The trickster archetype is a commonly understood idea with permanent power in human society, often used in storytelling and related to literature and the arts. It can be a harmless or formidable character, and is present in many cultures and mythologies. Studying the trickster archetype can provide insight into a society’s literary conventions and deeper characteristics.
The trickster archetype is a character built on the fundamental idea of one side deceiving or playing tricks on another. An archetype is a commonly understood idea that has permanent power within the universal human community. Archetypes are often related to the arts, and literature in particular. The trickster archetype is a prime example, where many types of human communication include references to these types of characters.
An essential feature of the archetype is its use in storytelling. True to form, the trickster archetype is prominent in many types of storytelling. Experts, including anthropologists, point to the use of trickster archetypes in many cosmological stories or human origin stories that have been passed down through many generations in oral societies. Today, many of these have been recorded in books.
In classical mythologies such as those of the Greeks and Romans, the trickster archetype is common, just as it is in more obscure cultures. Even in the overarching narrative of various eras, the trickster as an archetype keeps cropping up. For example, the trickster “Mephistopheles” is a character in the Faust cycle, which is itself a much copied and emulated tale in Western civilization. This character informs those of several other tales, as an example of a trickster aligned with unholy powers.
Experts point out that the trickster archetype has various presentations within a literary or artistic canon. Some versions of this archetype are usually harmless, funny, and even lovable tricksters. Others are formidable antagonists or villains who threaten others. Both are common in the literature of many societies.
In many cases, the archetypal trickster is an allegorical figure. In creation stories of the aforementioned type, the trickster can take the form of an ordinary animal. Often, the use of this character refers to specific ideas about a human being’s place in the world. Reflecting a certain relationship to other characters, the trickster says a lot about the intentions of a deity, as well as the intentions of humans.
Studying the trickster archetype can give individuals insight not only into a society’s literary conventions, but also into its deeper mores and mass psychological characteristics. Some forms of this archetype are also used in psychology. For example, the trickster archetype is also an instance of a “Jungian archetype,” named after the famous doctor Carl Jung, who postulated various theories about the human mind.
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