In modern literature the trickster survives as a character archetype, not necessarily supernatural or divine, sometimes no more than a stock character. The trickster or clown is an example of a Jungian archetype. In West Africa (and thence into the Caribbean via the slave trade), the spider (Anansi) is often the trickster. In a wide variety of African language communities, the rabbit, or hare, is the trickster. Nevertheless, the Biblical narrative clearly takes Jacob's side and the reader is invited to laugh and admire Jacob's ingenuity–as is the case with the tricksters of other cultures". The tricks Jacob plays on his twin brother Esau, his father Isaac and his father-in-law Laban are immoral by conventional standards, designed to cheat other people and gain material and social advantages he is not entitled to. He becomes a mare who later gives birth to Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir.īritish scholar Evan Brown suggested that Jacob in the Bible has many of the characteristics of the trickster: Loki also exhibits gender variability, in one case even becoming pregnant. In Norse mythology the mischief-maker is Loki, who is also a shape shifter. In Slavic folktales, the trickster and the culture hero are often combined.įrequently the trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability. He is the patron of thieves and the inventor of lying, a gift he passed on to Autolycus, who in turn passed it on to Odysseus. In some Greek myths Hermes plays the trickster. They are usually male characters, and are fond of breaking rules, boasting, and playing tricks on both humans and gods.Īll cultures have tales of the trickster, a crafty creature who uses cunning to get food, steal precious possessions, or simply cause mischief. The trickster openly questions and mocks authority. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both. Often, the bending/breaking of rules takes the form of tricks or thievery. Tricksters ".violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis." The trickster crosses and often breaks both physical and societal rules. Lewis Hyde describes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser". Tricksters are archetypal characters who appear in the myths of many different cultures.
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