David Owens
Eng 322
Dr. B. Walker
Bridge to Terabithia As A Sacred Text:
Children’s Literature and the Religious Archetype
Children’s literature, like any other category of literature, is filled with “imagery,” symbols, and character representations of a religious nature.
Characters, setting, and events in children’s literature are made up of or fulfill the same archetypes[i] as religious mythos. As humans, we learn many things through our myths, legends, fables and fantasy; likely we learn more through them than we do in formal education, or at least we learn how to learn and what is important to learn through stories. Stories help build imagination and help to develop abstract thinking. Religious imagery, especially, is quite weighty, so if we are able to “build” stories with religious archetypes as well as plots and themes that develop abstract thinking, we may be able to quicken cognitive development in children.
…myth is
an expression of the archetypes of the collective unconscious[ii],
their natural, primordial language. The unconscious always shows itself to the
conscious mind in the symbolic form of emotionally charged images. The symbols
constitutive of myths—but also fairy tales, folklore, rituals, and religious
doctrines—channel the contents of the collective unconscious to consciousness
for integration there. The symbolic language of myth is the necessary
“intermediate stage between unconscious and conscious cognition.” (Fuller)
So, myth may very well be the “key to the door” to higher thought; the eyes with which we see our place in this world…schema, religion, socialization, they are the stories that tell us what is. They teach “being Cognition.”[iii]
Perhaps myth is even more important than we imagine. The first communications ever uttered by man were likely myths, full of symbol and superstition. Early man used drawings which were symbolic and mythical representations of their surroundings. Do the pictures drawn on cave walls not look like stories? Horses, other animals and men chasing them…these were the first codified myths. Mythology is the key to the way we as humans communicate. Perhaps myth is the key to all, but what is the purpose of myth? Is it simply entertainment? Socialization? Or does it explain natural phenomena? Are these myth’s only purposes? Or could myth be the key to cognitive development, moral development, psychosocial development, language development, and visualization of symbolization? Perhaps another style of teaching is needed, focusing less on teaching facts by rote, and instead creating or re-telling myths that teach the abstract lessons behind formal education. Maybe books in children’s literature can be forms of “sacred text.” Seeing children’s literature as a sacred text may seem a bit odd to some, but it is really not a far stretch if you look at the nature of the characters. There are a lot of parallels between the characters of the juvenile fiction novel Bridge to Terabithia and the Bible, and these are the sources used here. However, I am sure that parallels can be drawn out of other religious texts and mythos of all peoples. As it is, there is plenty to be drawn from the Bible, and paralleling all religions to Bridge would be more time consuming than possible.
Characters
in Bridge not only hold symbolic roles, they also show great abstract thinking and self-actualization. Why is self-actualization significant? Developmental
psychologists Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg “developed theories based on belief
that children cannot make moral judgments until they have achieved a certain
level of cognitive maturity, and can shed egocentric thinking” (Papalia and Olds 248). So, the implications of
attaching high moral development ideals (abstract thinking) to religious
archetype (the familiar) is that we may be able to at least prime the
child for both cognitive and high moral development. Books like Bridge
do this. When one looks at the characters from Bridge, and sees the
religious archetypes they hold and the abstract personality attached to those
roles, one can see how the characters hold attention, gets one involved, and
teaches lessons about life. What if the kids do not recognize that it is
religious or cannot conceive abstract ideas yet? It does not really matter if
they recognize that it is religious; the bottom line is that they will clue
into it because it is familiar; it is part of their unconscious hard wiring
through the collective unconscious. Also, in social psychology, research states
that “we
are more likely to form impressions not only of individuals, but also of what
we perceive as types of individuals. For example you may react favorably to a
tall red-headed woman you just met because she reminds you of some other woman
you once knew in life. Or you may react to a mortician based on your perception
of the typical mortician…we refer to such impressions or expectations about a
particular type of people as schemas ” (Kalat 670).
