Significance of biological and psychological archetypes in the story of "Dlhý, Široký, Bystrozraký"
Just a while ago I formulated yet another example of archetypal representation in stories. However this time it is a combination of a physical archetype and a psychological one.
We are going to talk about the story of "Dlhý, Široký a Bystrozraký" by the czech author Karel Jaromir Erben.
For those unfamiliar with the story - a young prince is after a princess, but in order to be able to marry her, he has to guard her for 3 nights and in the morning, when the king, her father comes to check on them, both the princess and the prince must be present in the room. The princess has magical abilities to transform to various animals and tries to escape every night.The prince hires three entities to help him - tall guy, large guy and a sharp-eyed guy (more on them will be presented). The King is unwilling to give up his daughter. Of course the prince is successful and marries the princess, however he would not be able to do it without the help of the three guys. That is all you need to know for now.
Consciously or not (I could not find the year when this book was written, which could prove quite useful at the moment; although ever since 1942, several movie adaptations were produced so we can infer it was written in early 20th century), the author managed to create such characters that perfectly represented the psychological and biological archetypes.
Ectomorphs are people who are typically skinny, tall, have a small frame, who don't gain weight easily, have fast metabolism and small shoulders. This body type is linked to cerebrotonia, which means it's linked to being predominantly intellectually oriented over socially or physically oriented. Sensitivity, introversion and shyness are often present in ectomorphs.
This is represented in the story by the character "Dlhý" (translation = tall). He is able to make leaps over huge chunks of distance very fast, each of his steps is a mile long and he can reach places hardly anyone can reach, he is almost omnipresent, so to speak. He also has his head in the clouds all the time because of his height. All of these hyperbolized abilities are metaphorical in nature, and that is the case with all the characters.
Intellingence is, to a significant extent, about speed. The faster you are able to solve a complex problem, the more intelligent you are, roughly speaking. "Dlhý" is the guy who reacts the fastest when he is presented with a challenge. Now, intellect is not the same thing as intelligence, but they are closely correlated. Remember, intellect is linked to ectomorphs.
Having your head in the clouds means you are a daydreamer, possibly creative and you rarely lack ideas. See the connection? This character also has a wide reach, both metaphorically and in terms of knowledge - the more knowledge you carry, the wider your radius of ability is.
Thanks to that, Dlhy si able to capture the princess on the first night when she escapes - he reaches out from a window and grabs her.
Now let’s talk about mesomorphs. Distinguishing features of this body type are athletic and rectangular body shape, hard, muscular body, natural strength, broad shoulders. They also gain muscle quite effortlessly and gain fat easier than ectomorphs.
These body types are linked to somatotonia, which basically means that out of the trinity of social, physical and intellectual orientation, physical is the prevalent one. Mesomorphs are more aggressive, they love physical activity, are vigorous and alert. They also play a role of a guardian. In the story, mesomorph is represented by "Bystrozraký" (translation = sharp-sighted). I think the metaphor behind this stems in this very question: Who would you ideally desire to protect you? A sane assumption would be someone who doesn’t let his guard down, is alert and sharp, someone who doesn’t let the bad guys inside the fortress, and has the physical capability of protecting you if necessary. Now, the character himself is fulfilling this guardian role on point. It is told in the story that when he takes a lingering gaze upon something, his eyesight is able to destroy it. So out of all the characters only this guy has a sort of destructive element to him, an ability to attack things.
Another way of looking at it would be through the metaphor of an eagle, or a hawk. These animals also have a sharp eyesight and are also a symbol of hunting. Not a mouse slips past their eyes unnoticed.
In the story, Bystrozraký is able to spot an army chasing them from the distance of 2 miles.
When the princess transformed herself into a fly in an attempt to escape again on the 2nd night, he was able to spot her even though he was sleeping, yet again the recurring metaphor of an ever-relentless guardian.
Last but not least, endomorphs. Their body type is soft and round, typically short and stocky, gains weight of any substance fairly easily, has slower metabolism and large shoulders. It is indeed linked to viscerotonia, which signifies, as you may have guessed, predominantly social orientation. Endomorphs are the funny, jovial guys at a party. They exhibit tolerance, complacency and love for food.
These traits are manifested on multiple occasions in the story. Where there is a feast - "Široký" (translation = large, wide, voluminous) feasts. Where there is time for guarding the princess, Široký... falls asleep and lets her escape (sharp-sighted guy noticed her later). However he proves to be useful when they are trying to extract the princess out of a well. He drops himself into the well and by the sheer volume of his body pushes the water out of the well along with the princess who happened to turn herself into a small fish this time (she just isn't creative enough I guess, go home princess).
A story like this teaches us about archetypes in society. Although we did not realize this as kids, it imparts us to be tolerant towards thy neighbor, no matter what their size, shape or abilities are. Ultimately these stories are shaping society (another famous archetype is the good vs. evil fight, also often present in stories) because truly if you think about it, it is kind of a miracle that we don't run around stabbing each other with pointy sticks, and instead we cooperate - to a larger or smaller degree, but it is cooperation nonetheless. Furthermore, it teaches equality among children and ultimately is telling them how to operate properly in society, since it is highly likely that as a kid you are going to meet other body types and temperaments in your immediate environment, which would be kindergarten, and you are going to have to respect them and not hit them in their head with a truck any more than is absolutely necessary.
