term central to Jungian psychology, which derives from the Greek “arche”, meaning “primal,” and typos, meaning “imprint, stamp, pattern”. Archetypes are the a priori, inborn forms of `intuition'. Nevertheless, archetypes are unconscious and exist only in potentia; they must be beckoned forth by circumstance, and different ones operate in different lives» [5, p. 30].

Archetypes are reflections of the ever-repeating experience of humanity. Some archetypes are already found in animals; they are based on the specifics of a living system in general, acting as an expression of life, whose status no longer lends itself to further explanation. To the most ancient and the scientist attributed to stable archetypes are the archetypes of Anima (Soul), the old sage, Mother Earth, hero, demon, shadow (shadow side of personality). According to Vera Ramikh, motherhood is a «conditional code, a system of signs dictated by the ethnographically given environment and the corresponding historical and cultural layer, which guarantees the stability of this society, the culture itself» [10, p. 101]. The role of the connecting link in this chain, in our opinion, is played by the archetype of the Mother. The archetype of the Mother, the prototype of which is the oldest in all cultures, embodies in imagine the «ideal» characteristics of the mentality of the «female world». The Mother or Great Mother archetype is Jung's interpretation of the mother complex of Freud and pays tribute to the huge role that she played in life humanity motherhood. Compared to others, this archetype is more complex, it has a basic influence on the formation of personality, can form an autonomous complex [1, p. 233].

According to C. Jung, the Great Mother archetype comes from the history of religion and encompasses varieties of the Mother Goddess. Besides In addition, the scholar notes that the emergence of this archetype was greatly influenced by man's connection to the earth. According to many legends, man is born from the earth (in Ukrainian folklore there is a legend of the origin of man from clay), lives his life on it and returns to the earth.

Therefore, one of the most common manifestations of this archetype is Mother Earth (Terra Mater), Motherland, country [7]. Consisting of two prototypes of the Great Mother and the Earth Mother, this archetype encompasses both manifestations of the human psyche: both the conscious and the unconscious. The Great Mother archetype exists in the unconscious, while the Earth Mother archetype arises in everyone's individual consciousness, and which is dependent on the form of the real mother.

The Earth Mother archetype can have positive and negative manifestations: she can be good or evil, affectionate or formidable, protective or indifferent. Many images are contained in this archetype: mother, grandmother, teacher, nurse, any close woman. The Earth Mother archetype quite often contains animalistic images. In literature, such metaphors always have a certain content load, characteristic of the behaviour of these animals in nature: mother-cuckoo (cheater), mother-nurse (hype-breeder), motherrabbit (multiple-breeder). However, researchers note that the image of the wolf is an exception to this series. In the folklore of various peoples, in many legends, as well as in literary works, the wolf-wolf is considered as a mothering ideal and is associated with the archetype Big Mother. The reason for this is her extreme devotion to her offspring and her partner. One's involvement with one's land had a great influence on the emergence of the Big Mother archetype. This Jungian statement can be safely applied to the Ukrainian nation. In Ukrainian beliefs, the land has always been not only the breadwinner, but also a source of strength which it has preserved and passed on to its people.

М. Mishchenko notes that the matriarchal mentality of Ukrainians, the agrarian direction of our civilization, folk calendar cycles, the dominance of femininity in Ukrainian ethnography makes the presence of this archetype in our cultural space quite stable [9]. The Great Mother archetype is one of the most significant. It is manifested in a variety of archetypal images containing many contents that are associated with the main idea of the archetype: the source of life, wisdom, and mercy. Quite often, this archetype is activated under circumstances where a person needs spiritual support, in the absence of a stable belief system, especially when there is a change in the value paradigm, including national ones, when there is a feeling of confusion and abandonment at the mercy of fate.

In such situations, an arcethypical image of the motherland will be a key manifestation of the Great Mother. At the initial stage, the image of the Mother was associated primarily with nature. Hesiod (about 700 BC), the poet, systematized Greek mythology, placed Gaia - Mother Earth - at the very beginning genealogy of the gods as the Mother of all things, the root cause, the oldest of all Greek gods pantheon. Veneration of Mother Nature in the Greco-Roman tradition was reflected in the cult, Demeter and Rhea. The veneration of female, maternal cults was widespread in paganism. In Christian culture, the feminine principle takes also quite an important place. In folklore, we find another phenomenon essential for the development of the theme of the mother: this theme could be embodied in the first person, when the image of the mother revealed through her speech about herself, through her experiences and inner world. This is the image of the mother, first of all, in the cries of mothers for their children, where the mother directly expresses her grief, partly in lullabies, in which thought at the same time about the future of the child and the fate of the mother herself. Closer to the literature of modern times, in the 17th century, the image of the earthly mother again entered the literature, in connection with the growth of the personal principle, authorship, the deepening of psychologism, and individuality. The images of mothers created by modern writers differ significantly from the idealized image of the mother in classical literature, which originates from the image of the Mother of God. The mother, on the one hand, helps to orient oneself in the world around, to understand one, and on the other hand, serves as an object of acute rejection. The early loss of the mother and the too prolonged dependence on her has an equally tragic effect on fate. In modern prose, it is precisely negative qualities that come to the fore, for example, such as repulsive physiology and rudeness. The realization of the feminine essence occurs only in the case of denial of the maternal principle in oneself [6, p. 22].

