Archetypal Settings and Images

Interpret recurring settings and images, such as journeys, gardens, storms, and thresholds, in context.

Archetypes include places and images, not only characters. Gardens often evoke innocence or paradise; wildernesses evoke testing or freedom; rivers suggest time, change, or crossing over; storms signal upheaval; thresholds such as doors, bridges, and borders mark transformation; and seasons map onto life stages, with winter suggesting age or death and spring renewal. These associations are culturally widespread, but they are tendencies, not codes. A strong reader checks the context.

In an original example, a character's family garden is overgrown and choked with weeds when she returns after years away. The garden archetype of innocence is still active, but the neglect suggests that innocence has been lost or abandoned. If a writer places a happy reunion in the middle of a storm, the contrast might suggest the characters' bond can withstand upheaval. Always ask how the specific details of a setting confirm, complicate, or invert the archetype it calls up.

• 1Settings and images can be archetypal too.
• 2Associations are tendencies, not fixed codes.
• 3Specific details can confirm, complicate, or invert them.