post 4

• Find an example of an archetype in a short story. Explain what the archetype is and the effect that it has on the story.

  In the story “Thank you Ma’am” by Langston Hughes a archetype is the theme of the story.

The theme of the story is that even though you do bad things to someone they may have gone through it as well. Like the boy thought the old woman was going to take him to the cops or tell him what he did was wrong. But instead she explained to him that she knows people do bad things and that she had once did bad things like steal old womens purses before so she told him her story to show him that even though people do bad things they can grow from their mistakes and become a better person. Also this is one of the archetypes in the story their are many in this story that are common to backbones of other stories we’ve read over time. This archetype sets the story and helps show that the old woman was trying to help the boy by telling him “I have done things too, which I would not tell you, son”. This expresses her emotion towards the boy which also helps create the theme. Another thing about this archetype is that it is one that you’d see but not often because how many people do you know will tell someone about their experience and then help them understand what they did was wrong and then give the person money for what they originally were going to steal the money from you for in the first place.