So, when we are raised up as children, and see the acts of Christ as positive, and have the “Savior” and “God” archetypes in our collective unconscious, we will inherit the religious symbolism in the literature, even if we do not “see” it, and become primed to think abstractly at a later point in development.
So who are these characters in Bridge, and how are they religious? Jess Aarons is a 10 year old boy from rural Virginia, whose main concerns in life at first are to be the fastest runner in the 5th grade, to get along with his sisters (or stay out of their way…he plays a sort of “Cinderella” role in his interaction with his older sisters and mother), and waiting to see what chores will be visited upon him next by his mother. He has a love for art, but his artistic ability has to be hidden away from his family because they do not value it. Jess loves Fridays, because that is when his favorite teacher, Miss Edmonds, comes to teach music. He loves his father, Jess Oliver Aarons, Sr., but he is distant from him; because Jess, Sr. is rarely at home, is tired from work, or does not know what to say to Jess.
The next main character is Julia Edmonds, music teacher. Miss Edmonds is the only one who praises Jess’ art and inspires him to keep it up. She is different from the other teachers; she is young, pretty, and labeled a “hippie” by all of the adults (and most of the children, but that is their parents’ title for her…they secretly love her too.)
Next is Leslie Burke, a wealthy outsider from the city who has no TV and a disregard for what is popular among her peers. She is bright and friendly, but makes only “one-and-a-half-friends.” She is energetic, graceful, and has a magnificent imagination (perhaps from the non-influence of television.)
Then there is May Belle, Jess’s 6-year-old sister, and constant shadow (when she gets a chance…she even sneakily creates a couple of chances, by following Jess.) She is the typical 6-year-old (very concrete in her thinking), plays with use of props (paper dolls, Barbie), and her religious ideals are based on what she was told, not critically determined. She holds that there is no other possibility of interpretation under any circumstances. Law is law, no deviation allowed.
At face value, there is nothing religious about this group, but upon a closer look at their relationships, you start seeing religious themes and the development and growth of the characters. By examining their personalities, certain archetypes start to stand out: A main archetypal role in this book is the one of “God Above” or Jehovah in Biblical terms. This role pops up in a couple of characters, first in the person of Jess’ dad. Jess Oliver Aarons, Sr. holds the archetypal role, at least to Jess, Jr., as the silent, aloof, patriarchal god that you want to get close to, but just cannot seem to at the first of the book. Bridge also mentions, “Jess aching inside when he watched his dad pick up the little kids.” This is a type of “separation from the Father,” a very biblical theme. Dad no longer wrestles with Jess, and always seems to want to speak to him but does not seem able to form the right words, yet Jess notices the warm relationship his dad has with the little girls in the family. Jess, too, showing his own compassion, wants to please his dad by making the best of his father’s Christmas gift. He wants desperately to please the father, perhaps trying to bridge the gap between them by going through the motions of play rather than actually wanting to (Paterson 63). He makes a comparison between how he felt giving Leslie a good gift and how his father must be feeling giving a gift that does not work. He was able to put himself in his father’s shoes, an abstract ability.
The second person who fulfills the “God above” role is Miss Julia Edmonds. She is not only above Jess in stature, but also above him in authority (as an adult and teacher), and Jess literally worships her in the way her ordinary actions take on extraordinary meaning to him. He describes music day as “joyful pandemonium”…being with Miss Edmonds in this context would serve as a religious experience (Paterson 13). They have to sit on the floor, in a town in which Julia is being criticized, in a dingy teacher’s lounge, but still it is a religious experience. It is something they all look forward to, to “worship at the shrine” of Edmonds. Jess even uses the words “under the spell of her wild beauty”(Paterson 14). The book also states that “their attacks could not touch her, she was above it”(Paterson 14), in this way Jess exhibits an awe of worship towards the transcendent. Also, Miss Edmonds “bestowed grace” upon Jess whenever she pointed out his talent, and it is obvious through the book that Jess worships at the foot of Julia. Jess continually holds the words of Miss Edmonds as sacred. In reference to Jess’ abstract abilities, it shows (early in the book) that he is thinking simple, but still abstract...still in the pure experience form of his religion, rather than codifying it. He is still living in the experience of fellowship with his god, rather than reading about it in a sacred text. So he is in the experience form, not the concrete “rule” worship (he even prayed she would never leave).
