The Trickster, Liminality and Chaos as a Bridge Between Sacred and Profane
Abstract
The Trickster is an archetype that exists within many mythologies and traditional forms of literature. Jung defines the Trickster as a universal psychological artefact, that deals with the realm of transformation. Through analysing representations of Trickster archetypes within media, My essay attempts to uncover the traits that define the Trickster and the consequences of Trickster functions being performed within a given narrative. The latter section of the essay analyses the areas of modern life in which the Trickster archetype appears, and the ways a modern person can utilise the archetype of the Trickster to transcend boundaries and attain new freedoms. My essay provides examples of Trickster narratives that range from Sumerian epics to modern politics.
Introduction
The following essay is the cross-section of my fascination with Storytelling, Psychology and Spirituality. After hard deliberation and guidance, I have narrowed my focus toward one archetype and its effect on narratives throughout history. This archetype is the Trickster, whom I believe is an important catalyst for growth and change, both psychological and sociologically. Through deciphering the significance of this archetype, I hope to elucidate the mysteries behind transformation and ascension within the scope of the stories that we tell.
Before I can begin with the first chapter of my dissertation, I must discuss my methodology and the thought process behind my sources. The term archetype has a variety of definitions, but most of my understanding of the term comes from Jungian sources. Jung first described the phenomena as “primordial images”, which are patterns of thought or feeling which were created by the psyche in response to evolutionary pressures, and now reside within the human mind as aspects of the collective unconscious that are universally shared.[1] There is lengthy discussion around this topic; Jung has been criticised as having been devoid of empiricism and avoiding making predictions, leading to work that is difficult or impossible to falsify.[2] Despite this, I find that his work is still culturally relevant, and provides insight that is incredibly elucidating for the topic of story archetypes. A specific criticism against the use of the Trickster archetype is that it is too broadly defined and that instead of searching for a definition that works across global cultures, we should simply focus on standalone Tricksters within their own culture.[3] I disagree with this and find that, although the definition of a trickster is broad, it is still a useful concept to work with, assuming that one can avoid leaning into generalities.
My primary sources are works of art that have ubiquitous levels of cultural significance. These sources range from ancient religious texts to modern works of literature and cinema. In the interest of religious and cultural sensitivity, I have been wary to group these things in the same categories, but I have continued to do so because I believe that anything that can affect wide populations so fervently is of a status that can be considered sacred.
Within these stories, I will analyse characters that exhibit traits which are associated with the “Trickster” archetype. Early stories will characterise the traits that I use to define the Trickster, but as the essay progresses, I will discuss additions and the possible phenomena that may have led to these changes. An important focal point is how these characters affect their respective narratives because one of the aims of this essay is to discover how Tricksters can be a source of knowledge or change.
Jung’s Four Archetypes is the academic source that I draw the greatest amount of influence from. It is a collection of essays on the archetypes of: Rebirth, The Mother, Spirit, and the Trickster.[4] I mention this because I will be drawing on not just his Trickster essays, but his Rebirth essays also because of their relation to positive change.
Jung’s conception of the Trickster archetype is a continuation of Paul Radin’s The Trickster A Study in American Indian Mythology which focuses on the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and what he calls the Winnebago Trickster Cycle.[5] This study is one of the seminal works on the subject, and though it is dated back to 1956, it provides some of the most detailed analysis available, with a rich collection of mythological accounts.
The title of the dissertation refers to Mircea Eliade’s idea of the Sacred and the Profane- in which he explores the degrees of separation between these two worlds he regards as distinct.[6] This idea is incredibly important to the dissertation because the Trickster’s interactions with both worlds help to elucidate the wisdom of each world. Eliade, like Jung, is a controversial figure and has been criticised for both his scholarship and his association with the Romanian far-right political organization the Iron Guard.[7] I have elected to ignore the political connotations because I do not believe this essay or Mircea’s work is political and therefore is not warped by far-right ideology.
Whilst these three academics are the most significant in influence on my work, they are by no means the only influences, with writers such as Joseph Campbell and Julius Evola etc. providing adjacent Philologic analysis.
Joseph Campbell is well known for his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is a seminal source on archetypes within storytelling, and much of the sources that I have used throughout the essay either directly reference Campbell or refer to works that are derivative of his. [8] He suffers from similar critiques of Essentialism to Jung.
Julius Evola is another controversial figure who, like Mircea, was associated with the nationalist groups of his time.[9] His work has more overtly fascist themes, but provides detailed analysis of religious texts and mythology, albeit through the lens of his Traditionalist perspective.
Chapter One: Key Concepts
The idea of the Trickster is the lens that we will rely on for the rest of the essay, so it is imperative that we are specific and accurate with it. The trait that I consider most important to the archetype is its intellect. In every depiction of the archetype, it has the ability to “trick” another character or system using its genius. An example of this can be seen in the Greek myth of Prometheus, the titan who stole fire from the gods and granted it to humanity.[10] The myth first appeared in the ancient Greek poet Hesiod’s Epic Theogony, which translates to ‘genealogy of the gods’ and serves as one of the central texts for the modern understanding of ancient Greek culture. [11]
In the myth, Prometheus plays the role of Trickster.[12] Frequently throughout the story, he is described as being “clever”, “full of wiles”, and “witty”, all words that denote surface-level intelligence. This is in contrast with the description of Zeus, who is regarded as “wise.” From this contrast, we can see an important distinction for the archetype; he is clever, but not wise, which leads to him being punished or hated by the status quo in whichever narrative he occupies. It is this brand of genius that allows him to shift narratives in any direction, either through his brilliant success or his catastrophic failure.
