Archetype Magic
Sometimes it helps to recognize the witchery behind stories
Welcome to From the Teacher’s Desk, where we take turns further reflecting on our episodes and applications to the classroom.
My millennial-ness shows most around Halloween. Especially because I don’t feel my October is complete until I’ve eaten something with pumpkin spice and I’ve watched Hocus Pocus at least once. But it’s not just the nostalgia of returning to this Disney channel original film that brings me back every year. It’s not the stellar cast or the talking cat reminiscent of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.
To be completely honest, it’s the archetype of the number three.
What are archetypes?
Let’s do a quick English class review to level up your Lit Thinking. An archetype is a repeated image in a story that holds symbolic meaning. Think the conch in Lord of the Flies, the green light in The Great Gatsby, or Dorothy’s slippers in The Wizard of Oz (did you know they weren’t red in the original book?). Archetypes can also be characters. Ever heard of the damsel in distress? The evil stepmother? The ugly duckling?
Think of them as the literal blueprints that help us understand the foundation of a story. This is why we English teachers claim deeper meaning in a passage when all you see is a turtle. I promise – archetypes remind us there is usually something else going on under the surface.
Sisters Three
Back to Hocus Pocus, we see the number three archetype most through the Sanderson sisters. Through time and history, we’ve been trained to understand this number as both a symbol of holiness (think the Christian Trinity) and completeness (think the pattern of our lives: past, present, future).
And separate from their triple power, literature has shown us three Weird Sisters before – most notably in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Just as they do in Hocus Pocus, these three witches meddle in mere mortals’ affairs and leave the world a little more chaotic in their wake. They tell Macbeth of his past, present, and a possible future that leaves readers questioning which is truer – free will or fate. Similarly, the Sanderson Sisters poke at the lives of the Dennison siblings and Thackery Binx, until the entire town of Salem, Massachusetts, is transformed by their personal agenda of immortality.
Such an English Teacher
For the record, I still love what I call “brain candy” media. And Hocus Pocus fits into that category for me. But I also love pulling at the seams of a story, until it unravels into something I’ve seen before. That’s why I think archetypes are so important to discuss in the English classroom. They make the process of analysis a little less mysterious.
What about you? Where have you recently seen the number three? Do you think the meaning of this archetype has withstood the test of time? And if you haven’t checked out our episode on Hocus Pocus, you can find it here.
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