Aron Flam
Aron Flam
Abstract
This is an attempt at finding a form for a universal trickster myth. By comparing studies on trickster
myths, in mythology, psychology, anthropology, literature, and film, with compilations on the native
American trickster myth. A structure for the narrative is extracted by generalization. The purpose of
the essay is to provide a narrative structure that can be used as a point of reference in identifying
trickster myths.
Keywords
Trickster, trickster myth, trap, trapped, myth, narrative, form, structure, structuralism, universal,
universalist, post-structuralism, incapable, incompetent, incompetence, hero, Winnebago,
Wakdjunkaga, Loki, Hermes, faeces, dirt, amoral, taboo, transgression, scat, scatological, laxative,
poop, libido, licentiousness, sex, sex-drive, theft, lying, deception, trick, trickery, con, penis, gender-
bender, change, sex-change, sodomy, transformation, chaos, randomness, comedy, satire, defy, defile.
1
Contents
SACRED FOOL ......................................................................................... 0
Schematization of the Narrative Structure of the Trickster Myth ............................... 0
SACRED FOOL ......................................................................................... 1
Schematization of the Narrative Structure of the Trickster Myth ............................... 1
Introduction ........................................................................................... 3
What is The Trickster? ..................................................................................... 4
Universality ................................................................................................... 4
Comedy ........................................................................................................ 5
What Defines The Trickster Myth? ..................................................................... 6
Hyde’s trickster .............................................................................................. 7
The Trickster In Film ......................................................................................10
Agent of Chaos/Incarnation of Change .............................................................13
Cleftness ......................................................................................................13
Crossing The Line Is Taboo .............................................................................15
Unifying The Pieces ........................................................................................15
A Universal Myth ...........................................................................................16
Generalization of the Winnebago trickster cycle .................................................18
Results of applied analysis ..............................................................................21
Conclusion ....................................................................................................22
Reference List: ..............................................................................................23
Appendix 1 ...................................................................................................24
Appendix 2 ...................................................................................................25
Appendix 3 ...................................................................................................28
Appendix 4 ...................................................................................................29
Appendix 5 ...................................................................................................31
Appendix 6 ...................................................................................................33
Appendix 7 ...................................................................................................35
2
Introduction
The hero myth represents man becoming God. According to Lord Raglan’s1 point nine (9) in his hero
scale we are told nothing of The Hero’s childhood. It is an empty space. My suggestion is that here
hides the myth of the trickster. Before one can be a (Hu)man and receive a divine calling one is an
animal and must learn how to be a (Hu)man. The transition between childhood and (Hu)manhood is a
time when a child, not yet a human since it is driven mostly by instinct and impulses, unconsciously
striving for consciousness, has to learn to control its impulses and curb their instincts in order to
become functioning members of society. In this liminal space I propose that we find the structure of
the Trickster myth.
Few myths have so wide a distribution as the one, known by the name of The Trickster, which we are presenting here.
For few can we so confidently assert that they belong to the oldest expressions of mankind. Few other myths have
persisted with their fundamental content unchanged. The Trickster myth is found in clearly recognizable form among the
simplest aboriginal tribes and among the complex.2
This essay could be called post-structuralist in the sense that it draws heavily on both structuralist and
post-structuralist thought and ideas. However, meaning can be sought through comparison, or derived
from deconstruction, which has been done, and to that, by my betters. The purpose of this essay is
rather to find the narrative structure of the trickster myth, so as to provide an aide in identifying them,
perhaps even a scale by which they could be measured.
The irony involved in trying to disrobe the fool, thus desecrating something supposedly sacred, the
holy desecrator himself, is not lost on me.
What I have done is more easily likened to a huge simplification. What I have attempted to do is take
all the meanings, characteristics, and events of research, on and about, the trickster, and tried to find
the lowest common denominators in order to extract the basic structure of a universal trickster myth.
And I know that this is a fool’s errand since the prime critique against universalism is that it focuses so
much on the similarities that it ignores the differences, something gets lost in the process, and the
whole exercise becomes pointless.
