3. Archetypes in Main Characters 源'自^优尔],论`文'网]www.youerw.com
Many fantasy novels are full of character archetypes. In Harry Potter, we can easily find that there are lots of character archetypes. Besides above four main archetypes, there are some other archetypes, such as the father, a family archetype, which stands for stern powerful and controlling; the hero, a story archetype, represents the rescuer and champion; the wise old man, who is knowledgeable; and the shadow, which means dark sides of human nature.
3.1 Lord Voldemort: The Archetypal Shadow
Shadow is one of the most basic archetypes in Jung's theory. And the shadow is not only an archetype but also a part of the personality.
As a part of personality, the shadow is the dark side of personality that contains the animal instincts. It is the opposite of the persona and is the part of personality that is repressed from the ego ideal (Zhu Wenqiong, 2011: 63). As a literary archetype, the Shadow is the “bad guy” of the story, the presentation of the “dark side” of things. It comprise everything the conscious personality experiences as negative. In literature works, the shadow is always represented by devils, demons, and evil spirits and so on.
In Harry Potter series, Harry, of course, is the representative of human nature. And Voldemort is clearly the opposite of it. The name Voldemort derived from the French words vo de mort, which means “fly from death”. He is the number one enemy of decent wizards and the murderer of Potter's parents: Lily and William. He is a successor of S1ytherin, a famous wizard family, so he has outstanding magic talent. But he hate Muggles, he aims to kill all Muggles and to contribute pure wizard world. He organized a dark team called “Death Eater” Voldemort is known as the “Dark Lord” by his follower. ‘Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes, and a nose that was as flat as a snake’s, with slits for nostrils ... (Rowling 2004: 558). All of these can reflect how dark he is. Even when he is disappeared, people dare not call his name. Voldemort is the archetypal evil—Satan.
Satan, Fallen Angel in Bible, was one of the angels who followed God. But he hate human. Gradually, he betrayed God and became a devil. He is the ruler of dark world and the leader of transnatural power. He is an evil spirits and has extraordinary super power as God. Like Satan, Voldemort, a powerful enemy of Dumbledore, is a dark wizard and the leader of Death Eaters. He has great ambition, which helped him get to the top of the right. He adheres to the theory of pure blood. He hates Muggles so aims to wrap out all none-pure blood wizards. With his control, wizard world engaged in the terrorist.
Besides, Voldemort has close connection to snake. Or we can even recognize him as a snake. In the Bible, snake is representative of Satan.