What would be a better archetypal label for the outcast, the pariah, the misfit, the social castaway? My mind is drawing a blank here and I'm certain there must be a term Campbell used for the outcast.

In theology, one often uses the term "the other" for someone not perceived as part of a group.

What would be a better archetypal label for the outcast ...

How about "ornery" ... as in "Who is the Ornery American?"

http://www.ornery.org/about.html

In psychology also, they use the Other. How about antagonist or adversary?

Campbell seems to *use the Outcast.

http://www.cait.org/eng356/unit1/3/overview3.html

Good research there, et'. Thanks.

I've never referred to 'the other,' but that term appeals to me on some dark visceral level more than outcast--but I'll certainly use various synonyms for that archetype.

Thanks, all.

Outsider; loner; reject; castaway; exile; leper; untouchable

Outsider; loner; reject; castaway; exile; leper; untouchable

All this talk about "outsiders" reminds me of a joke [which could also work on dcampi's thread "shaky"]:

Little drunk at bar, to guy to right of him: 'Did you spill your drink in my lap?' Indignant denial. Little drunk turns to guy to left of him. Same question, same indignant denial Little drunk nods sagely. 'Just as I thought. An inside job.'

All this talk about "outsiders" also reminds me that there wouldn't be any 'outsiders' around here if there weren't any 'insiders'.

In my opinion: the way to become an insider is to be friendly and polite, even while disagreeing. If there are any outsiders here, then they are self-made; and a good way to do that is to be impolite and disagreeable.

In this board's entire history, no newcomer who has been friendly and polite has ever been "told off". Any ugliness by "senior" members has been in response to ugliness.

I don't think it should come as a surprise to anyone who persists in attacking (be it mild or strong) despite having been asked not to, that the recipient(s) may eventually strike back.

An aside--strictly personal; I just sent this in a PM in response to the above post, and decided to put it here:
I have never seen any need for people to be mean to each other. But then, I am very fortunate in that I was raised with all kinds of examples of how to be loving, and had only the usual schoolmate meannesses to deal with. I feel sorry for people raised where the primary interaction is being mean and hurtful, because so often they never realize that there IS another way to act, and the way we act toward others has a powerful influence on the way they act toward us...which only reinforces to the ignorant person that the world is full of mean people.

I don't think it should come as a surprise to anyone who persists in attacking (be it mild or strong) despite having been asked not to, that the recipient(s) may eventually strike back.

Good point, Jackie. Can't argue with that.

Never found any reason to argue with you, period. Ever.

A few rotten apples spoil it for everyone, whether 'insiders' or 'outsiders'.

Personally, I don't want to be treated as an 'insider' or an 'outsider'.

To apply your own admirable reasoning mutatis mutandis, anyone who treats another person as an 'outsider' without provocation should not be surprised when that person begins to act like an 'outsider'.

which came first? the chicken or the egg?

its hard to tell in disputes who started it, but its easy to see who is keeping it up.

and it takes a while for a dispute to heal.. its best if the parties who want to repair the relationship be extra careful, and overly kind, else one or the other is likely to take a quick comment, a pinprick, as a lances blow.

and if time and time again, there are repeated pin pricks, never anything more than pinpricks, but an endless stream of them, even they get to be unpleasant and annoying.. it hardly helps when the person holding the pin declares, "its only a pin prick, its only done in jest"

Its never for the person holding the pin to decide how much or how little a pin prick hurts. its for the person who was pricked to say how much it hurt.

besides, pin pricks, no matter how small or large are never very fun.

but that my opinion.

The lives of these threads sometimes seem parallel to those of the young and the restless in the days of our lives as the world turns on the edge of night.

Just for the record: I mentioned pariahs because I'm building a word web of exclusion for my kids to discuss at school in terms of 'the others' (!) in To Kill a Mockingbird, which we'll begin week after next. There are notable pariahs in that novel: Boo Radley, the Ewells, and (oh, woe be the day) poor Tom Robinson, to name the obvious. Because I teach 14- to 15-year-old students, their own vulnerability to feeling like outcasts, especially their freshman year, is keen.

Archetypes are grand and broad enough that the kids can see that the big problems and challenges in their lives have umbrella terms. This helps them see that the paths their trodding have been well-trodden before--and I suspect causes their feelings of isolation to at least have a name. And if you can name it--so they say--you can tame it...or at least try. I like pariah because it sounds dangerous somehow--like the piranha--only here the feeding frenzy is internal--the self attacking itself out of loneliness. But 'the other' I especially like, much moreso than outcast, because it sounds heavy like fog and somewhat like ether and somehow without substance. 'The other' sounds emotively right.

However, with the word web, the students will be able to choose words that appeal to their sense of otherness--and outside-edness. The Visual Thesaurus provides many 'other' synonyms. But you gotta pay for it. Drat.

Wordwind, your comment on Boo Radley hit on something I thought about when I posted that list; if memory serves me correctly, Boo Radley became a recluse pretty much by choice. To me, pariah carries the connotation of being deliberately shoved out of the group by others; I'm not sure that I would think of a voluntary recluse as a pariah. Or am I wrong?

its hard to tell in disputes who started it, but its easy to see who is keeping it up.

Well, "who is keeping it up" is not as obvious as you might think, Of Troy. In any case, I am not suggesting that you are keeping it up.

If you want to know how the last round of "pin pricks" developed, check out Snoot's last post on the "Team Think" thread. My subsequent posts on other threads did nothing more than fulfill the promise of Snoot's unprovoked targeting of "Wordmistral".