How can having a crush on a teacher be considered a religious experience, and how can a few simple praises about his art mean so much to Jess? Well, in a look at the components of religion, experience is all within the context with which one views things. For example, Julia told Jess he was a “neat kid” and “unusually talented” The words themselves do not add up to much, but to him it meant a great deal. It is the same in religion: If one is not a Hindu, the descriptions of Kali or her deeds or worship protocols mean nothing; the same way that if one is a Hindu, perhaps the story of a nude man on a cross means nothing. It is just a story unless it holds emotional weight in one’s own belief system. In this way, Miss Edmonds is legitimized as a belief system. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers defined belief in God as “…there are others in which people become aware of a depth or an ultimacy that they call God—moral experiences, interpersonal relations, the sense of beauty, the search for truth, the awareness of finitude, even confrontation with suffering and death” (“God,” MS Encarta). She is essentially worshipped, because her mere words hold such a highly charged emotional value and she teaches and inspires Jess in so many ways. He has ecstatic experiences in Miss Edmond’s presence. The experience Jess had where she touched his nose with her “electrifying finger” was essentially like the story of Moses and the burning bush, or Jesus and the woman with hemophilia…Jess stood and faced god and was given unmerited favor by her compliment. An example from the text in which Jess describes a peak experience[iv]can be found in the chapter “A Perfect Day” after Jess has spent the day with Miss Edmonds (another act of unmerited favor on her part)
He watched
the car go out of sight, and then turned and ran with all his might to the
house. The joy jiggling inside of him so hard that he wouldn’t have been
surprised if his feet had just taken off from the ground the way they sometimes
did in dreams, and floated him right over the roof (Paterson
101).
It should be noted that Ms. Edmonds is unaware how much he admires her. When asked if it was his first time at an art museum, and he says “yes’m,” and her response is “Great. My life has been worthwhile after all.” That shows the level of awareness she has, she knows she can make a difference in someone’s life…although she does not realize what an impact she is making on him. These two characters both fulfill the archetype of “God Above,” but in two different ways. His dad is the colder, more aloof Jehovah of the Old Testament, and Julia is the compassionate “Father” who gave his best for salvation of the world.
Another archetype is that of savior. In this book, Leslie Burke plays the role of Christ in several ways. Unlike Ms. Edmonds, who was “God Above,” Leslie was a type of Christ, or “God the Same.” In comparing Miss Edmonds to Leslie (in the life of Jess), Ms. Edmonds fulfills the archetype of a god that is above you and different than you (because she was an authority, a teacher), and Leslie played a type of “God as self,” a peer god. She is a kid too, but at the same time, she is unique and different. She is not just like Jess, she is like a “sacred self.” To compare it to Christianity, Julia is Jehovah--“God above,” and Leslie is Jesus—“God the same.” A mere mortal, yet god. Several people may object to a little girl, who did not even believe the Bible, being suggested as a type of Christ, but she had the Christ nature. Like Christ, she was against the status quo. She admired the experience of things and tried to help and change people, and she did so all the while reinterpreting the predominant religion, and the existing “words of god.” Similar to what Christ did with the Jewish council, and in his life. He did not follow the religious law, the doctrine of “the church,” yet he had the very spirit of God in his actions. And although Leslie had her mischievous side, she was a very warm and giving person. Who knows, if Christ were half man, maybe he poked fun at his instructors too when he was a kid.