Christopher Vogler describes the Trickster as embodying “the energies of mischief and desire for change”, it is this desire for change that we can identify as the most positive result of his chaotic nature.[13] Being the omnipotent head of the pantheon of gods, Zeus represents hegemonic power, the de facto Status quo in the narrative. Through Prometheus’ trickery of Zeus’, we observe this key characteristic – the tendency to rebel against established orders because ‘the trickster dislikes everything to do with compromise.’[14] This ability to provoke change is the trait that shifts the narrative of the story in a significant way, for example, the repercussions of Prometheus’ actions are that fire is taken away from humanity. They liberate ‘by destroying convention and complacency – creating chaos and unrest.’ [15]
Jung describes Mercurius as “a shapeshifter” with a “dual nature, half animal, half divine,” highlighting a third important trait of the archetype, the Trickster’s ability to retain contradictions within himself. This trait is a sophisticated way to showcase the two poles of a duality, effectively creating a dialogue between the extremes. This hearkens back to the “genius” of the character which, while brilliant, is often blind and leads to buffoonery. In the words of Paul Radin, The Trickster is ‘creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and is always duped himself.’[16] This trait has led other researchers such as Chema Salinas to attribute liminality to the trickster.[17] Liminality can be defined as ‘moments or periods of transition during which the normal limits to thought, self-understanding and behaviour are relaxed.’[18] These states are the most valuable currency of the Trickster because they deal with which ‘change, transition and transformation’, all of which can have incredibly profound consequences that would be difficult to access otherwise.[19] Self-understanding may be the most overtly positive consequence because rather than forcing a change, it gives the person or character the knowledge to choose in which direction they wish to change.
This last trait is the trait that can appear most childish but is one of the most important mechanisms for his archetype to perform effectively – the ability to entertain. The Trickster often acts as comic relief for the story, undergoing foolish escapades that he narrowly manages to survive. The amusement of his actions acts as disarmament for the other characters in the story, and the audience themselves, which allows his actions to give rise to the aforementioned liminality so that the narrative can exist in a space that is malleable enough for him to act outside of restrictions.
The title of this essay contains an allusion to another important concept; the Sacred and the Profane. As mentioned before, the origin of this concept is Mircea Eliade. Eliade describes the Sacred as something of ‘a reality of wholly different order from “natural” realities’ which reduces language to mere suggestion.[20] Eliade’s idea of the Sacred can manifest within ordinary objects like ‘a stone or a tree.’ The Sacred is not the object itself, but a presence of something higher and intangible that reveals itself to the person having a religious experience. The Profane, by contrast, is the world of ordinary objects, in which an object is purely just itself, lacking the presence of something transcendental. Eliade is quick to point out that this is not a duality between real and unreal; in fact, he believes that the religious urge to be in the presence of what is deemed sacred is a desire ‘to be, to participate, to be saturated with power,’ and therefore more in touch with ‘reality.’[21] The Sacred and the Profane are more than just objects or places that have distinguished qualities to them, they are ‘modalities of experience’ which alter how we attribute value to the world.[22] This is important to understanding the Trickster because, through his actions, a narrative can be shifted from one modality to the other. His dual nature hearkens to this point, in that he can shift between worlds and states of being, himself existing in a liminal state of contradictions. He is right on the line between Sacred and Profane, and therefore can act as a gateway, in which his chaos is the key.
Chapter Two: Historical Examples of the Archetype
If Jung is to be correct in describing the Trickster as a core human archetype, then it must be shown that it is universal. Therefore, in this section, we will be exploring and analysing stories from around the world to showcase how widespread the archetype is.
