New Feature - Archetypal Awareness

My first post in the A to Z challenge was on archetypes.  When I first thought about doing A to Z, I thought about doing all of them on archetypes but thinking through the different archetypes, finding examples, explaining the differences was just too much for one month, and looking back on that, I'm VERY happy I didn't attempt that.

However, the idea of archetypes has been ruminating in my head ever since, and then I attended a great class at a conference in May about them, and realized what a great value an awareness of archetypes can have when fleshing out a character, figuring out what could happen in a story, development of setting, etc.

So, I'm starting a feature on Monday spotlighting an archetype in literature - calling it archetypal awareness :)

To start with, and to keep this post from becoming too long, I thought I would just give a quick explanation of what an archetype is.

Carl Jung started studying stories from all across the globe and realized there were patterns in the stories being told.  He explored the idea of the collective unconscious - something that is present in the minds of people across cultures and time period, kind of like a memory that all humanity has.  Joseph Campbell took this idea and further explored it, recognizing that Jung was right and wrote many books about it.  This is why there are so many stories that we hear people say, "It's just like when _______ does ________."

There are archetypes of themes, symbols, images, characters, plots, settings showing up in dreams, myths, fairy tales, folklore, religion and literature.

In fact, Star Wars is so full of archetypes that a full (really well done and entertaining) documentary was created explaining them.

(This is the full thing - 90 minutes.  I warned you.)

Do you know much about archetypes?  Have you studied much of either Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell?