Archetypes In Children's Books

A person’s interpretation and understanding of a text is based on different things; like a reader’s background knowledge and expectation of a story. This is especially true when it comes to children’s books as they often follow a recognizable template that is simple for young readers to understand and enjoy. Still, these simple books still include archetypes and universally recognizable symbols. Children use common archetypes to make predictions about a text. A reader who is aware of archetypes will look at a book more analytically, identify character roles easier, and understand storyline and plot structure more clearly. When a reader understands and can identify archetypes in text, they can read a book more analytically and look for deeper meaning within it. An example of this was demonstrated when our class read to preschool children. Being unaware of archetypes and symbolism, their perception of the stories we read to them differs from ours. The younger student took the stories at face value, not closely noting the colors or themes. However, they unconsciously accepted the archetypes based on their prior knowledge of themes and roles within fairy tales. For instance, they immediately distrusted the ‘big bad wolf’ as he was drawn
The student I read to pointed out to me that the wolf was the “bad guy” and Little Red Riding Hood was the “good guy”. Although these roles aren’t directly stated, they are very obvious and lead him to make predictions about that rest of the story based on these archetypal character associations. The villain’s style of animation and expressions shows the reader that they should be wary of this character and predict that they will probably cause problems for the protagonist. Therefore, archetypes in a text help to label characters in their given role in the