Why is Myth?• We will examine the psychological

theories of Freud and Jung and the structuralist approaches of Propp, Levi-Strauss, and Burkert.

• We will also discuss the work of Joseph Campbell, who could be considered both a psychological and a metaphysical theorist of myth.

• Perhaps each of these theories explains some myths, but no one theory is sufficient to explain all myths; the best approach, therefore, is to use all the theories when and where they are helpful.

WHY Theories of Myth

The 20th century saw the development of crucially important,

extremely influential, and very complex “why” theories of myth,

which assume that myths reflect the same underlying human realities in all cultures and, therefore, are somehow

cross-cultural or transcultural. The most obvious instances of this type of

theory are psychological.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) proposed that myth reflects psychological forces

present in the individual.

His most famous theory for the study of myth was, of course, the Oedipus complex. The story of Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother, reflected the repressed desires of all male children.

According to Freud, myths use the same kind of imagery, condensation, and displacement that are found in an individual dreams.

This imagery is primarily sexual in nature.

Carl Jung (1875-1961) saw myths as reflections of the “collective unconscious.”

In Jung’s view, the collective unconscious contains archetypes, or

recurrent images that exist cross-culturally and throughout time. Myths use these archetypes (such as the

“Earth Mother” or the “Wise Old Man).

Archetypes are traditional expressions of collective dreams, developed over thousands of years, of symbols upon which the society as a whole as come

to depend. So mythology is a pronouncing of a

series of images that formulate the life of archetypes. Heroes like Heracles

and Theseus are models who teach us how to behave.

An archetype is a kind of dramatic abbreviation of the patterns involved in a whole story or situation, including the way it develops and how it ends; it is a behavior pattern.

Just as a bird builds its nest in a characteristic way, so human beings by nature and by instinct are born with predictable and identifiable characteristics.

In the case of human behavior and attitudes, the patterns are expressed in archetypal images or forms. The archetypes of behavior with which humans are born and which find their expression in myth are called the “collective unconscious.”

The great value of Jung’s concept is that it emphasizes the psychological dependence of all societies (sophisticated as well as primitive) upon their traditional myths, often expressed also in religion and ritual.

Another “universal” approach to myth is Structuralism. It is a system of definable relations between the parts or elements of a whole which admit predictable transformations, according to Walter Burkert. There are two primary varieties of structuralist theory. The first, the Formalist School, developed by Vladimir Propp, analyzes traditional tales based on their surface elements. Propp analyzed tales into their constituent parts, from which he deduced a single, recurrent structure applicable to all Russian folktales. He described the structure as linear and as having a fixed sequence. Propp divided his basic structure into 31 functions, which are constant. The characters may change, but the functions remain the same. Not all functions occur in every tale.

The second category of structuralism looks at the underlying structure of myths, rather than at their surface narratives.

Levi-Strauss’s theory claims that myth provides a mediation of contradictions, a way of dealing with binary oppositions that underlie the human mind, raw/cooked, life/death, hunter/hunted, nature/culture and so on. “Mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions towards their resolution.

Levi-Strauss sees myth as a mode of communication, like language or music. In music it is not the sounds themselves that are important but their structure, that is, the relationship of sounds to other sounds. In myth it is the narrative that takes the part of the sounds of music, and the structure of the narrative can be perceived at various levels and in different codes (culinary, astronomical, sociological).

Thus, no one version of a myth is the “right” one; all versions are valid.

The scholar Walter Burkert developed a structuralist approach that differs from both Propp’s and Levi-Strauss’s in assigning the basic motive for certain myths to biological “programs of action.”

According to Burkert, classical myths have a “historical dimension” with “successive layers” of development, during which the original tale has been modified to fit the cultural or other circumstances at the time of its retelling.

Like Propp’s, Burkert’s theory isolates the narrative elements that recur in different myths. His thesis is that these narrative elements can be traced to early human or even pre-human biological necessities--from menarche to deflowering to bearing a first child.

Burkert also assigns great importance to ritual; thus is sometimes called a “neo-ritualist.”

The four theses of Burkert’s synthesis of the structural and historical approaches are:

1. Myth belongs to the more general class of traditional tale.

2. The identity of a traditional tale is to be found in a structure of sense within the tale itself.

3. Tale structures are founded on basic biological or cultural programs of actions.

4. Myth is a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance.

Joseph Campbell

The best known theorist of myth to appear recently is Joseph Campbell (1904-1987). Though he is often called a Jungian, a better term to describe his approach to myth might be “metaphysical.”

Campbell takes as a given that all myth is the same cross-culturally.

His method, like Frazer’s, depends largely on gathering examples of narrative similarities form different cultures.

Campbell assumes that myth is “true” in a metaphysical sense.

He imputes a spiritual meaning to myth that he things is both constant across

societies and crucial for individual psychological and spiritual health.

He separates this meaning form the specific religious doctrines held by the

societies that formed the particular myths.

All these theories tend to rest on unproven and unprovable assumptions.

• The psychological theories of Freud and Jung both hold to the idea that myths are in some sense the “dreams of the people.” This idea implies that a “people” or a society has a collective mind that is capable of dreaming.

• Freud further assumes that dreams have the same significance cross-culturally. But the interpretation of dream symbols changes according to time and place.

• Jung posits the “collective unconscious” as an entity and assumes that it produces the archetypes.

• Levi-Strauss assumes that the mediation of opposition is a driving force of all cultures.

• Burkert’s assumption that myth is rooted in pre-cultural biological realities can only be asserted, not demonstrated.

• The best approach may be to recognize that myth is a varied but recognizable category that can include all these theories (and more).

• No one theory seems adequate to explain “myth” overall.

• Theories can be useful for elucidating individual myths.

• So--once again, to define myths--they are traditional stories a society tells itself that encode ore represent the world-view, beliefs, principles and often fears of that society.

• As such, myths offer insight into what a specific culture things about the nature of the world in general and about key questions such as:

The nature and function of the gods

Human’s relationship to the gods

What it means to be human

The two sexes’ relationship to one another.