PD 6 AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Excellent discussions for the past few days!
Let's think about archetypes and how they are significant in Wiley Cash's writing. Remember, an archetype is a common pattern repeated throughout many stories (example: Christ Figures, the battle between good and evil). Below is a list of common archetypes in stories. The Quest or Journey The Task The Hero The Blind Character The Shared Meal Death and Rebirth Battle Between Good and Evil The Unhealable Wound The character who thinks they are normal until told they are a hero The Return Home Mentor-Pupil Relationship The Threshold Guardian (Gatekeeper) Father-Son Conflict Hunting Group of Companions The Side-kick The Evil Character with an Ultimately Good Heart The Creature of Nightmare The Outcast Damsel in Distress The Beautiful but Dangerous Lady Friendly Beast The Shadow The Devil Figure The Unfaithful Wife Light vs. Darkness Nature vs. Civilization The Underworld What archetypes do you recognize in your Wiley Cash book?? In the comments below, choose one or two or two archetypes and explain how you see them played out in your book. Make sure to explain why you think the use of this archetype is significant to the story/overall themes of your novel. Your response should be at least 5-6 sentences. After posting, you should reply to two of your peers with a quality 2-3 sentence response (add to the discussion). Your initial reply is due by Saturday night (12 midnight). Your replies should be completed by Monday night (12 midnight).
25 Comments
sarah kingery
9/1/2017 10:28:51 am
The conflict I saw the most in This Dark Road to Mercy was Father son/ daughter conflict. Everyone in this story had family issues, from being abandoned to being abused or having to give up their child. All of the characters dealt with this issue very differently. Wade Left Ruby and Easter but, he came back for them and tried to right his wrongs. Brady had to give up his daughter but he represents children without parents and still tries to have a relationship with his daughter. Pruitt chose to blame Wade for his family issues and will stop at nothing to have him put away.
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Emma Jones
9/1/2017 10:34:00 am
I completely agree with you. All of the narrators of the story had parental problems. Even Wade walked into his mother's house to see that she was lying bloody and dead on the floor.
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Hailey Sebastian
9/1/2017 10:33:20 am
I definitely think that one of the most obvious archetypes in the book is death and rebirth. The entire book is about how a broken family is almost reborn. The death of their family started with wade ending and then their mother dying. However, the rebirth is demonstrated when they are with Wade and even after when they move with their grandparents.
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sarah kingery
9/1/2017 10:37:21 am
I agree with you. Wiley's choice in giving Easter her name symbolizes the holiday Easter when Jesus was reborn. Easter's view of her father was "reborn" as she stopped seeing him as the man who left her and saw him as her father.
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Emma Jones
9/1/2017 10:42:06 am
I had never thought of that but I couldn't agree more. I think in some way Easter and Ruby going to live with their grandparents is the last breath of their old family.
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Maddie Nyce
9/3/2017 02:45:03 am
I didn't even think about that. Throughout the whole story, Wade tries to fix things and make everything okay, trying to making the family okay, giving them a new opportunity to become a family.
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Brent Moore The First
9/3/2017 11:10:42 am
I had never thought about how this archeotype effects the story and how it goes hand and hand with the storyline. I like how you said it was almost like a rebirth of the family.
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Tyler Seidel
9/4/2017 03:43:23 pm
I agree completely with what you said and I like how you chose to look at the archetype from a different perspective.
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Maddie Nyce
9/1/2017 10:36:18 am
In this book, I see the Father-son conflict, but with Father-daughter. often throughout the book, it's clear how Easter sees her father, Wade. In the beginning of the book, it is clear to see that she has a very lowly opinion of him. Throughout the story, I think that she begins to develop her own opinion of Wade, rather than relying on her mother's opinion. The relationship starts off extremely rocky, but ends up smoothing out slightly.
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sarah kingery
9/1/2017 10:41:12 am
Also the baseball game being their last stop is very ironic due to the fact that he left the girls to go play baseball. He lost his girls twice because of a game that he valued more than family. Wade never got the chance to finish either of his quests; to have a family and to play baseball.
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Jeff Montinar
9/4/2017 08:48:06 pm
I really like what you said because in my Double Entry Notes I said something similar. Since his daughters are no longer his, Wade is fully aware of what might happen to him if he decides to steal Easter and Ruby to have one last family road trip, knowing what is waiting for them at the final destination.
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Emma Jones
9/1/2017 10:39:42 am
One of the smaller archetypes was that most of the characters were stuck in the past. Easter hated Wade for leaving them when she was younger. Wade wanted to make up time that he had lost when he left his kids. Brady had a shaky relationship with his daughter because of a past accident. Pruitt was especially stuck in the past while he was chasing after Wade.
