The Trickster Archetype

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The Trickster Archetype
The figure of the tricksterHe is a forerunner
of the saviour, and, like him, God, man, and
animal at once. He is both subhuman and
superhuman, a bestial and divine being whose
chief and most alarming characteristic is his
unconsciousness. - Carl Gustav Jung,
from The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
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The trickster archetype

• Seeking to define the Trickster is a treacherous
  task. He is a slippery figure who shifts shape,
  challenging authority and disrupting order.
• The Trickster is a seer of limited sight- part
  human and part supernatural. His prophecies are
  often riddled with half-truths and lies,
  falsities that somehow point toward a higher
  truth.
• The Trickster possesses the keen ability to see
  these hidden meanings and uses these insights to
  transform himself or to act as a catalyst in the
  changing of others.

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The trickster archetype
But the Tricksters schemes or tricks can often
be self-defeating and harmful to other
individuals. Although he is partially divine and
mortal, the Trickster is also sub-human. Due
to his oracular insights and his sub-human state,
he is often the alienated outsider.
Functioning on the fringes of society, the
Trickster works his strange medicine to challenge
taboos and crumble the structures of
civilization.
The Outsider by Thomas Homer
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The trickster archetype
Sometimes acting as a magician, the Trickster
directly reshapes the surrounding world with
inner magic. Continually weaving old into new.
But the Trickster can often also act as a kind
of holy fool working behind a ridiculous façade
to perform these strange changes unknown and
unnoticed.
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The trickster archetype
Though the Trickster resists typical
classification, he is there forever blurring
realities in order to reshape the world. If
you try to follow his trail, like Carrolls Alice
down the rabbit hole, you may find yourself lost
and bewildered. But the discoveries you make on
your winding roads will make the journey worth
the effort.
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The trickster archetype

• In short, the trickster is a boundary crosser.
  Every group has its edge, its sense of in and
  out, and trickster is always thereHe also
  attends the internal boundaries by which groups
  articulate their social life. We constantly
  distinguish right and wrong, sacred and
  profane, clean and dirty, male and female, young
  and old, living and dead and in every case
  trickster will cross the line and confuse the
  distinction. Trickster is the creative idiot,
  therefore, the wise fool, the gray-haired baby,
  the cross-dresser, the speaker of sacred
  profanitiesTrickster is the mythic embodiment of
  ambiguity and ambivalence, doubleness and
  duplicity, contradiction and paradox (Hyde 7).

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The Trickster archetype

• A curious combination of typical trickster
  motifsinclude his fondness for sly jokes and
  malicious pranks, his powers as a shape-shifter,
  his dual nature, half animal, half divine, his
  exposure to all kinds of tortures, and last but
  not least his approximation to the figure of a
  saviour (Jung 255).

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The Trickster archetype

• The Trickster archetype connects with other
  various important archetypes and literary
  traditions. Due to his association with the
  bestial elements of life and the unconscious
  realms of creation, Trickster frequently
  frequents with the Shadow. In Tricksters guise
  of the savior, the archetype aligns with the
  Christ figure and can serve as an inroad to the
  united Self. In his sub-human but somehow
  supernatural form, Trickster often plays a
  pivotal role in numerous animal fables as a
  miscreant hero.

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Multi-Cultural Examples of Tricksters

• African American folklore
• the Hare
• French folktales the Fox
• Native American mythology
• the Crow and the Coyote
• Western African folklore
• Anansi the Spider
• East Indian/Asian myths
• The Monkey
• Greek/Roman
• mythology
• Hermes/Mercury
• Norse mythology
• Loki

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• When exploring possible literary representations
  of the Trickster, keep an eye out for characters
  who use their wits instead of brute strength to
  survive and/or live on the edges of society and
  possess oracular vision. These characters will
  usually bring about some form of significant
  transformation/reformation within themselves,
  within others, or cause some form of change in
  their surroundings. These transformations that
  the Trickster catalyzes usually will involve some
  form of inversion of societal norms or the
  blurring of cultural/situational/temporal
  boundaries. The Trickster is also routinely a
  salvific figure capable of bringing redemption
  through his or her unusual methodologies.