As it happens, Wordwind's launching of the "Pariah" thread, which followed Snoot's posting immediately, was simply coincidental. But was it such as stretch to think that Snoot's post and Wordwind's post were related, since Snoot represents herself as "the Mgmt", and Wordwind is on the threshold of Carpal Tunnelization ... altho, I grant, Wordwind is no more representative of the breed than is Jackie and some others [including yourself, Of Troy ... on some occasions. ]

huh?
My subsequent posts on other threads did nothing more than fulfill the promise of Snoot's unprovoked targeting of "Wordmistral".

excuse me? you start a thread, and paint all carpel tunnel level posters as virtual demons, (no exceptions noted!) and comments about your behavior are unprovoked?

oh now i understand, your not wordminstral or the mgnt, any of your other names. You think you are god, (with a capital g). You expect to be able to trash everybody, and we are what, supposed to thank you or something? if you think snoots comment was unprovoked, you obviously fall very short in your ability to think.

helen, I think what you (and others) forget to do is use copious emoticons within your posts. this accomplishes two(2) important things:

1) it reminds your target that these are (after all) just pin pricks, and if offense is taken, well none was meant

b) more importantly, it shows the innocent bystanders that it's all just in fun



(darn, there I went and spoilt the irony

this accomplishes two(2) important things

Your perspicacity is welcome, tsuwm.

Thank you for putting things into perspective.

Wordwind, your comment on Boo Radley hit on something I thought about when I posted that list; if memory serves me correctly, Boo Radley became a recluse pretty much by choice.


Not exactly, Jackie. Boo Radley was not a pariah by choice. Young Arthur Radley as a teenager had gone gallavanting about with a group of teens who had committed acts of vandalism, including locking up an adult in an outhouse. The judge sentenced the teenagers to a stint in the junenile detention center in a city to the north of Maycomb, the town of the novel. Arthur's father told the judge he would take care of Arthur himself, and the judge agreed. The father removed his son from society--permanently. The young man went through a kind of cruelty we can only imagine. One of the wisest characters in the novel comments that some people are more menacing with their Bibles than others with a fifth of bourbon--or something to that effect. Arthur's father was one of those Bible-thumping, self-righteous detroyers of souls. And he destroyed Arthur's (Boo's) spirit--but not his soul.

All kinds of rumors and stories--untrue--develop about Boo Radley in his adulthood of seclusion, for his father never permitted him outside again--all schooling, all socializing, all human contact outside the front door brought to an abrupt halt.

After the father's death, Arthur is so adversely affected by seclusion that he no longer knows how to meet the world and he remains inside, a recluse, not so much by choice, but by intense neurotic habit. And the town's people show him little mercy in their talk about him, other than the more sensitive and intelligent people of Maycomb, who are few.

Rumors abound: pecans that fall from the Radley yard into the school yard will poison you; children run past the house; black folk whistle on the other side of the street to get past the house; rumors abound about Boo's coming out at night to slaughter squirrels and eat them raw--Southern gothic at its best. And tremendously harmful--the power of gossip to change the good sense of a town. The church folk contribute in their own way to the gossip surrounding Arthur and he has been isolated not only by his family but also by the town at large. And his neurosis changes him into a being unable to change. This is long before the years of putting every stray dog in the seat of a therapist. He is simply an outcast.

And Lee wants to show how superficially we read one another. Boo ends up being a hero of sorts, although he ultimately (and heroically) commits a murder to save the Finch children. But Atticus makes the final decision to keep this act of heroism secret because Arthur would not be able to handle psychologically the acts that would be lavished upon him as a hero--he has had too much destroyed within him to be able to meet people. The church ladies bringing him pecan pies in celebration would be too much for him to handle--so the act is kept secret.

His ability to reach out is extended to the maximum in the toys he leaves for the children in the knothole of the tree--and, of course, finally saving their lives. But he cannot talk to them. Only a little word at the end before he once again embraces the isolation that unmade the man.

So, Boo is a pariah in the most poignant sense of the word, yet one we love and feel sympathy for--but with whom few would want to change places.

Incidentally, the fictional Boo Radley's story of sickened isolation by a Bible-thumping parent was based on an actual person, "Son" Boulware, which you will find variously spelled in the criticism. However, the Boulware spelling is what appears on his tombstone.

That's right--thanks.
how superficially we read one another. [tears in eyes e] True. How I wish I had had the courage to remain true to my real self.

Thanks WW. That was the perfect recap for Jackie. It is rather sad what happens to Boo.

Interesting word, pariah. One of a handful of Tamil origin: < paRaiyan 'untouchable' < paRai 'a kind of drum'.

Yes, jheem! I had read numerous comments in the archives here about pariahs and drums--and I wondered whether the player of the drum in some locations in India (once upon a time) had been the untouchables. If so, that would be supremely ironic: an untouchable who is partly defined by what he touches. But I don't have enough information. Do you?

But I don't have enough information. Do you?

I checked with a Tamil-speaking friend after having looked up the etymology. I asked him what paRai meant. At first he said it was like a royal herald, but then when I asked about drums, he mentioned that, yes, the guy had a drum. That's all I know for now. I'll be checking in my Dravidian etymological dictionary latter. Let you know if I discover anything ...

Thanks, jheem.

say, you're not going to attempt to show a nexus with a Maori drummer, are you?!

:)

say, you're not going to attempt to show a nexus with a Maori drummer, are you?!

The thought had literally not crossed my mind.

An interesting coincidence of timing:
http://snipurl.com/94bz-mq42

Back to the original question--
These are not refined enough to be 'archetypal labels' but
y'all are done forgettin' 'nobody, scum, and trash'.