Reading Your Life Path in Literature
Literary exemplars shed light on modern discontents
A combination of therapy and expertise in literature, this book explains the six archetypes derived from 4,000 years of literature and how they may guide unhappy people seeking meaning in their lives. Holding up the great books as the best way to understand these timeless story elements, the discussion devotes a chapter to each of the six archetypes: the innocent, the orphan, the pilgrim, the warrior-lover, the monarch pair and the magician. Story structures are shown to be particularly suited to therapy with adolescents, many of whom have never stepped away from television and the shopping centres long enough to understand their unmet spiritual needs.This book is special because it offers a genuine, reliable guide to help us make sense of the demands of spiritual growth. The Archetypes it describes were widely used as meaningful guideposts until the modern era and the Industrial Revolution helped to wipe out their credibility. Just as the rise of religion caused the demise of magic (and with it many of our folkways, most healing modalities and the rituals of psychic healing) so the advent of mass culture reduced literature to the level of entertainment.