Stories We Need to Know

Reading Your Life Path in Literature

By (Author) Allan G. Hunter
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  • Pages: 304
  • Book Size: 6 x 9
  • ISBN-13: 9781844091232
  • Imprint: Findhorn Press
  • On Sale Date: January 1, 2008
  • Format: Paperback Book
This book explains the six archetypes derived from 4,000 years of literature and how they may guide unhappy people, particularly adolescents, seeking meaning in their lives. Hunter uses the great books to understand the six archetypes: the innocent, the orphan, the pilgrim, the warrior-lover, the monarch pair, and the magician.

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A combination of therapy and expertise in literature, this book explains the six archetypes derived from 4,000 years of literature and how they may guide unhappy people seeking meaning in their lives. Holding up the great books as the best way to understand these timeless story elements, the discussion devotes a chapter to each of the six archetypes: the innocent, the orphan, the pilgrim, the warrior-lover, the monarch pair, and the magician. Story structures are shown to be particularly suited to therapy with adolescents, many of whom have never stepped away from television and the shopping mall long enough to understand their unmet spiritual needs.

Chapter 1 What if there is a road-map to personal growth? What if that map exists in our culture's literature?
Chapter 2 An overview of the six archetypal stages and what it means to work with archetypes.
Chapter 3 A discussion of the individual stages: The Innocent.
Chapter 4 The Orphan: Looking for something to attach to.
Chapter 5 The Pilgrim: Looking for meaning.
Chapter 6 The Warrior-Lover: The twinned attributes of love and decisiveness that must be mastered, even if they seem contradictory at first sight.
Chapter 7 The Monarch Pair. The alliance between the King and Queen, 'male' power and 'female' compassion.
Chapter 8 The Magician: Bringing out the best in others.
Chapter 9 The Road to Magician Level, and the Role of the Ego.
Chapter 10 The Archetypes and their Sub-Stages.
Part II
Chapter 11 Where Did these Ideas Come From? A specific assessment of how this theory of the stages came about, the empirical research, and a case history.
Part III
Chapter 12 The Stages as Reflected in Literature. The Odyssey, the Oresteiad, Sophocles' Oedipus, the New Testament, and Sir Gawain.
Chapter 13 The Literature, the Modern Period: Shakespeare, Marlowe, James, Dickens, Conrad, and J. K. Rowling.
Chapter 14 What the Literature has Shown: The way we human beings make sense of our life-journeys.
Chapter 15 Identifying Stages of Development in Oneself and Others: And why this is essential.
Chapter 16 Love and Creativity: How to nurture them, and the way towards peace.

Allan G. Hunter is a therapist and a professor of literature at Curry College in Massachusetts. He is the author of Joseph Conrad and the Ethics of Darwinism, Life Passages, and The Sanity Manual.
"A brilliant taxonomy of humanity." Timothy Staveteig, publisher, Pilgrim Books

"In this groundbreaking study, Allan Hunter uncovers the vital interplay of literature and psychology as he takes a bold new look at the way archetypes--whether found in The Odyssey or Harry Potter--can profoundly transform both individual lives and our spiritually starved society." Robert Atwan, editor, The Best American Essays