ISP Post #6

When reading the “Book of Negroes” and analyzing it with multiple literary criticisms, I found that the archetypal literary criticism revealed the most from within the text. The archetype theory puts emphasis on common character roles and plot events. Since the “Book of Negroes” follows Aminata’s life from a young age to near death, one can easily see the decent into danger and recognize the challenges she faces and her return to a comfortable state or the end of her journey. If one was using a different criticism; for example, the feminist theory, they would miss the major events and challenges in her journey and how Aminata matured from innocence to experience. One’s view would be more focused on her mistreatment and expected behaviour due to her gender. For example, one would see one of the largest challenges Aminata faced on the boat to America as trying to navigate the abusive toubab who abused women sexually (74). Someone reading the text from an archetypal perspective would see the boat as her decent into danger and realize that more hardships were going to be coming her way. The archetypal theory allows the reader to somewhat predict future events, where other criticisms focus more on the present.

The Archetypal literary criticism also reveals more about characters and the roles they will play in the story. Common archetypal figures are the great mother, wise old man, the trickster fox, and the hero. All of these figures can be seen within Lawrence Hill’s novel.  Georgia is the great mother, Daddy Moses was the wise old man, Applebee was the trickster fox and Aminata was the hero. To give an example of how the characters fit these roles and can be recognized, I will analyze Applebee with an archetypal view point. Applebee was an antagonist. He abused and shamed Aminata regularly when she was his slave (160). He found out information secretively and stole Aminata’s son right from under her nose (184). His sneaky traits, devious mind, and lack of morals make him the trickster fox. The way he would surprise Aminata with information she thought he wouldn’t know, also gave a slight foreshadow that he would unexpectedly show up later in the story. He did not get all that he wanted out of Aminata so it was no surprise he wanted to claim her again by surprise (306). If one was using the reader response theory, they would probably just assume that Applebee was a selfish man that just wanted to cause more trouble form Aminata. They would do an in depth analysis of his character.

 Since the archetypal theory reveals more about the characters and plot than other theories, I would make my thesis the following: When analyzing “The Book of Negroes” by Lawrence Hill with the archetypal literary criticism, one can easily recognize the hero’s quest which the main character follows and see common character roles that would be otherwise missed with a different criticism. I believe that clearly answers the thesis question.