However, even though mine is a fool’s errand, my playing the fool and undertaking this folly, might
teach us something nonetheless. And so be beneficial for all.
1
Lord Raglan, The Hero - A study in tradition, myth and drama (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1936), 174f.
2
Paul Radin, The Trickster - A study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books Inc.,
1972), xxiii.
3
What is The Trickster?
How can one study the Trickster? He has been described as mercurial by nature. Like the element, he
is amorphous, ungrippable, and possibly poisonous.
The trickster is an object of study in mythology, religion, anthropology, psychology, and recently in
film. 3 The trickster is a divinity or semi-divine creature that pops up in almost every mythology or
folklore in the world. It is the god of the crossroads, of trade, of mischief, the physical representation
of randomness, and an agent of chaos. At the same time as being short-sighted, impulse-driven, and an
instigator of disorder, he often plays tricks on other God/s and/or nature. He is also the bringer of
knowledge, steals fire from the god/s, and is someone who by breaking the rules creates new ones. His
incarnations are among others Mercurius, Hermes and Prometheus in Rome and ancient Greece, Eshu
and Anansi in Africa, in Norse mythology he is Loki, and so on in culture after culture, in time after
time. Paul Radin explains that “Trickster is at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and
negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself”.4
Universality
“Mythical stories are, or seem, arbitrary, meaningless, absurd, yet nevertheless they seem to reappear
all over the world.”5 I wouldn’t attempt to do this if I didn’t believe that there is some sort of universal
structure, or pattern, for the trickster myth. Claude Lévi-Strauss has been called the father of a
structural approach to mythology. His argument is that even though myths might differ from each
other depending on which place in time they are told, they still hold certain universal similarities.6
He believed that if a phenomenon pops up again and again it can no longer be seen as absurd or
irrational. “So, if the same absurdity was found to reappear over and over again, […] then this was
something which was not absolutely absurd; otherwise it would not reappear.”7
Carl Gustaf Jung studied the trickster as a basic human archetype. He believed that it was part of a
collective unconscious shared by the human race. He surmised that the trickster represented our own
3
Helena Bassil-Morozow, The Trickster in Contemporary Film (London: Routledge, 2011)
4
Paul Radin, The Trickster - A study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books Inc.,
1972), xxiii.
5
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Myth and Meaning - Cracking the Code of Culture (New York: Schocken Books,
1979), 11f.
6
Ibid., 13.
7
Ibid., 11.
4
basic nature, the animal us that we had left behind as we learned to master tools and fire. In
psychology the trickster has been referred to as a sort of id, a shadow of our true nature.8
A curious combination of typical trickster motifs can be found in the alchemical figure of Mercurius; for instance, his
fondness for sly jokes and malicious pranks, his powers as a shapeshifter, his dual nature, half animal, half divine, his
exposure to all kinds of tortures, and last but not least – his approximation to the figure of the saviour.9
Comedy
One thing we can safely assume is that laughter is universal. And comedy is connected to the trickster.
Because comedy is absurd, and so is the trickster.
Freud viewed comedy, satire, and rule transgressions as safety valves for society. The more
hierarchical a society is – the more need for it to have safety valves for outlets of grief against the
system. Letting out steam. He thought it had cathartic and therapeutic effect.10
In ancient Rome one celebrated the feast of Saturnalia.11 It was a religious holiday where normal rules
and regulations did not apply, but were reversed. Slaves were masters and vice versa. Although highly
ritualized, it made fun of the normal order of things. Fools feast in ancient Christendom can also be
seen as an organized and ritualized upheaval of normal social norms. Here a donkey could be named
pope, and faeces flung at the church. 12 Jung thought, “These medieval customs demonstrate the role of
the trickster to perfection”.13
Sometimes trickster rituals, or comedy and satire, is a way for a system of control to make light of
itself and in a safe manner admit to its absurdity, but in other times the trickster succeeds in
fundamentally changing the rules.
