Archetypes: Demonstrated Through East of Eden and Lord of the Rings

An archetype is a character basis that is present throughout much of the world's collective stories. Carl Jung was a psychologist who proposed the idea of archetypes, and he stated that all characters fit into one of these archetypes. 

An author would base a character on an archetype in order to create a strong understanding of the character based off of the reader's prior experience with a select archetype. Archetypes also help to create, influence, and push forward theme throughout a book by contributing their virtues, values, and fears into the books context. 

In East of Eden, Steinbeck creates a very definitive caregiver archetype within Samuel. To begin with, Samuel is as generous as someone could be. He would consistently fix various people's items and then take no payment for it. Even if he was in financial ruin, it meant more to him to be helping others then making money. Furthermore, Samuel has the weakness of being exploited. He allows people to take advantage of his generousity, for he does so much for others with no return fort himself. Additionally, Samuel definitely loves his neighbors as he loves himself. He goes out of his way to assist others even when it has no gain for himself. This is evident when he goes to Adam's house to free him from the fog Adam was living in after Cathy shot him. There was no gain in doing this for Samuel, but he could not bear to see a

Adam, Cal, and Aron continue on with how they were living. Steinbeck uses Samuel as the caregiver archetype to push forward his theme. 

Throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Tolkien creates Samwise Gamgee to be the caregiver archetype. Samwise is willing to give everything including his life for Frodo. This is demonstrated, among numerous times, when Sam starts towards Frodo's boat as it is leaving even though he knows he can't swim. Samwise is so important to Frodo and the completion of the journey that it is unlikely that Frodo would have made it anywhere close to Mordor without Samwise there is support him. Furthermore, Tolkien uses Sam to show one half of Frodo's inner conscious. By making Samwise the caregiver archetype, Tolkien is revealing that part of Frodo is willing to give it all, even hs life, in order to accomplish the destruction of the Ring. Tolkien creates Damwise Gamgee in the visage of the caregiver archetype to demonstrate the selflessness of characters in their attempt to destroy the Ring.