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Literary Application The Trickster

• In T. H. Whites classic The Once and Future
  King, Merlin is re-imagined as a slightly
  bumbling, quirky, but nonetheless magical helper
  to young Arthur. Though he does traditionally
  fulfill the role of the guide in King Arthurs
  heroic journeys, within Whites novel he also
  serves as a Trickster figure. Through his
  various physical transformations of Wart into the
  various creatures of field, stream, and sky,
  through the more subtle and important alchemy he
  performs on the budding character of his charge,
  Merlin proves himself a suitable Trickster
  representative. Aside from his tricksterish
  career as a magician, Merlin even travels
  backward through time. He, therefore, blurs
  linear temporal boundaries and can act as an
  oracle, Now ordinary people are born forwards in
  TimeBut I unfortunately was born at the wrong
  end of time, and I have to live backwardsSome
  people call it having second sight (White 35).

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Modern reverberations of the trickster
Not quite as ubiquitous as the Shadow, the
Trickster figure still rears its head frequently
in our modern culture - bringing strange changes
in his wake.
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Charlie Chaplins The Tramp

• The Tramp is a bumbling but good-natured
  character created and portrayed by Charlie
  Chaplin, a well-known silent movie star. This
  vagrant character strains to behave and radiate
  the dignity of a gentleman, but he instead fouls
  up unintentionally. The Tramp habitually uses
  his cunning to reach his goals and to escape
  looming authority figures who are intolerant of
  his antics. Chaplin, as the Tramp, also
  continually uses familiar aspects of his
  surroundings in unfamiliar and novel ways.
  Whether using wooden chairs as armor or potatoes
  as synchronized dancing feet, the Tramp takes the
  traditional and utilizes it untraditionally to
  create something new.

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Brer Rabbit and Bugs Bunny

• Brer Rabbit is a reccurring character from
  African American folktales who uses his wits and
  trickery to outsmart Brer Fox and Brer Bear.
  Originally a Cherokee Trickster, Brer Rabbit was
  appropriated into the African American oral
  tradition.
• A more contemporary rabbit, Bugs Bunny, also
  continually eludes his tormentors through foolish
  deceptions, myriad disguises, and verbal
  trickery. Both of these rascally rabbits
  highly exemplify the wily nature of the
  Trickster.

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The roadrunner and wile E. coyote

• Both Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner could be
  considered Trickster figures. Whether
  constructing or evading various elaborate traps
  and tricks, both the Roadrunner and the Coyote
  are forever locked in a tricksterish dance each
  striving to use his wits to finally emerge
  victorious. Though he struggles to use his
  cunning to defeat the Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote
  is continually foiled by fate and his opponents
  speed.

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Bart Simpson as a trickster

• Bart, from The Simpsons, is an untraditional
  Trickster. Through his various pranks, schemes,
  and adventures, this rabble rouser continually
  causes his own demise and often accidentally
  brings about positive change in the lives of
  others.
• Behind the thin veil of existential apathy and
  disruption, Bart possesses true integrity despite
  his extreme selfishness and delusions of
  grandeur.

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Frank the Rabbit from Donnie Darko

• In the existential teenage drama Donnie Darko, a
  giant rabbit from the recent future named Frank
  appears to the protagonist with advice on how to
  avert the impending destruction of the town.
• With Franks help, Donnie is able to perform a
  sacrificial action that saves the lives of those
  he loves.
• But Frank is not a typical savior his cryptic
  advice is eerie and confusing and our hero is
  unsure if Franks visits are merely a troubling
  side effect of his anti-depressant medication.
  For these reasons, Frank is a haunting Trickster
  figure stepping in to bring about change.

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Major resources

• Hyde, Lewis. Trickster Makes This World
  Mischief, Myth, and Art. New York North Point
  Press, 1998. Print.
• Jung, C. G. The Archetypes and the Collective
  Unconscious.
• 2nd ed. New York Princeton University Press,
  1959. Print.
• White, T.H. The Once and Future King. New York
  Berkeley Publishing Group, 1939. Print.