Lewis Hyde uses the myth of Hermes from Hesiod as an example. Hermes is the son of Zeus but
conceived, not with another god, but a nyad, and out of wedlock. He is born in a cave and not on
Mount Olympus. Feeling trapped by circumstance, unjustly bereaved of what he sees as his birth right,
8
C.G. Jung, On the psychology of the trickster figure, trans., Paul Radin (New York, Schocken Books Inc.,
1972), 135-152.
9
Ibid., 135.
10
Gordon, R.M. “To Wit or Not to Wit: The Use of Humor in Psychotherapy”, Pennsylvania Psychologist 67,
no. 3, (2007a), 22ff.
11
C.G. Jung, On the psychology of the trickster figure, trans., Paul Radin (New York, Schocken Books Inc.,
1972), 136.
12
Ibid., 137ff.
13
Ibid., 140.
5
Hermes steals and lies in order to achieve his place among the gods. Hermes has a method by which a
stranger or underling can enter the game, change its rules, and win a piece of the action. He knows
how to slip the trap of culture.14
Structure
Paul Radin has documented trickster myths of Native Americans by listing different tricksters in
Native American mythology. These are some of the oldest documented versions of the trickster myth.
I use these as a basis for a universal structure since they are the most well preserved originals of a
possible universal structure. If the generalization of this mythic structure holds up against modern
representations of the myth in Hollywood films then maybe there is possible that the form for the myth
is something embedded in us from birth, or at least in the building blocks of human culture. Paul
Radin’s compilation breaks down the myths into their basic plot points.15 Since the myths differ from
tribe to tribe and deity to deity, he has organized the myths into subgroups, and systemized them.
The book is fertile ground for extracting and comprising similarities – the lowest common
denominators – between the different trickster myths. I have used them as background, and also in my
thoughts on ‘Cleftness’ in a chapter below.
Character traits
Others, like Lewis Hyde, has tried to focus on certain basic traits of the trickster such as theft, lying,
hunger, obscenity, and prophecy/power of foresight.
Lewis Hyde argues that certain basic traits of the trickster are shared by all trickster myths and that
certain traits become dominant depending on the trickster’s milieu.
14
Lewis Hyde, Trickster makes this world - How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture (New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1998), 204.
15
Paul Radin, The Trickster - A Study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books Inc.,
1972), 3f.
6
Hyde’s trickster
Lewis Hyde lists trickster traits that are generally agreed upon and he compares and contrasts the story
of Hermes with stories of Coyote16, a Native American trickster, and to the life story of the American
slave Fredrick Douglass17, whose life he also compares and contrasts with that of the trickster.
In so doing he delineates certain traits and/or actions from the life of the trickster that defines him as a
character.
• In
the
first
part
of
his
book
Trickster
Makes
This
World,
Lewis
Hyde
discusses
the
“trap
of
nature”.18
Here he shows how trickster is trapped by nature by being a slave under the basic need for food. In
order to satisfy his hunger, he must get food, and so he invents lying. Either he invents it as a way of
getting the food, and/or as a means to get out of trouble after having lied or stolen to get it. Hyde
shows that this is true for Hermes, Coyote, Raven, the norse God Loki, and the Zulu trickster
Thlókunaya.19
The trickster myth derives creative intelligence from appetite. It begins with a being whose main concern is getting
fed and it ends with the same being grown mentally swift, adept at creating and unmasking deceit, proficient at hiding
his tracks and at seeing through the devices used by others to hide theirs.20
Lewis Hyde shows Trickster to have the following abilities and/or traits:
• Trickster
can
cross
between
the
worlds
of
the
living
and
the
dead.21
• Trickster
regularly
just
let’s
thing
befall
him,
he
reacts
to
circumstance
rather
than
from
a
vision
or
goal
of
his
own,
and
if
he
has
a
goal
it
is
selfish.22
• Trickster
is
the
one
that
can
walk
between
different
worlds
or
planes
of
existence,
be
it
supernatural
to
supernatural,
or
from
civilization
to
nature.