Some images of mothers in literary works go down in history, become cult and serve as prototypes for subsequent works. One of the most remarkable manifestations of the mother archetype is Ma from Room by Emma Donoghue. Inspired by real events, this novel tells us a story from the perspective of five-year-old Jack, who lives in an annex with his mother and does not know that the Devil has locked the two of them in a small room. For Jack, nothing is real outside the window, and his mother does everything to preserve his physical and mental health. Despite the grim circumstances and trauma of the past, she is as caring and loving as any mother under ordinary circumstances. The Room is one of those heartbreaking stories that make you admire this incredibly strong woman endlessly [4]. All literary works in one way or another are written based on events that have already occurred. So in a historical context, you can see that true motherhood manifests itself in moments of despair and grief when a woman does not care what will happen to her, but she is ready to do everything so that everything is in order with her child, even her valuable life. History is cyclical, just like plots in literature. Here we should cite as an example all the well-known stories about the judgment of Solomon. The Judgment of Solomon is a story from the Hebrew Bible in which King Solomon of Israel ruled between two women both claiming to be the mother of a child. Both women fought for the right to become a mother, but only one was important for the well-being of the child. She asks to give up the child, although she realizes that she will not see him again. Many centuries later, Berthold Brecht wrote a play, in which the same situation was repeated. Based on a play by Li Xingdao, Brecht's famous The Caucasian Chalk Circle depicts the governor's selfless dishwasher, Grusha, caring for Mikhail, the governor's son, and his wife Natella, who fled after her husband's execution. Later, realizing that her husband's fortune was bequeathed to the child, Natella summons Grusha to court to prove that she is the boy's real mother. The judge, Azdak, places Mikhail in a circle drawn in chalk. The one who can get Michael out of the center will be declared his mother. Grusha, who cannot harm the child, refuses to take part in the trial. In the end, thanks to her love for Michael, she proves her true motherhood.

Very often the mother in the literary works is described as an annoying a pinched- nosed nanny, who only annoys her children, takes care of them too much and looks stupid and unworthy. But even in this image of the mother, the main thing that characterizes the archetype of the mother is still embodied. For example, this type of mother is Mrs. Bennett from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Mrs. Bennett is a terrible social climber. She is silly, irrational, frivolous, and ill-mannered. Her sole ambition is to marry her daughters to wealthy men. But this woman takes care of her five daughters and is extremely excited about the issue of marriage only because she wants the husbands of her daughters to be decent people, to provide for them and take care of them. Mrs. Bennett is a loving mother who, in her own way, does her best to support her daughters [4]. The conscious life of the individual, according to Jung, is a rather complex dynamic structure, whose foundations are the archetypes. Jung defined them as patterns of behaviour, formal factors that are responsible for the company of mental actions in the unconscious. Archetypes are universal images that have survived since ancient times and have evolved into transversal motifs, common symbols of culture whose nature is easier to understand based on from their purpose. At the level of the existence of archetypes, reality is not yet divided into natural, social and spiritual.

The archetype-image of mother and maternal love is the eternal motif of world literature. The image of the mother in the literature has a very rich inner meaning. In recent years, with the development of feminist criticism, more and more researchers are turning to this area in search of a new interpretation of the image of the mother.

References

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2. FitzGerald, L. Negotiating Lone Motherhood: Gender, Politics and Family Values in Contemporary Popular Cinema. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Film and Television Studies, University of East Anglia, 2009. 275 p.

3. Gibson, L.R. Beyond the Apron: Archetypes, Stereotypes, and Alternative Portrayals of Mothers in Children's Literature. Children's Literature Association Quarterly 13 (4), 1998. Р. 177-181.

4. Patterson, A. The 15 Most Memorable Mothers in Literature'. Writers Write. available from: https://www.writerswrite.co.za/the-15-most-memorable-mothers-in- literature/.

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Анотація

Формування архетипу матері у світовій культурі та літературі

Лузанова Олена (м. Ізмаїл)

У статті розглядається поняття архетипу матері як одне з найважливіших у літературі та культурі загалом. Соціальна роль матері як головна завжди була притаманна жінці і залишає це за собою сьогодні. У статті насамперед розглядається, як і чому автори художніх творів звертаються до вічних образів, наприклад матері. Літературний архетип -- це модель, яка, зберігаючи свою серцевину, є мінливою та непостійною у творчості різних письменників. Деякі образи матерів у літературних творах увійшли в історію, стали культовими і послужили прототипами для наступних творів. У роботі наведено як приклади таких робіт, так і опис матерів у них. Архетипи є відображенням постійно повторюваного досвіду людства. Деякі архетипи зустрічаються у тварин; вони ґрунтуються на специфіці живої системи загалом, виступаючи як вираз життя, статус якого більше не підлягає подальшому поясненню.

Ключові слова: архетип, вічний образ, образи матерів, соціальна роль, архетип матері.

Summary

The formation of the mother archetype in world culture and literature

Luzanova Olena.

The article considers the concept of the mother's archetype as one of the most important in literature and culture in general. The social role of the mother as the main one has always been inherent in women and reserves this right today. The article first of all considers how and why authors of works of art turn to eternal images, such as mothers. The literary archetype is a model that, while retaining its core, is changeable and volatile in the work of different writers. Some images of mothers in literary works went down in history, became cult and served as prototypes for subsequent works. The paper gives both examples of such works and a description of mothers in them. Archetypes are reflections of the ever-repeating experience of humanity. Some archetypes are already found in animals; they are based on the specifics of a living system in general, acting as an expression of life, whose status no longer lends itself to further explanation.

Key words: archetype, eternal image, images of mothers, social role, mother's archetype.

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