Archetypes are universal symbols. According to Jung, archetypes are "universal psychic tendencies or 'primordial images' of a 'collective unconscious' that, when given individual or cultural forms--in dreams, art, or literary expressions such as myths and fairy tales, and later, literature--became universally familiar human motifs." "For [Eliade] archetypes are 'sacred paradigms' or 'exemplary models' that characterize the sacred or transcendent aspect of life that springs from primordial 'myth time'--archetypal time--as opposed to the profane aspect of life, that which is dominated by material things and linear time" (Leeming 27).

These examples are by no means exhaustive, but represent some of the more common archetypal images that the reader is likely to encounter in literature. [These] images . . . do not necessarily function as archetypes every time they appear in a literary work. . . but only if the total context of the work logically supports an archetypal reading (Guerin, et al. 161)