Since Leslie is a peer, she has the ability to influence Jess in a different way from Ms. Edmonds. Leslie does essentially what Christ attempts to do to the Jewish council. When Leslie interferes with their racing (Paterson 29), it is like she is interfering with the Pharisees in a ritual. She looks different, she acts different, she is different, and here she comes to mess up our game, kind of like what Christ attempted to do to the Jewish lawmakers of his time. If he fulfilled their law, they could not “play” anymore and would be out of a job. When Leslie won, they no longer played, it served no purpose anymore. It stood out as well that Leslie was in a town of strangers. Like the sacred part of Christ’s nature, she was sent from her home elsewhere to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, far away from her life in Arlington by her parent’s request (Paterson 32). She went along with it, but later repented. “Take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36 Bible.com).
Just as Jess worships Ms. Edmonds, the level of respect Jess has for Leslie is evident when he is contemplating what to give her for Christmas. The book says “It was not that she would expect something expensive; it was that you needed to give her something as much as he needed to eat when he was hungry” (Paterson 58). To him, to give joy to Leslie was as strong a power as his physiological needs.
Therefore take no
thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal
shall we be clothed? (For after all
these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye
have need of all these things. But seek
ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall
be added unto you (MATT 6:31-33 Bible Online).
Jess is in his way, seeking first the kingdom of god. Leslie is indeed his bridge to Terabithia and the worlds beyond. She is his savior. She is his teacher, and she is his “Emmanuel.” Her influence on his life was just as profound as Christ’s on his followers. She was his magician (going to Terabithia alone was no good; he needed Leslie to “make the magic.” She was a catalyst for abstraction as well as an object of worship for Jess.) She also has the developmental ability to change her opinions, to hold her ideals as heuristic, changeable, if she comes across new ideas and new interpretations. She is able to do this in her feelings about the school bully, Janice Avery. This is evidence of her reasoning ability and abstract development. She points out and contrasts Jess’ “head faith” from his “heart faith.” On Easter she talks about church, having just left, and whether it is necessary to believe the Bible: “You have to believe it, but you hate it. I don’t have to believe it and I think it’s beautiful” (Paterson 85). She is trying to share with him that going to church without critically determining whether you do or do not even believe the doctrine is pretty typical of low stage moral development, something ritualistic that persons go through, with no emotional weight to the experience. She has the moral and cognitive development to critically determine whether or not she believes the Bible, and the strength of character to accept and share the fact that she does not believe, a preposterous idea to the concrete-thinking May Belle.
Leslie as creator can be found in ”a place just for us” when Jess is lying down, absorbed in the beauty of nature, living in the experience of completeness down by the creek, a plateau experience.[v] Leslie says, “We need a place just for us.” While they did not create the physical woods, they did indeed create a world, Terabithia, and were essentially god figures there. They ruled it. It became more than a spot in the woods. That was her intention, to create something sacred “She lowered her voice” when she planned it with Jess. It was a sacred creation, sprung from the experience of the divine and nature (Paterson 38).
The final and most profound way Leslie plays a type of Christ is her healing the relationship between Jess (man) and his dad (the Father). Her death brought Jess into the presence of his father. She was not only a bridge to Terabithia, and a bridge to abstract thought, but she healed the canyon between father and son. A shadow of Christ’s death building a path to the father. She was, in a sense, an atoning sacrifice.
Jess Aarons is a hard one to nail down, concerning what archetype he fulfills. However, he paints a wonderful example of cognitive and moral development, from chapter one to the end of the story. He plays a couple of archetypes, too, though. Jess is either destined to become an abstract thinker, or one whose potential is never allowed to develop. Jess seems to be constructed, emotionally, to become an abstract thinker. He is raised in his family, in a place that is not meeting his needs, so it is essential that he seek and have a “quest”[vi] personality, if he wants to have some kind of peace of mind, because he is not being supported at home. Jess has to look within himself to find what is important to him because he is given no structure except chores, nothing to help his creativity (which was actually suppressed, had to be hidden) the tasks he has to do are very mundane, no outlet to share soul; not through art or even church (but once a year). That is another way Julia and Leslie were types of god, because they rescued him and opened up another world he would likely have never seen. They provided “salvation” from the mundane. Without their influence, he would have likely just remained a workhorse and might have eventually let his artistic ability stagnate, buried under the weight of manual labor. To put it in biblical terminology, Peter would have stayed a fisherman until he grew old or died in an accident.