In the west, it is impossible to escape from the shadow of Christianity. Despite the increasing secularity of western nations, the influence that Christianity has had on culture and law globally is undeniable. As such, it contains many narratives that have been repeatedly derived. One such narrative is the story of the Book of Genesis, the Judaeo-Christian creation myth. The story is presented elementally and has been translated, so the language is very limited, leading to little opportunity for linguistic analysis. The section that this essay is most interested in is the motif of The Fall caused by Adam and Eve because the depiction of the serpent is an obvious example of the Trickster. When Adam and Eve meet the serpent, the first thing the serpent does is probe them about what exactly God said regarding which trees they are allowed to eat from. This represents a function of the Trickster in which he must find and understand the rules of the narrative. Without first understanding the rules, the Trickster cannot warp or circumvent them, and so is powerless. Eve replies, that if they ate from the tree in the middle of the garden, they would die, to which the serpent assures them that rather than die, they would become like God and have knowledge of good and evil. This is the point where the serpent engages in actual trickery. The simplistic nature of the dialogue does not show any finesse or intelligence, but we know from the description of the serpent as “more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made” that this lie was to be understood as a clever machination. Adam and Eve believe the serpent’s lie and eat the fruit of the tree, gaining awareness of morality. In response, God punished Adam, Eve, and the serpent. The serpent as Trickster engages in the function of deceiving Adam and Eve, which progresses the narrative, by leading to God’s anger and subsequent punishment of the three. Through the eating of the fruit, Adam and Eve have been led by the Serpent to a Sacred space, which they violate by opposing God’s will. The violation of the Sacred space has the consequence of granting them knowledge of good and evil. Within this one act, the serpent has performed three of the Trickster’s functions – engaging in trickery, rebelling against authority, and guiding others between states. Despite the Serpent being a negative form of the trickster, it nonetheless initiates the transformation of Adam and Eve through the irreversibility of their gained knowledge of good and evil. This demonstrates that chaos created by a Trickster can lead to transfiguration, regardless of whether he is a destructive depiction or not, which elucidates that the Trickster’s function of transformation is not situational to the story but is elemental to the character itself.
The snake/serpent as Trickster is a common motif within traditional religion and literature. Sivri and Akbaba describe the Snake as having a dual nature because it represents death through its venom and life with its rejuvenation through the shedding of its skin.[23] The Serpent of The Fall narrative uses both his venom and his ability to rejuvenate through his act of deception, showing that the dual nature is not just in the consequences of being exposed to the Trickster archetype, but can be depicted in its actions themselves. Beidelman discusses the snake as trickster in regard to Kaguru culture and notes that the snake tricksters are ‘never described as the ordinary snakes in Kaguruland’ and that they ‘are portrayed as immense, nearly invulnerable serpents.’ [24] Only a small number of Kaguru people were ever converted to Christianity, so this information proves that the trope of snake as trickster is independent of influence from Christianity.[25]
I found it necessary to include this depiction of the Trickster in the essay since the trope of snakes as cunning liars is so culturally prevalent that it is impossible to ignore, but the account is so short that it is incredibly difficult to provide sophisticated analysis. Even still, I found Nietzsche’s comparison to the Promethean myth incredibly insightful. Nietzsche highlights that both the story of Prometheus and the Fall are explanations for the ‘origin of evil’, but they have a difference in quality – the Semitic myth is passive, but the Indo-Aryan myth is active. [26] Prometheus “sins” against Zeus willingly through his titanic love of mankind, committing the sacrilege of stealing fire whilst knowing the consequences, whereas Adam and Eve only eat the fruit after being deceived by the serpent. The difference in morality between these two “sins” comes from the fact that Prometheus is acting as something of a culture-hero trickster, who is daring against Zeus so that humanity stands to gain. This demonstrates a difference in the categorisation of tricksters. The Promethean trickster uses his intelligence to rebel against established rules with intention, whereas the second type of trickster uses deception as a means of destruction or entertainment of themself. Both tricksters can affect narratives, but the Promethean trickster is closer to a positive form of the archetype, despite being punished for his actions. Viewing Prometheus through the lens of Jungian psychology reveals Zeus’ as a vengeful ego-consciousness which is struggling to deal with its unconsciousness.[27] This would make Prometheus a tool for the unconscious to provoke growth within the psyche, elevating his role to a position beyond a mere aid for humanity, instead, being an important psychic experience, which is needed for the process of individuation. However, Evola regards this narrative in a wholly new light, in that he believes that Zeus is an embodiment of the “Olympian Principle” which generates cycles of heroes and that through Heracles’ release of Prometheus from his chains, he is reconciling the “titanic element (which represents the unrefined forces of the psyche) with the Olympian element, therefore coalescing a more balanced psyche.[28] Regardless of which perspective is taken, the story of Prometheus represents a shift in the relationship between forces of the psyche, which is initiated by a Trickster.
The works of Shakespeare show the Trickster through the recurring character of the Shakespearean Fool. Notable examples of this are Puck, Feste and aptly named The Fool of King Lear.[29] The term Shakespearean Fool deserves mention because it could be misconstrued as another archetype, but it is the Trickster by another name. Frederick B. Warde discusses Shakespeare’s Fools in the same light as we discuss the Trickster by saying “to play such a part successfully required a man more than ordinary wisdom.” [30] Most of Shakespeare’s Fools were fools or jesters by trade, being employed in courts for the entertainment or advising of the royalty, which has led some to disqualify the non-courtly fools from being termed ‘Shakespearean Fool.’[31] As such, we will first look at the purest example of a Shakespearean Fool – The Fool of King Lear.
King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s most tragic plays, dealing with deception, the scorn of familial relationships and even insanity. To avoid any confusion between the archetype and the character, Lear’s Fool will be abbreviated as LF. Warde embraces this lack of name with the words “He has no name. He does not need one,”[32] signifying that the character plays his role so perfectly that personal details would add no depth to him.
