Are You My Mother Archetypes

During my time reading to children at Jefferson Elementary school, I observed how a child’s knowledge of archetypes alters their perceptions of the particular book they are reading. I read the children’s book Are You My Mother by P. D. Eastman, and I witnessed three examples of how archetypes might have affected their view of the story: the caregiver role, the gender roles, and the hero and villain role. I read to two girls and right away I could tell that they were aware of what a mother should look like. On the first page, the mother bird was shown. Before reading the page, I asked if they thought that bird was a mommy or a daddy and why; they both said mommy because of her head wrap and her nest. As the book went on, they told me that none of the other animals were his mom but he did, in fact, have a mom because everyone has a mom. The girls knew that the mom would come back for the bird because she needed to be there for the bird and to feed it and care for it. This puts the mother bird in their eyes, as a caregiver. I would agree with this because generally speaking, every
Whenever we came across a different animal I would ask the girls if they thought that it was a girl or a boy before reading the page. Every time they guessed, they were right. Authors make books so that children can easily identify the characters as male or female to help them understand the book better. Gender roles are enforced at a very young age and this is what helps children to comprehend why a pig would be wearing a dress or why an elephant would be wearing a suit. I think that even though recently people have been trying to get rid of gender roles, they are still a major part of a character. The characters actions are often times relative to their genders. Examples of this can be found in many Disney films in which the female is rescued or saved by the male