The Archetypes of the Fisher King

and the Wasteland

"One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its black gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep. The great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren WastelandWasteland, riddled with fire, ash, and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume."

The story of the Fisher King comes out of Arthurian legend.

Characteristics of the myth:The Fisher King

• Married to the landwhat happens to the “King” (modern incarnations: CEO, president, famous person) happens to the land and its people– If the King suffers, the land suffers– If the King heals, the land prospers

• Responsible for the future of the kingdom

The Wound

• The king suffers in some way / is rendered impotent or sterile, incapable of leading his people

• The wound (a blight) serves as a reminder of his greed or misguided priorities and contributes to the infertility of the land, hindering the progress of his people or culture.

The Abode

• A castle in traditional texts

• Often made of gray stone

• Place associated with the grail

The Wasteland

• A “dead” land, filled with suffering and despair.

• In modern times, the Wasteland can be a metaphor for modern apathy or it can symbolize – social and moral decay – a barren, desolate place, incapable of

sustaining life– the psychological wounding of a

culture (ex., the Lost Generation).

The “Dead Marshes” of WWI

In the Dead Marshes of Mordor

Isengard

The Gardens of Isengard (before) (after)

Mordor

The Wasteland as metaphor for World

War I• T.S. Eliot - perhaps most famous modernist poet

• Wrote “The Waste Land” about the destruction of European culture and the desolation of the landscape after WWI

• Like Nietzsche and Tolkien, Eliot looked to ancient myth to address modern despair

• Like Tolkien, religious.

The White Tree of the King of Gondor

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

 

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,   20

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

 

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

 

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

 

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

 

There is shadow under this red rock,   25

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

 

And I will show you something different from either

 

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

 

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

 

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.   30

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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