Christmas Classic Archetypes by Annika Noel

Christmas time is often shown characteristically full of music, decorations, and movies specifically made to celebrate and emphasize how magical this time of year is. It's during this time of year that many classic and amazing movies and books have been made which, though made for Christmas, still have the same archetypes that are recurrent in most other works. So for the blog post this month, I’m going to be listing and examining the archetypes seen in beloved Christmas themed works. I've included just three examples but there are, of course, a lot more examples but these examples all either fit into the category of being a book, a song, or a movie or multiple. 

• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (with many, many recreated movie and book versions)- when thinking of this story, besides the main character's very distinctive personality of being a scrooge, Ebenezer Scrooge’s is the most remarkable part of the story. He meets 3 differently themed spirits and travels through different times surrounding his life with them, being able to have an outsider's perspective. The archetype I've seen that most closely aligns with Scrooge's journey is the aptly named “The Journey” archetype. With Scrooge as our hero, he goes on a physiological journey so that he must face his personal faults and then return back to his world better for them and returning harmony. Scrooge's magical dreamscape adventure is this archetype to a T and is a perfect example of archetypes in our popular media still today. 

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer- This character is seen in songs, books, and movies all over around Christmas time. He has become a classic character that is synonymous with Santa and gift-giving and everyone knows his backstory. He was born with a glowing bright red nose and was ostracized for it growing up among his fellow reindeer when one night it was so foggy on Christmas Eve that Santa was unable to fly his sleigh; this would prevent millions of children from getting gifts and essentially ruin Christmas. It was then that the very thing Rudolph was ostracized for, his glowing red nose, came in handy because it was only through the virtue of his strange ability that the sleigh could take off and complete Christmas, with Rudolph in the lead. This famous and well-known tale has the underlying archetype of “The Initiation”, where the character receives a calling, Rudolph receives his from Santa, and then understands their responsibilities to resolve the dilemma, Rudolph taking the lead and saving the say.

• “Baby, It's Cold Outside” written by Frank Loesser but best performed by Idina Menzel and Michael Buble (in my opinion)- This famous song has come under a lot of scrutiny these past few years, but rather than debate that I would like to examine the archetype that this song puts on display every time it comes on the radio. “Haven vs Wilderness”, in this archetype there is a sharp contrast between a place of safety and sanctuary vs a dangerous wilderness that could harm the heroes. Even the name of the song shows haven vs wilderness by saying it is cold, harsh, and dangerous outside while inside it is warm and cozy. “Baby, you'll freeze out there,” is another line in the well-known song which perfectly shows how the wilderness of the winter weather is something dangerous and can be protected against indoors. The duet style of the song is also able to show conflict and debate better than a more common type of solo singing and this duet style helps even more to show the conflicting nature of an archetype like haven vs wilderness.