A glimpse of the “trickster” archetype can be found in Jess, too, early in his development. In his dealings with May Belle, early in the story, Jess follows the archetype of trickster, coincidently the one Satan fills in Christianity. At the same time he fills the role of martyr in his relationship with his mom and sisters. The way his sisters get preferential treatment definitely creates an atmosphere of martyrdom. With May Belle, though, it is plain to see that he loves her, and she obviously is a type of Lazarus begging from the master’s table for affection from Jess. She devours every morsel of favor he grants her and feeds upon his presence. She worships at the feet of Jess, even though he is a cruel god at times. May Belle is also a type of disciple of Jess, but he treats her unkindly at times. He also grants her grace by getting her a special toy, another time by calling her “pretty” even though he saw her “as is,” scrawny frame and tousled hair. Their relationship is a lot like the one between Jess and Miss Edmonds…he ultimately gives May the “keys to the kingdom” making her queen of “heaven” and prepares her to teach her baby sister Joyce Ann someday.
Jess is also a shaman, a teacher. Even with Leslie, he teaches her: Jess is definitely compassionate in his relationship to the bully Janice Avery “Janice Avery had given him nothing but trouble, now he was feeling responsible for her, like one of the Burkes’ timber wolves or beached whales”(Paterson 72). He even had the courage to confront “god” Leslie on her seeming lack of compassion by saying, “If she was an animal predator we’d be obliged to try to help her”(Paterson 72). He is both questioning her and teaching her a lesson on “being love” and “being cognition” according to Maslow (see endnote iii).
Another archetype that Jess portrays is that of prophet. With his relation to water and fear about it, it is like he is being prophetic about Leslie’s demise. He feels disturbed, “drowning” just by listening to her descriptions of scuba diving, afraid of the creek. He feels the fear of things to come, and ironically, Leslie does not. She is the one to die by water, yet she has no fear of water. He is a tragic prophet because he does not realize until after the fact (if ever) the importance of the symbolism.
And yet another role is one of Apostle, or follower. Perhaps Jess feels like the apostles of Christ after his death when Leslie dies. He wants to swing into Terabithia, the promised land, heaven…and he wants to be with her. He denies her death, he is alone, and in a sense he denies his Christ, like Peter did. He did so by denying the fact that she has died. He also jumps back into his old, concrete religion. “I am now the fastest runner in the fifth grade” is one of Jess’ first thoughts after her death, and he hates himself for it. He also hates Leslie because she has shown him too much to go back to his old life, his old way of thinking. Being the fastest runner is now irrelevant to his new existence. He cannot go back (Paterson 115).
Jess Aarons develops very noticeably through this book. From a concrete, literal, mundane existence, he moves to a compassionate, logical, loving life. He is able to express himself in thought and act. He becomes an abstract thinker, critically examining his life and enjoying the experience of “being.” From thinking about being the fastest runner, or who will scream at him for not doing whatever chore, to later in the book, after May Belle had caught them going to Terabithia, he reasoned “sometimes it seemed to him that his life was as delicate as a dandelion, one little puff from any direction and it was blown to bits” (Paterson 77). A very abstract thought he is having. He is able to think in symbolism…the flower as a metaphor for his life. He is thinking higher thoughts, living as an individual. Even though he suffered great loss, he chose to live by Leslie’s example and become May Belle’s savior…by teaching her to think…and “be.”