And
that,
by
embracing
change,
he
imposes
it
on
other
things,
like
society.23
16
Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World - How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), 5.
17
Ibid., 205ff.
18
Ibid., 17ff.
19
Ibid., 17-80.
20
Ibid., 17.
21
Ibid., 83ff.
22
Ibid., 95f.
23
Ibid., 96.
7
• Trickster
uses
excrement,
faeces,
or
dirt,
to
defy,
and
defile,
authority,
and
on
a
deeper
level
show
what
is
truly
dirty.
By defining what is dirty one at the same time decides what is ‘clean’. And that by breaking a law one
demonstrates why it is unlawful, or why it shouldn’t be. It also revolves around the concept of shame.
Trickster has no shame, what is dirty to us, fecal matter, lies, unabashed but unseemly truth, are his
weapons that he uses to shape the world to his liking, or just to show that our world is built on sand,
and that what is true today might not be true tomorrow. By being shameless he can act and behave in a
manner unacceptable for a normal citizen. “If dirt is a by-product of the creation of order, then a fight
about dirt is always a fight about how we have shaped our world”. 24
• The
last
part
of
Trickster
Makes
This
World
deals
with
the
re-‐shaping
of
culture
by
Trickster.
How
he
slips
what
Lewis
Hyde
terms
“the
trap
of
culture”.
Hermes is not content with living in a cave with his nyad mother. If Zeus won’t admit to his birth-right
– he will steal it. Trickster is shown to be boundary crosser. Normal rules don’t apply to him, either he
breaks them on purpose, like Hermes25, or unwittingly, because of unawareness, like Wakdjunkaga,
which literally means “the foolish one” or “the tricky one”, in Paul Radin’s description of the
Winnebago trickster cycle. Hyde also uses the autobiography of American slave Frederick Douglass to
show how he steals to things from the circumstances that trap him – his own voice, namely speech,
and himself, his own body out of slavery.26
Two of Hyde’s ideas about trickster myths poses a problem for the purpose of this essay.
• Lewis
Hyde
believes
that
there
are
no
tricksters
in
monotheistic
societies.27
If this is true than there can be no universal trickster myth. If the myth is dependent on a polytheistic
or animistic worldview than there is no use looking for it in anything but Bollywood films. However, I
feel that it is enough to mention Asmodeus, the serpent in Eden, in order to contradict him. The
serpent is the trickster that lured Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. In contrast with Prometheus
theft of fire from the gods, or Loki stealing fire from the gods, he holds up well as a monotheistic
trickster. He, like the two aforementioned and acknowledged tricksters, brings knowledge to human
kind, and is also, like his peers, tortured for all eternity. His punishment was, as we all know, that he
has to crawl on his belly for all eternity. This is also why his tongue is cleft (the question of splits,
24
Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World - How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998). 198, 153-199.
25
Ibid., 208.
26
Paul Radin, The Trickster - A study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books Inc.,
1972), 132.
27
Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World - How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), 9f.
8
harelips, and doubles will be touched upon later in the essay), which prohibits him from deceiving
anyone ever again. Jung also wrote that:
consider, for example, the daemonic features exhibited by Yahweh in the Old Testament, we shall find in them not a
few reminders of the unpredictable behavior of the trickster, of his senseless orgies of destruction and his self-
imposed sufferings, together with the same gradual development into a savior and his simultaneous humanization.28
Even apart from all the other less obvious examples one can find in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim
folklore one can, once again, refer to what Freud considered to be the primary function of wit, namely
to provide a release for the forbidden.29
• Lewis
Hyde
claims
that
the
trickster
hardly
exists
in
the
modern
world.