One of the strangest attributes that the story has is LF’s accompaniment of King Lear into the Storm as he descends into insanity. A surface-level view could reveal this as merely an act of loyalty, but if we delve deeper into the psychological aspects of the story, we can begin to see LF more clearly as a function of the psyche.[33] From this perspective, the storm can be seen as the mental and emotional turmoil of the situation, with the King’s insanity being a retreat from the betrayal that he experiences from his daughters. It is no surprise that LF is with him on this journey across the threshold of both storm/safety and sanity/insanity. It is here in the space of concentrated psychic forces embodied by the storm that LF is given the most salience.
At the beginning of Act Three Scene Two, the King and LF are alone, and LF is chastising the King for leading them into the night ‘which pities neither wise men nor fools’, instantly setting the tone of the dialogue between LF and Lear as a dichotomy between wisdom and foolishness – a key theme of the archetype. When confronted by Kent in disguise as to who is there, LF replies ‘Marry, here’s grace and a codpiece, that’s a wise man and a fool.’ This could be understood in two ways, either LF is being straightforward and referring to Lear as the wise man, and himself as the Fool, or what I believe is more likely is that LF is using subtle language to describe Lear as foolish and himself as wise. This is a clever example of how the archetype’s dual nature lends well to wordplay. One of Shakespeare’s most notable traits is his ingenuity of wordplay, which makes it unsurprising that his work includes so many fools, which can function as a vehicle for the motif of the plot to be spoken aloud, like a narrator breaking the fourth wall. The act of breaking the fourth wall is a liminal role, which has become increasingly popular in current media, likely due to the proliferation of post-modernism in art, which has deep ties to the concept of liminality. [34]
In Act Three Scene Four, LF says ‘this cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen’ showing the progression of the dialogue between foolishness and wisdom to foolishness and insanity.[35] Through this, he is acting as a barometer for Lear’s mental state, which is necessary for him to act in any way like a guide. He has crossed the threshold with Lear and is now using his wit to enlighten Lear as to his madness. Through this, he is performing the transformative role of the Trickster, using his traditional arsenal of intellect. The interesting side to this character is that although he is called the Fool, he is initiating this transformation consciously, in a positive manner, unlike the serpent of Genesis who is seeking only destruction. This conscious will to transform shows that he is an ‘artificial fool’ as opposed to the ‘natural fool’ whose folly is accidental.[36] Warde comments on this scene that ‘among them it is indeed difficult to determine who is sane and who is not’, referring to Poor Tom, Lear and the Fool.[37] The boundary between who occupies which state is blurred, and it appears that only the Fool is aware of the true nature of the scene, which enables him to act as the gatekeeper of states.
Just as the Trickster relies on systems to craft his identity, LF has no agency outside of Lear and exists only as a vehicle for his psychology. This is shown most obviously by the fact that he disappears from the plot after Lear has leaned too far into insanity, and LF is no longer fit to guide him back to reality, leaving the stage with the words “I’ll go to bed at noon.”[38] This depiction of the Trickster has highlighted a fact that I thought to be of lesser importance; the Trickster is not a self-sufficient role, it requires an opposing force to act against. Therefore, for each embodiment of the Trickster, we must analyse with consideration for the setting that the Trickster acts upon. The setting of the Trickster is not merely in the story, but within the time that it was written. Warde explains that ‘the composition of the court of justice, in the old farmhouse, of a serving man, a beggar and a fool on the bench, commissioned by a mad king,’ is a satire of the courts of Henry IV, whom Shakespeare likely held a grudge against for ‘his own experience with several Warwickshire justices.’ [39] This expands the Trickster’s domain outward from the story and into the realm of the audience, in which his witticisms can be pointed toward real issues. The Trickster then becomes an archetype, unlike any other, in that he acts as a meta-narrator, able to cross the boundary of fiction and reality, just as he crosses the boundary of law and reason.
If we continue to ascribe the term “The Fool” to the Trickster, we then find a collection of media that was previously hidden from us. One such example of this is the Tarot, the mystical pack of playing cards which has been used for divinatory purposes since the Middle Ages, with claims that the ideas behind it originate from the Book of Thoth of ancient Egyptian origin.[40] The Tarot deck is split into two sections: The Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana- which contain the court cards. The Fool is the first card of the Major Arcana and is represented by the number zero. Below is an image of the Fool card from the Rider-Waite deck.
Joan Bunning describes the use of the Tarot for divination as a story that you actively create through intuiting the deeper meaning of the layout of the cards. [42] It is not necessary to view the Tarot mystically to see the use of its archetypal nature; each card in the deck is a snapshot of an emotional state or ideal which is represented highly symbolically. The Fool for example is depicted as a carefree young man who is unaware that he is about to step off the edge of a cliff. This card marks the beginning of a story that Tarot practitioners call “The Fool’s Journey.”[43] This story is supposed to represent the evolution of a soul going through the trials of life. The order of the Major Arcana is intentional even though when used for divination, the cards are shuffled and appear in different orders. It is no surprise that the Fool is the first card, given our knowledge that the Fool/Trickster acts as an initiating force. Traditional perspectives on the Fool card are that the Fool symbolises an innocent person who is stepping out into the world and that their folly of falling off a cliff is more intelligent than it first appears because it sets in motion the events that will cause them to learn more of the world and themself. [44] It is worth noting the significance of the number Zero representing the Fool because it symbolises both a beginning and an end, a common perception of this is that the Fool’s journey is something we must encounter constantly throughout our life as we evolve, and so through the zero, we go full circle every time we complete a stage of learning. [45] Through this, we can see the Fool’s liminality once again, it exists on the boundary of intelligence, both acting so foolish as to bound off a cliff and demonstrating intelligence through its knowledge that through this act it will embark on a journey that will lead to its growth. The journey that the Fool undertakes is shown through the rest of the Major Arcana and deals with concepts such as authority, masculine/feminine duality, consequences, creative expression, and fortune. Each of the cards representing these ideas could be analysed in detail, but to avoid steering this essay off track I have focused on three that exist in conjunction with each other. These cards are The Devil, The Tower, and The Star, which have the corresponding numbers 15, 16, and 17.