In conclusion, are there religious archetypes in children’s literature? Yes, at least some books, obviously (and these themes are not uncommon, if one looks for them). Can stories “prime” readers for cognitive and moral development? Yes. Psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus says that if one is exposed to something at a young age, even if one does not understand its meaning, and then is exposed to it at a later date he will learn more rapidly the previously presented material. He did this by teaching Greek to a young child at different ages. When the child was an adolescent and old enough to learn the material, he presented him with Greek that he had been exposed to as a child, and also new Greek selections taken from the same source as the previously learned material (as a research control), and let him learn both groups. He learned both, he had the ability to learn both, but he re-learned more rapidly the previously learned materials faster than the control information. The implications to religion and archetype in literature is that if one exposes kids to religious symbols at a young age, it “primes” them to see it as they get older. This is a little different from Jungian theory in that it is something that is learned rather than something that flows from the unconscious. If both are correct, then when we are re-presented with religious imagery at an older age, it would be even more profound. Not only is it hard-wired in the unconscious, but also “primed” in our conscious minds through story and parable and other less didactic ways (Jahnke and Nowaczyk 177).
By being previously exposed to information, one re-learns it faster. Surely by experiencing the archetypal symbols, one is being primed for further development. Also, if one learn types of people (see “Kalat” page 3 above) then we can teach kids to see well-developed characters as something to be admired, to attach high thought to the religious symbols in literature. If we can further study these types of stories, we can potentially teach everyone to be “fully developed” in a cognitive, psychosocial, and moral sense.
Works Cited:
Bible.com. Christian Unlimited Ministries.
<http://Bible.com/Bibles.html>
Domjan, Michael and Barbara Burkhard. The Principles of Learning and Behavior. Brooks/Cole Publishing Co. Pacific Grove, Calif. 1986.
Dictionary.com. Lexico LLC. 2002.
<http//:www.dictionary.com>
"God," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com ©
1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation.
Jahnke, John C. and Ronald H. Nowaczyk. Cognition. Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, N.J. 1998.
Kalat, James W. Introduction to Psychology. Brooks/Cole Publishing Co. Pacific Grove, Calif. 1993.
Papalia, Diane and Sally Wendkos Olds. Human Development. McGraw-Hill Book Co. 1986.
Patterson, Katherine. Bridge to Terabithia. Harper Collins. New York, NY. 1987.
Paloutzian, Raymond F. Invitation to the Psychology of Religion. Allyn and Bacon. Boston, Mass.1996.
[i] I refer to the definition of archetype to follow:
In Jungian psychology, an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious. (Dictionary.com)
[ii] In Jungian psychology, a part of the unconscious mind, shared by society, a people, or all humankind, that is the product of ancestral experience and contains such concepts as science, religion, and morality.
[iii] Psychologist Abraham Maslow theorized that when our basic needs are taken care of, we can be self-actualized, or living in the arena of “being”. He taught three levels of Being:
· Being Love—completely accepting others “as is” seeing they are worth just as human beings.
· Being Cognition—if you know the other person as-is, you know the person, because you are like them.
· Being Values—Constitutes ultimate reality. Truth, goodness, playfulness, richness, perfection, etc.
[iv] The Psychologist Abraham Maslow described a peak experience as “feelings of ecstasy, joy, peace, and a feeling of Transcendent being.” A religious experience.
[v] Maslow also defined a “plateau experience” as “simultaneous experience of the sacred and the divine,” a fusion of the creator in the creation.
[vi] Psychologist Gordon Allport describes a quest personality in three ways:
“the degree to which an individual’s religion involves an open-ended, responsive dialogue with existential questions raised by the contradictions and tragedies of life.
Honestly facing existential questions in all their complexity, while at the same time resisting clear-cut, pat answers.
May or may not be a clear belief in a transcendental reality, but there is a transcendent, religious aspect to the individual’s life.