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Rose Saavedra

Professor Orta

ENG 123

18 May 2018

The Ways of Defining Your Life

There are twelve archetypes that drive our goals and desires as human beings. Carl Jung

came up with idea of archetypes and the subsets for each archetype. Each type has its own set of

values, meanings and personality types. (Golden) The twelve types symbolize our basic

motivation as humans that go along with their set of values. It is possible that a person can have

many archetypes but one archetype will dominate that person and that is what we would classify

them as, the dominant archetype. This is clearly illustrated in Brando Skyhorse’s short stories,

The Madonnas of Echo Park. ​We see every character has a specific archetype that defines that

character. Angie is a strong character and she never seemed to want to stay in one place at a time

and wanted to figure things out. She embraced change and that was a big part of her character

development. She did new things or went to new places, rather than Echo Park to experience

these new events or opportunities. Angie seems to be an explorer. Explorers love having the

freedom to find out who they are through the world and they don’t want to be fenced in.

However, they find it hard to settle down at one job or in a relationship for too long. This leads

us to evaluate our relationships and see how they can mold us into the person we are meant to be.

In my analysis I will be using archetypal analysis to show the relationship between the

archetypes the character develops and the setting of the novel. The setting in this novel
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progresses the characters in multiple ways and Echo Park does just that. It introduces new

people, different aspects of culture, music and ways of living to the residents of Echo Park.

One factor that ties in with the setting of the novel is the plot. The plot and setting

intertwine with each other in this novel, where they create these scenarios for the residents of

Echo Park. We see this happen throughout the whole novel but one chapter that I am going to

focus on is Angie’s chapter and how her character develops. Angie’s chapter portrays her as the

Explorer. She goes on this adventure in her life you figure out what makes her content in life.

She leaves Echo Park, loses friends, to rekindling friendships, to returning home to figure out

what she wants in life. Skyhorse shows us this with all of the characters but in different aspects

to show off their unique archetypes and how they juggle life to figure out their purpose in Echo

Park. She goes through all of these events and experiences these relationships to help her become

Angie. That’s the purpose of an explorer is to lead a fulfilling life and to have the freedom.

In the seventh chapter we see her explorer tendencies start to become more prominent as

she has the notion to leave Echo Park. But when she comes back to Echo Park she wasn’t the

only one that changed. Echo Park completely changed and is still continuing to change and so is

the culture that is surrounded by Echo Park. This pushes Angie’s Explore side to come out and

explore her surroundings to figure out where she belongs in the world.

Along with the new Echo Park there comes change especially within the culture. And one

thing that progresses with change is music. Music defines a culture and it develops its own

personality within its community. When we are first introduced to Angie we get to know that she

loves Gwen Stefani. This becomes her identity because she found a place where she feels

comfortable and it became an outlet for her and she started to develop her identity through her
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liking for Gwen Stefani. Throughout the novel there are mentions of music and how it helped

develop the environment and the people who lived in Echo Park. The characters in the book are

like ‘Madonnas’, like the performer, because every character is interested in reinvention. They

want to do more than what they are capable of. (Barco) There is also another connection between

Madonna and Echo Park. In her music video “Borderline”, it was filmed in Echo Park. It shows

Madonna dressed up as a chola, who knows her way around the neighborhood. This sparked up a

lot of chatter about Madonna. They were wondering why this young Mexican girl was singing in

English but in fact she wasn’t Mexican but that didn’t stop the people of Echo Park from talking.

They were impressed with Madonna even though she wasn’t apart of their culture but they

accepted her into theirs.

Another area where we see music bringing people together is in the introduction of the

novel where Skyhorse was talking about his childhood and when he went to school his class had

an MTV party and the one song that brought the vietnamese and the mexican kids together was

Beat It by Michael Jackson. Once that song came on everyone was having a great time and

forgot about their cultural differences for that period of time and just enjoyed themselves. This

shows how music transcends languages and brings people of different races and ethnic

backgrounds together. This is why I think music is important in any community and that we need

music in our lives to not only better ourselves but the people around us. Music allows us to find

ourselves and help us figure out the person we want to be. Angie explores this option and when

she first listened to Gwen Stefani she fell in love and started to personify her music and started to

build her own character and not let other people define her life. She lets her explorer side roam

and start letting her develop her character.

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With all of this it shows us how it is important for us to find our true selves and play into

our archetype that we possess. Her experience of self discovery reminds me of the time when I

was at the University of Oregon for a year and I took the time to figure out myself, interests and

what I wanted to do in life. One way that helped me with this process was music. While I was

there I was in a marching band and I made a second family and they helped me with my journey.

I learned to express myself through my music and to take the time to figure out where I am at

this point in my life. But I also went through more hardships because when I had to come back

home I didn’t want to I was actually finding my place to only have it be taken away from me.

But that made me realize that everything happens for a reason and that it will shape my character

in a better way. So, when I came back to Martinez I realized how my hometown changed since I

was gone. So I can relate to Angie and her experience with Echo Park. Sometimes you need to

leave a place that you were comfortable with to explore and try new things out so that you can

progress yourself and become the best version of yourself. Even if that is leaving your old life

behind and start all over in a new place.

In Carl Jung’s archetypal system we learn that it takes several archetypes come into play

to construct one’s personality. “It can be helpful to know which archetypes are at play in oneself

and others, especially loved ones, friends and workers, in order to gain insight into behaviors and

motivations” (Golden) The archetypal system works really well for ​The Madonnas of Echo

Park​. It allows the reader to relate to with the protagonist on a deeper level. Each chapter we get

a new main character and through their archetype we get to see who they actually are and try to

make a connection with them because we see some type of connection with the character. The

use of setting is this novel allows me to showcase the explorer tendencies of Angie. We see her
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born into this culture of expected to stay within the borders of the culture but she has no desire to

do that. She wants to broaden her horizons and experience new things. Hence we see her start to

dress differently and start to listen to Gwen Stefani. With Angie’s journey we see how an

explorer sees life and how they want to accomplish their goals, we see their past and present

collide to make their personality stand out and see the explorer tendencies shine through.

This novel made me appreciate the past events that we go through and that we need to go

through these hardships to become the person we are today. Also that it is okay in our life to

leave a place that might seem as a comfort to us to go to a new place to figure ourselves out so

that we can return and see things in a new light.

Works Cited

Barco, Mandalit del, and Brando Skyhorse. “'The Madonnas Of Echo Park': Residents,

Reinvented.” ​NPR​, NPR, 6 July 2010.

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128115588​.

Golden, Carl. “The 12 Common Archetypes.” ​Soulcraft.​ Accessed 10 April 2017.

Skyhorse, Brando. ​The Madonnas of Echo Park: A Novel. ​New York, NY, Free Press, 2011.