The Devil card (above) is the first of the three, and in the depiction, we can see a male and a female who are chained to a block that has a bat-winged creature with horns perched upon it. This version of the devil is inspired by the occult deity Baphomet who was stylised by French occultist Éliphas Lévi. [47][48] The card symbolises “the 'shadow-side' of our psyche which contains all the aspects of our personality that we dislike and would rather not know about”, which “chain” us into an unfulfilling existence. [49] The limitations imposed upon the Fool by the Devil card are analogous to the authoritative system that the Trickster cannot exist without. Tarot cards being symbolic representations of concept, do not directly show protagonists or characters in the same way that a story does, and so the traits of the Trickster must be shown more subtly. If we look closer at the Devil card, we can see the Trickster’s dual nature shown clearly through both the Devil himself and the chained pair of humans; the Devil is at once beastly and humanoid, containing features from many different animals, but in the form of a man. He is also pointing one hand up and one hand down, an allusion to the Hermetic idea of “as above so below” which highlights the significance of microcosms and symbolism.[50] There is also a duality between the humans in that: one is male, one is female, one has a tail of grapes and the other a tail of fire, one stands on the left, one stands on the right. The image is entirely comprised of contradictions, making it an abstract depiction of duality, much like the Trickster itself.
The second card is The Tower (above), and in it, we can instantly see the chaos that the Trickster calls home; the image is of a tower being struck by lightning, knocking off the crown and sending two people down into the land below. The Tower card represents the destruction of the world around us as a way to free ourselves from restrictions which are embodied by the crumbling stone walls.[52] The crown up on the top is the ego, which in its splendour and hubris has deceived us into building these restrictions on who we are so that it can be shown in a mimicked godly light, and so the lightning bolt, through its induction of catastrophe, is our liberator. This card is truly the transition between the sacred and the profane- the liminal space in which control passes from the ego into something purer. The lightning bolt is the act of the Trickster that shatters our perception of what is and is not reality, imbued by the power of violent transfiguration.
The final card of the triplet is The Star (above). In the Rider Waite version of the card, we see a naked woman pouring water into a pool and onto some flowers under the light of a star surrounded by smaller stars. This card signifies idealism and unstifled creativity which is allowed to be shared without restriction.[54] The woman in the image is naked but completely comfortable and unbothered by the idea of being exposed, representing freedom from the ego; the Fool has journeyed to a place where judgement matters little. Regarding a Mystic perspective, Evola claims that “to be "naked" is the equivalent of being pure, which in this context refers to autarchy, self-sufficiency, detachment from anything and anybody.” [55] A common mystic belief attributes creativity and emotion to the element of water, so the liberation of creativity achieved through this section of the Fool’s Journey is demonstrated through the water flowing from the jugs.[56] The Fool’s desire for free expression has been satisfied and now he lives in a sacred state, guided by the idealism and divine protection of the Star above.
Though the analysis of the triplet of Tarot cards is not enough to exhaust the well of esoteric symbolism they contain, it is enough for us to see the functions of the Trickster unfold. In the Devil, the Trickster is shown through the duality of contradictions and the searching for one’s boundaries. In the Tower, the Trickster is present in the act of chaotic destruction that leads to transformation. And finally, in the Star, the Trickster is present in the act of free expression. Alone, they provide insight into the archetype, but combined, they show an even deeper connection to the Trickster in that they depict the three states of the transition from Profane (the Devil) to Sacred (the Star). The archetype of the Trickster is then more than a mere character, but an abstracted understanding of the process of probing and expanding boundaries. This perspective of the Trickster opens many new avenues for interpretation, only some of which I will be able to explore in this limited essay.