He supports this argument on the folklorist Barre Toelken. He lived with the Navajo for many years
and explains that the trickster tales there are used in healing rituals as a sort of medicine. Lewis Hyde
writes that as entertainment the Coyote tale about the loss of his eyes stimulates to fantasies about an
entertaining disorder; as a medicine it heals after disorder have caused damage. As a matter of fact,
writes Hyde, if one tells the tale without a moral like this or medical reasons one destroys it. Hyde
contends that if the sacred is missing – the trickster is simply not there since he has to be used in a
sacred context.30 This defines the boundaries for the idea that the trickster is a well-spread concept in
the modern world.
To contend this I want to restate that Freud considered comedy, wit, and satire to be cathartic and thus
to have a medicinal purpose.31 Furthermore, I think that ritual is sufficient, and that going to the
movies is a ritual.32
Most of all Hyde demonstrates that the trickster myth is a moral tale. Whether it is used to show that
prevailing morals are wrong, or why it’s wrong to have no morals, where the hero of Lord Raglan’s
scale leads by example, trickster demonstrates by bad example, and shows the onlooker what the
outcome would be, if he where to break the rules. Whether he successfully changes the rules or not, he
28
C.G. Jung, On The Psychology of The Trickster Figure, trans., Paul Radin (New York: Schocken Books
Inc., 1972), 136.
29
Gordon, R.M. “To Wit or Not to Wit: The Use of Humor in Psychotherapy”, Pennsylvania Psychologist 67,
no. 3, (2007a), 22ff.
30
Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World - How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), 9ff.
31
Gordon, R.M. “To Wit or Not to Wit: The Use of Humor in Psychotherapy”, Pennsylvania Psychologist 67,
no. 3, (2007a), 22ff.
32
Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World - How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), 9f.
9
usually suffers from it. Because either he fails in attaining what he wants, and suffers from that, or he
succeeds, and then, by becoming part of the new order, loses his complete freedom from restraint.
Helena Bassil-Morozow shows the trickster and his story to be alive and well in her book The
Trickster in Contemporary Film. It also starts by describing the character of the trickster as “a man
who feels trapped in his misfortunes”.33 As an example she holds up the Farrelly brothers Dumb and
Dumber where she goes on to describe the protagonists going on a quest. Just like Trickster, in the
beginning of the Winnebago Trickster Cycle, is unhappy with the customs and rules that surround him,
he rebels, he goes on the warpath, but in such a manner, that people perceive him as crazy, and refuse
to partake in his quest. 34
In the first chapter of The Trickster in Contemporary Film Helena Bassil-Morozow provides a detailed
analysis of the principal traits and qualities of the Trickster by drawing on film, literature, and world
myth. It’s a comparative-structuralist analysis of those qualities that also attempts to show their
meaning and/or function in the narratives. According to Bassil-Morozow “the trickster principle
defines the interaction between the world of instincts and the world of rational behavior; […] In other
words, it describes the pitfalls and heights of being human.”35
By applying the Jungian concept of individuation – the process of becoming oneself – together with
Arnold Van Gennep’s tripartite ‘rite of passage’ she explains the structure of trickster narratives – both
archaic and modern.36
It uses examples from among many others The Cable Guy (Ben Stiller, 1996), the Batman trio;
Batman, (Tim Burton, 1989) and Batman Returns (Tim Burton, 1992), and Batman Forever (Joel
Schumacher, 1995), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman, 1975), The Mask (Chuck
Russell, 1994), and the Dumb and Dumber (Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 1994) mentioned above.
She comes to the conclusion that tricksters share a number of “common qualities: they are foolish,
rebellious, asocial and anti-social, inconsistent, outrageous and self-contradictory. […] The trickster is
a shapeshifter, he is change personified.”37
33
Helena Bassil-Morozow, The Trickster in Contemporary Film (London: Routledge, 2011), 2.
34
Paul Radin, The Trickster - A study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books Inc.,
1972), 4ff.
35
Helena Bassil-Morozow, The Trickster in Contemporary Film (London: Routledge, 2011), 4.
36
Ibid., 5.
37
Ibid., 8.
