Stories We Need to Know: Reading Your Life Path in Literature

241 Pages·2008·2.44 MB·English

by  Allan G. Hunter

Stories We Need to Know
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Stories We Need to Know
Allan G. Hunter
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© Allan G. Hunter 2008
The right of Allan G. Hunter to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1998.
First published by Findhorn Press 2008
ISBN: 978-1-84409-123-2
All rights reserved. The contents of this book may not be reproduced in any
form, except for short extracts for quotation or review, without the written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Edited by Jane Engel
Cover design by Damian Keenan
Layout by e-BookServices.com
Printed and bound in America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 13 12 11 09 08
Published by
Findhorn Press
305A The Park,
Findhorn, Forres
Scotland IV36 3TE
Tel [phone]
Fax [phone]
eMail [email protected]
www.findhornpress.com
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Acknowledgements
Any work such as this stands on the shoulders – if it stands at all – of scholars
who have gone before, and so I happily acknowledge the obvious debts to
C.G. Jung, John Weir Perry, Paul Radin, Joseph Campbell and others mentioned
in this text.
The people who have helped directly with this work have been many and var-
ied, so I’ll start with those who offered material help. I could not have completed
this project without the help of the Staff at Curry College Library, especially Hedi
Ben Aicha and David Miller, nor without the funds supplied by the Faculty Wel-
fare Committee, which in turn allowed Mina Gibb to do such an extraordinarily
speedy job of translating my handwriting into text. The Academic Vice-President
and Dean, David Fedo, and Dean Susan Pennini likewise were generous enough
to grant me a sabbatical in which to do large amounts of the necessary work.
I was also considerably helped by being able to use research resources supplied
through the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation to the Curry
College Honors Program, which is a recipient of a portion of those resources.
More particularly I wish to extend a heartfelt personal thank you to Mrs. Arline
Greenleaf for her on-going belief in this project, which springs directly out of
my work with the Honors Program, and to Mrs. Rebecca Greenleaf-Clapp, her
daughter, who has continued that generous support. This project could not have
happened without them.
My thanks go to Dr. Ronald Warners, Director of the Honors Program who
has been a friend, colleague, and the perfect tactful mentor in all this. Likewise I
am grateful to the Peper Harow foundation (UK) for their assistance and guid-
ance. At Curry College the Committee for Excellence in Teaching was generous
in awarding me a grant which was used to pursue this project, and has my grati-
tude, also.
I am deeply grateful to Andrew Wilson for being able to use his translation of
Euripides, and to Greg Atwan for his careful guidance through the subtleties of
Greek Drama, and for his skills in translation.
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vi • Stories We Need to Know
Of those who offered me personal guidance no one provided more than Cath-
arine Bennett, who was prepared, tirelessly, to discuss and help redefine the ideas
on these pages. A special thank you goes to Robert Atwan, who was also more of
a mentor than he perhaps knows, and I value his input enormously.
My readers – Jeanette De Jong, Jeff DiIuglio, Bette Manter, Alan Revering,
and Patty Kean – deserve special thanks for their infinite patience and kindness,
as does Paula Cabral for her on-going support. Other invaluable guides include
Professor John Batchelor (Newcastle University), Professor John Carey (Merton
College, Oxford), Laura Svenka Douglas, Dr. Peter Hainer, Rachel Hartstein,
Rebecca King, Sensei Koei Kuahara, Paula Ogier, Andrew Peerless, Anna Portnoy,
Nick Portnoy, Suzanne Strempek Shea, Professor Tom Shippey (St. Louis Univer-
sity), and Dennis Watlington. To all a heart-felt thank you.
To Thierry Bogliolo I owe deep thanks for his vision and belief in this project,
and to Jane Engel I owe my gratitude for her skilful editing. I would also be remiss
if I failed to mention Timothy Staveteig whose encouragement arrived just when
I needed it most.
Inspiration came, in large measure, from my students who were really my
teachers, especially Jane Deering who generously allowed her writing to be dis-
cussed in Part 2. To all my students I owe more than it is easy to calculate, since
it was through working with them and seeing how literature could change the
inner story that they were creating for themselves, that I was able to observe these
six archetypal images in action. The largest inspiration came, of course, from the
literature itself.
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Table of Contents
Part 1
Chapter One The Problem of Soul Starvation 3
How do we nurture ourselves?
Joseph Campbell, The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy,
The Canterbury Tales
Chapter Two T he Six Archetypal Stages: An Overview 10
Innocent, Orphan, Pilgrim, Warrior-Lover,
Monarch, and Magician
Chapter Three The Innocent 16
Passive and Active incarnations, and the
Balanced Innocent. Blake, Wordsworth,
Emerson, Jesus. Forgiveness
Chapter Four T he Orphan 22
The Orphan’s struggle
Why this archetype can be the most dangerous
of all: extremism and its followers.
The fracturing of the relationship to the
parents, and conformism
Chapter Five The Pilgrim 32
Ego development: the attempt to find personal
authenticity and truth, The Flying Dutchman,
Dracula, and Dr. Frankenstein: examples of
unbalanced Pilgrims, the re-emergence of
love and courage
Chapter Six T he Warrior-Lover 46
Gandhi and King; Sir Gawain
The myths of Orpheus, Sir Galahad,
St. George and the Dragon
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viii • Stories We Need to Know
Chapter Seven The Monarch 72
Balance as the essential component,
and the need to remain open, to listen
Jane Austen; Parenting the parents
Chapter Eight The Magician 83
Absence of ego motivations
The achievement of balance and love
Chapter Nine The Road to Magician Level 91
The relationship to the parents
as a metaphor. Faith and
aligning oneself with the
forces of the universe
Chapter Ten The Sub-Stages 100
How Each Archetype has Several Levels
The temptations of fear: regression and the
dangers of anger and isolation
Part 2
Chapter Eleven Where did these Stages come from?
A Brief History 107
Jane Deering, Jung and Radin,
Campbell, and Perry
Part 3
Chapter Twelve Literature: The Dynamic Expression
of the Six Stages 119
Odysseus, Oedipus, Orestes
Chapter Thirteen L iterature from the Bible Onwards 143
Jesus, Sir Gawain, the Arthurian legends
Chapter Fourteen S hakespeare and the Six Stages 153
The History plays, Henry IV parts 1 and 2,
Henry V . The Tragedies and the failure to
move through stages: Macbeth, King Lear
Hamlet, The Tempest
Chapter Fifteen The Literature: Continued 169
Shakespeare and Marlowe.
The comedies and spiritual growth
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Table of Contents • ix
Chapter Sixteen N ineteenth and Twentieth Century Literature:
Failing Belief in the Stages 177
Dickens, Henry James, Edith Wharton,
Joseph Conrad. Industrialization and the
loss of the idea of the six stages
Chapter Seventeen Recent Literature: Harry Potter 183
J. K. Rowling– the stages re-emerge
The Magician fuses with the Innocent
Chapter Eighteen What the Literature has Shown:
Stages and Sub-Stages 194
The sub-stages, the Shadow Self. Trust and Faith
Chapter Nineteen Identifying the Stages of Development 213
Using wealth as a criterion
The necessity of Orphans
Chapter Twenty Love and Creativity 219
Love as a precondition for creativity
Courage as an outgrowth of personal authenticity
Chapter Twenty One Closing: Some Thoughts on Education 228
Love, and how education can help us
reclaim our wisdom
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