The final story for this chapter of the essay is the first piece of literature that mankind ever recorded, the Epic of Gilgamesh. The epic was at first a collection of five shorter poems written in Sumerian around 2100BC but was later combined into its Epic form in the 18th century BC, now written in Akkadian.[57] The Epic describes the semi-divine King of Uruk, Gilgamesh, who battles with and befriends Enkidu, a man who was “innocent of mankind; he knew nothing of the cultivated land” and was formed by the gods out of clay to be Gilgamesh’s equal.[58] It is a prototypical journey narrative in which Gilgamesh quests first to find and slay the monster Humbaba, and then later to find the secret to immortality. On this journey, the Goddess Ishtar appears to Gilgamesh and attempts to seduce him by saying “Come to me Gilgamesh, and be my bridegroom,” and then listing all the gifts that she will lavish upon him.[59] In response, Gilgamesh lists how she discarded her previous lovers and cursed them to fates such as the turning of a shepherd into a wolf so that he would eternally be hunted by his children or turning a gardener into a blind mole who could never satisfy his desires. Whilst this seduction of Gilgamesh is clearly shown to be an act of deception, this is not enough to designate Ishtar as a trickster. the idea of Ishtar as a trickster gains credence through the contradictions that she holds; she is both an “arbiter of justice” and “protectress of harlots” who “transcends the boundaries between social classes” and “the boundaries between the mortal world and the realm of the gods.”[60] Leanna Wessels’ analysis of Ishtar as the Trickster archetype is the source of much of my intrigue toward the Epic of Gilgamesh because, as she points out, it can “give further insight into the ancients’ view on women.”[61] Ishtar, despite being a goddess, often resorts to deception to achieve her aims. This may reflect the necessity for women to use alternative forms of power to operate in a patriarchal society. Wessels points out that the act of Ishtar proposing marriage to Gilgamesh is an inversion of traditional culture in that the proposal was usually to be the man’s role, and so Ishtar “subtly alters the marriage formula in order to achieve her specific goal.”[62] This is how Ishtar rebels in trickster fashion, despite her high status as a goddess. Because of this, we can see Ishtar as a true example of the Trickster; she engages in deception, rebels against authority, and holds within her many contradictions. Her impact on the story is great; after being spurned by Gilgamesh, she is filled with rage and pleas with the other gods to help her get revenge. Her request is granted, and the bull of heaven is sent down to Earth, and in the battle to defeat the bull, Enkidu dies, sending Gilgamesh into turmoil that causes him to search for the secret to immortality. Though Ishtar does not directly guide Gilgamesh into this new state of wisdom-seeking, she sets in motion the events that would lead Gilgamesh to the land of the gods in which he learns a new perspective on mortality. I do not deem that is an example of Trickster threshold crossing, but as Wessels points out, she acts confers messages between the realms of man and god and so “it can thus be said that Inanna/Ishtar transcends the boundaries between the mortal world and the realm of the gods” and is, therefore, a gateway between the sacred world and the profane world.[63]
From this example, a new conception of trickster emerges that is more than worthy of our notice, the female Trickster. I would like to preface this section by noting that the perspectives on women that this essay is concerned with are not my own, but I believe are worth investigating. The stereotype of women as deceptive is ubiquitous to patriarchal culture and can be seen in all of the myths discussed so far in the essay: Pandora brings evil to the world of men because of Prometheus’ actions, two of King Lear’s daughters flatter him purely for selfish gain, and Eve is often described as having convinced Adam to eat the apple (this is untrue if we look at the account in Genesis, but it is a common misconception.) Evola describes two distinct types of women in traditional mythological accounts: the “vivifying principle” and the “titanic fall.” [64] The former is embodied by a character such as the Lady of the Lake in Arthurian literature, who bestows blessings upon the warrior hero, whose femininity is complementary to the masculinity of the hero. The latter is embodied by women who are “seductive and who represent a potential danger to the hero,” to which the Trickster woman is analogous.[65] Evola is quick to clarify that this seduction should not be viewed as “mere carnal seduction” but instead as the “sin of prevaricating pride” that comes from the possession of “transcendent power and knowledge.”[66] A classic example of a female Trickster is the Witch, which is spread throughout the whole world but is especially prevalent in European folk tales. In the story of Hansel and Gretel for example, the witch uses the power of deception and “seduction” by luring Hansel and Gretel into her gingerbread house.[67] This version of “seduction” does not showcase any motifs of morality toward transcendent power, as in Evolian terms, but does show that the seduction does not have to be carnal in nature. Author Ricki Stefanie Tannen takes a post-Jungian perspective on female tricksters and writes that “like all Tricksters, the female Trickster is not recognized as the shape-shifter of the unconscious that she is” and posits that the female Trickster has been “legally and socially excluded from the western collective consciousness”, in reference to genuine positive culture-hero forms of female Tricksters, as opposed to the negative forms we see in depictions like the Witch.[68] For Tannen, the positive form of the postmodern female trickster has the key traits of “refusal to be a victim”, autonomy over the body, and that the “use of irony and humour is now embodied in a female”. [69] From this reimagining of the female Trickster, we begin to see a form of Trickster that can be used to profound effect in the modern world, with academics like Bei Cai taking the position that the female Trickster can be a positive force for women because “trickster discourse” is “the dynamic, open and radical narrative form needed for the feminist social-change agenda.”[70]
Chapter Three: Uses of the Trickster Archetype in the Modern World
The modern world is not shy of using Trickster archetypes in its media, in fact, it may even be more common, which is likely due to the advent of postmodernism and the awareness of liminality that this has brought. We can see the Trickster in both our media, in characters like Bugs Bunny and the Joker (whose name is analogous to the Trickster) or through real people like Rasputin, Gandhi and Donald Trump.