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Hailey Sebastian
9/3/2017 10:22:29 am
I didn't even think of that. Much, if not all of the book is about being stuck in the past. Pruitt definitely, he held this grudge over Wade for taking baseball away from him.
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Taylor Swiger
9/4/2017 05:41:06 pm
I agree, but would being stuck in the past be considered an archetype? I think there's a different name for that, or it's just a common thing in stories.
Tyler Seidel
9/1/2017 10:45:50 am
In "This Dark Road to Mercy" I feel one of the most prevalent archetypes is The Unhealable Wound. Throughout the story Pruit is shown mercilessly hunting down Wade and his family. This all comes from Pruit`s vendetta against Wade, and his belief that it is Wade`s fault for ending his career. This fits into The Unhealable Wound archetype because Pruit is never able to overcome his hatred towards Wade, or "heal" their relationship. Furthermore, this wound drives Pruit to the brink of insanity, towards the end of the story he even reverts to murder to fulfill his desires.
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Maddie Nyce
9/3/2017 02:48:39 am
I'm not a fan of Pruitt as a character. He, throughout the whole story, doesn't seem to grow/develop, which is important to do in a book. It's frustrating to read from
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Hailey Sebastian
9/3/2017 10:27:10 am
While Pruitt is the most obvious character for "The Unhealable wound," I think looking in from a different perspective Wade kind of has an unhealeable wound against himself for leaving the girls when he was younger. Throughout the novel he is trying to, in a sense, heal this wound by spending time with them and showing them, and himself, that he is a better person, and dad, then he seems.
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Brent Moore The First
9/3/2017 11:20:26 am
I definitely agree that there are unhealable wounds in this book, but I would have to say that they start from the father/son/daughter conflicts.
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Taylor Swiger
9/4/2017 05:38:05 pm
I wouldn't say that the Unhealable Wound is the most prevalent archetype because you only really see it in one point of view throughout the story. I don't think you could say that Wade fits into it either because he is healing. His time with the girls helped him, and he's atoning for his mistakes.
Jeff Montinar
9/4/2017 08:55:37 pm
I agree with you completely. Pruitt is the type of character to live by this motto, "Revenge NEVER, tasted so good."
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Brent Moore The First
9/3/2017 11:06:03 am
The biggest archetypes I saw in this book was Father/Son or daughter conflicts. In the book you saw plenty of family’s that were affected by relationships with their fathers. The main one was Wade abandoning Easter and Ruby. Throughout the book you see how other conflicts between fathers and their children impact the outcome of this story. You see how people deal with their conflicts and not having a father figure there.
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Tyler Seidel
9/4/2017 03:46:42 pm
Yeah, I agree with how the father son/daughter conflict is the largest archetype in the book, some other examples are Pruitt`s relationship with his dad and Brady`s relationship with his daughter.
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Charli Sween
9/3/2017 02:51:19 pm
The conflict I saw was a father son conflict but father daughter conflict obviously. There’s a lot of different family issues going on at one time. Easter starts out the book seeing her father as this terrible man. I think throughout the book though, she starts finding out things for herself. She starts to see him as a different person towards the end as she forms her own opinion of him.
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Taylor Swiger
9/3/2017 08:18:34 pm
The entire book is an archetype. It exhibits the journey archetype, not just through the basic plot line, but through multiple characters' story arcs. Its significance spawns from the foreshadowing through Easter and Ruby's backstories. Their story began with the loss of their mother, when they both truly needed to grow up. The foreshadowing was evident in the girls' interests, such as the Oregon Trail game, or Easter's description of her relationship with Marcus. The real journey began before their father took them on the road trip, which was another journey/quest archetype for redemption. Commonly in stories, the journey archetype is used as a character's arc for a greater goal of atonement, or closure, which is what I see in this book.
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Jeff Montinar
9/4/2017 08:40:31 pm
In my opinion, I believe the two most important archetypes in this dark road to mercy are Battle between Good and Evil and The Unhealable Wound. The first archetype deals with Wade Chesterfield and his emotional difficulties overpowering his power to logically think. Wade went and stole a duffel bag full of money for his daughters so he could purchase back the love he has never given. So, the second archetype affects different characters Easter and Ruby Quillby. The unhealable wound was a heart-hitting metaphor that reveals the figurative scars Easter and Ruby felt after Wade had relinquished his parental rights to their mom.
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