10
She asserts that trickster challenges order by destabilizing it and that the ancient myths as well as the
modern films raises questions about “incest, excreta, menstruation and transvetism, [as well as…]
theft, forgery, deception, conmanship, [and] murder.”38 She comes to the conclusion that “tricksters
tend to be idiotically and naively brave in their denial of obstacles, constraints and limits, and in their
refusal to accept authority in all its forms – religious, political, metaphysical, social, scientific.”39
Helena Bassil-Morozow shows him to be an inventor, a bringer of knowledge, although most often as
a consequence of incompetence or mischief.
Helena Bassi-Morozow finds this arch for the structure by using Van Gennep’s “tripartite rite of
passage”. The narrative structure can be described through the three parts of “separation, transition and
incorporation”. It shows that trickster myths starts by something or someone disrupting the normal
state, on which a period of change takes over where normal rules are rendered mote, and finally it ends
with the incorporation of the new state into the old one, thus incorporating the changes in a new
relatively stable state.40
Helena Bassil-Morozow deconstructs the trickster narrative in film by dividing it into motifs that
“pertain to the structure of the narrative”.41
• Being
trapped
Regardless if it’s being chained to a stone like Prometheus, bound like Loki, or trapped in ones
surroundings in the modern world, this is something that trickster myths share.42
• Boundary-‐Crossing
38
Helena Bassil-Morozow, The Trickster in Contemporary Film (London: Routledge, 2011), 11.
39
Ibid., 11.
40
Ibid., 27.
41
Ibid., 38.
42
Ibid., 39.
11
Helena Bassil-Morozow comes to the conclusion that “trickster’s task in narratives is to drag
protagonists through a series of transformations, which involve pushing them over the threshold and
into the liminal zone”. She also comes to the conclusion that the boundary-crossing theme is
connected to trickster’s function as a psychopomp. Just like Lewis Hyde, she sees the universal
trickster characteristic of being able to walk between the land of the dead and the land of the living. It
is a theme that concerns death and rebirth.43
43
Helena Bassil-Morozow, 46-47; och 49.
44
Ibid., 52ff.
45
Ibid., 61.
46
Ibid., 64.
12
• “Scatological
references
and
Bodily
Functions”
These are the terms she uses in dealing with the common trickster motif of dirt, faeces, genital parts,
and so on.47
After studying both Hyde’s and Bassil-Morozow’s ideas about trickster and his tale I have come to the
conclusion that: The myth of the trickster is the story of a man trapped by, and incapable of, dealing
with the circumstances of his surroundings. Wishing to change his luck, he crosses a line and
undertakes a journey. The quest is a foolish one. During his travels he meets tricksters that trick him,
because he lacks the necessary knowledge to see through their deceptions, until he has learned
sufficiently to turn the con on his assailants, upheave the normal order of things, and be recognized as
the legendary fool he is. It is also in accord with the Winnebago Trickster Cycle.
The trickster is change, the random element, chaos. Regardless of whether you want to divide a
benevolent trickster type to trickster and define a malevolent change to the Jungian concept of the
Shadow, trickster is amoral, and like change he does not care what effect it has or what consequences
follow in its wake, it just is. If one asks trickster, one seems to get the same answer as Moses got in the
Old Testament when he asked God what he was: “I am what I am”. And at that moment God was a
talking, burning bush. Demonstrating the shape-shifting ability of said trickster.
Helena Bassil-Morozow also comes to the conclusion that the trickster is the animal human becoming
the idea of human and asserts him as being a culture-hero and as such his story is a “metaphor of
human development”.48
The development of trickster through the narrative is a story of an animal that is driven by his
impulses, troubled by them, he learns from them and can use them in dealing with the world rather
than being used by them and having the world deal with him.
Cleftness
What is a split? It is a question that needs to be addressed since a great deal of trickster myths have
two protagonists, doubles, are split within themselves, or are in fact twins. Claude Levi-Strauss also
47
Helena Bassil-Morozow, 73.
48
Ibid., 18f.