One motif that we repeatedly see in Trickster stories in which the Trickster acts also as the Culture-Hero is that the Trickster often aids in the ‘development of human civilization’. [71] Prometheus progresses humanity by stealing fire from the gods, the native American Coyote created people out of a handful of mud and shifted the river flows of the land. [72] Even when the Trickster isn’t acting out lofty ideals, his behaviour often has the consequence of liberating or enlightening. Manfred Kets de Vries points out how useful this liberating behaviour can be in workplaces, embracing the chaos in an environment that is usually stifled.[73] Within the stagnation of a business where people are afraid to speak out for fear of repercussions, no innovations can spawn. Kets de Vries compares the company to the court of a King and quotes George Bernard Shaw as saying, ‘every despot must have one disloyal subject to keep him sane.’[74] But business is not the only organised area of life that suffers from stagnation. Politics is a field that has been strangled by convention, leaving public democracies in the hands of two-party systems and elected officials who come from social classes far different from the average member of the public. Shepherd Siegel discusses the place of the Trickster in politics in his book Disruptive Play: The Trickster in Politics and Culture, where he posits the idea that all living creatures engage in play, but humans “leave original play when (they) enter contest.”[75] Politics is one of these areas of contest where play is forbidden, and yet Donald Trump shattered this taboo with hardly a second thought. Perhaps this can partly explain the phenomena of Trump’s explosive rise to power. Regardless of a person’s political affiliation, it is hard to avoid the virality of Trump’s antics that lead to his election in the 2016 Presidential Campaign. To many, he was a genius and to many, he was a fool, but to all, he was a spectacle. Jung claims that repression of subconscious elements can lead only to their violent eruption. [76] In the stagnant atmosphere of two-party democracy, it is hard to imagine any real significant systematic change and yet, on the horizon of this repressive atmosphere, Donald Trump arrived, like Don Quixote on the donkey he called a stallion, as an avatar of the Trickster.[77] Joan Davison explains that “the disorientation and disenchantment of Trump supporters’ vary with their age and are difficult to date precisely, but have festered with certain critical events and policies”, but the ethos of their support largely comes from the desire to reduce the erosion of the identity and influence of white men.[78] Through Trump’s blatant disregard of social conventions, he highlighted himself as a candidate unlike the rest, the culture-hero which the public can identify with, as opposed to the stale career politicians that comprised his list of political opponents. Thomassen and Forlenza compare Trump’s actions against Max Weber’s checklist of what makes a “genuine charismatic leader”, and found that rather than embodying these traits, “he ticks all of Weber’s not-to-do boxes” and so “Trump is not a charismatic personality – he is a political trickster.”[79] To keep this essay apolitical, I will not be commenting on any political stances because I do not think it is necessary to understand the phenomenon of how Tricksters can persuade others.
How then, can we use this archetype to our benefit? Siegal claims that this comes not from the election of tyrants who use deception to “trick the poor and disenfranchised into accepting the burdens and bonds of a warlike and unjust society,” but through embracing the Trickster “as a liberating tonic.”[80] This model of trickster seems to favour a grassroots approach toward using the archetype. Rather than embracing deception as an objective good, it can be used to highlight problems and solutions within the political sphere. Once again, we see this within the Trump election cycle, but not from the man himself, but from his followers. The importance of online political activism has never been more relevant than now, and with the 2016 election, we saw this used to its fullest. The term “Troll” has been popular on the internet since the early 2000s, but during the election cycle, it was often used to denote Trump-supporting internet users who engaged in trickery or harassment toward their political adversaries. Angela Nagle describes trolls from the website 4chan (which was highly influential in the election of Donald Trump) as “the perfect postmodern offspring, where every statement is wrapped in layers of faux-irony, playfulness and multiple cultural nods and references.”[81] Online space is conducive to Trickster behaviour, because, due to the nature of technology, identity is malleable and masked by the lack of direct representation of the user’s physical form. Therefore, any person interacting with an online space can shapeshift; one of the Trickster’s most sacred gifts is freely given.[82] The user can then be freed from the consequences of their actions, and so speak freely like a jester in a court. Whilst this freedom has allowed many to engage in hate speech and engage in surface-level “trolling” for their own amusement, Nagle argues that it has also been a vehicle for the Alt-Right to reclaim the ability to transgress morality from its traditional leftist roots. [83] Despite the negative consequences of these acts of trickery, there is a distinctly Promethean quality to the Alt-Right’s technologically aided freedom, the fire of the gods is analogous to the communicative power of the internet. The Overton window is a political concept that describes the section of political discourse which contains positions that it is socially acceptable to hold.[84] This “window” of discourse is subject to shift in any direction, being delineated by cultural forces. In the drought of fresh political commentary, 4chan trolls have played the Trickster through their technological shapeshifting, resulting in the Overton window being shattered, as opposed to shifted. In an age of political repression, perhaps this is the only cure to conventionalism, and the tools of the Trickster must be used by any grassroots movement that seeks to shift public opinion. Alan G. Vaughan claims that the Black Lives Matter movement has also utilised this archetype and is tied specifically to the Yoruba deity Elegba, through the movement’s use of Elegba’s characteristic “imaginative inventiveness.”[85]
Politics is not the only area in which the Trickster archetype can have a great impact; Jim Garrison explores the Trickster’s usefulness as a teacher in his article Teacher as Prophetic Trickster, in which he cites the Trickster’s ability to navigate “rigid bureaucratic structures” as a way for the teacher to interact with his students.[86] The Trickster teacher could be the key to reinvigorating the education system which has been systematically unchanged for decades. The playfulness of the Trickster archetype would allow children to stay engaged, whilst learning about the world. This reflects James E. Johnson and others’ book Play and Early Childhood Development, which asserts the idea that childhood play is integral to education.[87] In an environment where learning is an objective, the Trickster will forever lurk in the subconscious, waiting to be invoked by any individual who is willing to engage in chaotic play.
This essay began by sketching the outline of an abstract archetype called the Trickster. The first traits that we identified were possession of intellect, ability to probe boundaries, propensity for rebellion, the holding of contradictions and the crossing of thresholds. Using this model of the Trickster, I have attempted to avoid generalisation of the archetype and keep my analysis to strict examples only. Each source showcased new ways that the traits of the Trickster could be demonstrated and new boundaries that could be crossed. The boundary that I believe is most compelling and relevant to the current climate is the use of play and trickery within the spheres of contest. The example used in this essay was the domain of politics, but there is no reason that it must be limited to this. Contest appears in many avenues of our life, and under the brutality of modern techno-capitalism, these contests can seem like meaningless schemes designed to erode our psyches with unnecessary stressors. Through the engagement of play, the nihilism of our current age can be avoided, whilst also providing the space for innovation to occur. In the current climate of rising extremism and ever-increasing numbers of boundaries, the ability to transcend rules becomes invaluable. Without this ability, the disenfranchised are doomed to suffer under unjust authority. I hope that as a consequence of learning the wisdom that the Trickster has to offer, we can begin to craft a freer society that can engage in the principles of play to innovate structures which are little more than husks.
One regret I have about this essay is its focus on European tricksters, and if given the opportunity to expand upon the ideas within the essay, I would explore the vast realm of African tricksters.
Other possible expansions for an essay of this nature could relate to the use of humour. The demonstration of humour within an academic context would be quintessentially Trickster, and aid in the teaching of Trickster wisdom through experience, rather than through formal text alone.
Each of the trickster traits is meaningful, and I expect that we will see a proliferation of their use in tandem with the approach of newer technologies which facilitate their use. As we tire of the erasure of identity under postmodern capitalist culture, new identities will be formed out of the ashes of the old. If Jung is correct in his appraisal of archetypes as timeless, universal, primordial images, then these archetypes will find their way into these newly crafted identities.
With the Trickster’s shapeshifting in mind, I urge the reader to experiment with the archetype and how it can break the perceived boundaries of the world around them and within their own psyche. Only through this experimentation can we escape the mire of modernity.
As my one act of trickery in this essay, I end upon a wordcount of 8099, a single word underneath the required ten percent leeway given to the 9000-word requirement for this essay. I hope that whoever finds this dissertation will embrace this act with the joy of one donning the mask of the Trickster because without surpassing our boundaries, we will forever be chained to impersonal structures.
Bilbiography
[1] Carl Gustav Jung, ‘On the Concept of Archetypes’ in Four Archetypes (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2003) pp 1-13
[2] David M. Odorisio, and Thomas Cattoi, Depth Psychology and Mysticism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) p.72
[3] Thomas O. Beidelman, ‘the moral imagination of the Kaguru: some thoughts on tricksters, translation and comparative analysis’, American Ethnologist 7(1) pp 27-41
[23] Medine Sivri, and Canan Akbaba, ‘Snake in the World Myths’ Folklor/Edebiyat 24(96) pp. 53-64
[24] Beidelman, the moral imagination of the Kaguru, pp 27-41
[25] Thomas O. Beidelman, ‘An Anthropologist on the Christian Kaguru - Colonial Evangelism: a socio-historical study of an East African Mission at the grassroots’The Journal of African History 24(3) pp 405-407
[26] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) p. 50
[27] Kiritsis, The Promethean Myth in Light of Jungian Psychology
[28] Julius Evola, The Mystery of the Grail (Rochester: Inner Traditions Bear and Company, 1999) p.20
[36] Robert B. Hornback, ‘The Fool in Quarto and Folio “King Lear”’ in English Literary Renaissance 34(3)(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004) pp.306-338
[60] Leanna Wessels, ‘AN ANALYSIS OF THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE TRICKSTER ARCHETYPE CAN BE APPLIED TO THE GODDESS INANNA/ISHTAR’ in Journal for Semitics 22(1) pp. 35-55
[85] Alan G. Vaughan ‘Phenomenology of the trickster archetype, U.S. electoral politics and the Black Lives Matter movement’ in Journal of Analytical Psychology 66(3) pp.695-718
[86] Jim Garrison ‘Teacher as Prophetic Trickster’ in Educational Theory 59(1) pp.67-83
[87] James E. Johnson, and others, Play and Early Childhood Development 2nd Ed. (Allyn & Bacon, 1999)