13
came to the conclusion that the split, doubling, and twins were universally recurring patterns in
myths.49
As is the case in the Winnebago Twin Cycle where the father of the trickster-pair kills their mother,
keeps one of the children and throws the other out into nature.50 Effectively trying to separate the
animal and the human, the good from the bad, is a recurring theme also in the myth of the Greek titan
Prometheus, and his brother Epimetheus, there names indicating their opposite relationship and
meaning, Fore- and Afterthought, in that order.51 And we can see that split in the contemporary film
by the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski (1998) where the protagonists Walter and the Dude comprise
“One of the strongest embodiments of the trickster archetype […] together they make up the
archetypical pair of fools”. As do Lloyd and Harry in Farrelly’s Dumb and Dumber (1994), and V and
Eve in Wachowski’s V for Vendetta (2006).52 I will refrain from commenting on the odd synchronicity
that pairs of siblings produced these examples.
Jim Carrey’s trickster in The Mask (1994) literally wears a mask made from wood of the tree that had
held the spirit of Loki. This too, can be seen as a doubling or split, but of the individual, resulting in
two different personalities.
The meaning of this has been heavily debated but for my own purposes it poses another problem. How
can I construct a structure if I don’t know whether I have two protagonists or one?
I have decided view the doubles as one. Regardless if it is the physical separation of two bodies, as in
the Twin cycle, the separation of fore- and afterthought in Prometheus and Epimetheus, Lloyd and
Harry, or if the split resides in one character alone as in the division between Stanley Ipkiss and Loki
in Jim Carrey’s The Mask (1994), the split is in itself the mark of the trickster. That is why twins or
hare-lips are considered magical in some cultures.53 According to Helena Bassil-Morozow “the
trickster principle defines the interaction between the world of instincts and the world of rational
behaviour”.54
49
Claude Lévi-Strauss, 25-33.
50
Paul Radin, 120.
51
Lewis Hyde, 356.
52
William A., Ashton, "Deception and Detection: the Trickster Archetype in the Film, The Big Lebowski,
and its Cult Following”, Trickster's Way: Vol. 5 (2009): Iss. 1, Article 5, 7.
53
Claude Lévi-Strauss, 25-33.
54
Helena Bassil-Morozow, 4.
14
The split is trickster’s mark. It is in itself a characteristic of trickster. I presume one protagonist as long
as the protagonist has a split, a physical one, one within himself, or with society at large. The trickster
can be internal or external. The discerning characteristic is the power of transformation.
Seeing that differing subjects are considered taboo, depending on time and place, the idea of a
universal trickster myth might seem ludicrous. But if one takes the extreme universalist view, “dirt” or
“matter out of place”56 as Lewis Hyde would call it, and what Helena Bassill-Morozow would call
“scatological references”, “bodily functions”, and “licentiousness”57, they can all be labeled as smut. I
refrain from using the term smut and instead use Hyde’s and Bassil-Morozow’ terms interchangeably.
Based on Claude Lévy Strauss’ idea that something that recurs everywhere in every time cannot be a
coincidence – I think it obvious that the trickster character can and do exist in monotheistic societies
and in polytheistic, as well as in our own secular globalized world.58
The United States and Hollywood being one such society and also the biggest producer of modern
myths for the last hundred years. Also it seems as if though trickster fills the same function in modern
society as he/she/it has done in others. Trickster does not need sacred context in a secular world. The
only thing that is needed is ritual. And film can be viewed as a ritualized context. Watching film,
especially in a movie theater, has ritual overtones. There are do’s and don’ts. Furthermore – if you
label a film a comedy – you have told the audience what rules apply. In other words you have
55
Brown, D.E., Human Universals, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991), 435-439.
56
Lewis Hyde, 173.
57
Helena Bassil-Morozow, 73; and 64.
58
Ibid., 26.
15
explained, by for instance labeling it as a comedy, that the right response to the transgression of social
taboos depicted in the film, should be laughter.
So, is there a difference between the trickster myths of primitive society and monotheistic/modern
societies? My theory is that the trickster is used as a cautionary tale in any society. The difference lies
in what you fill the form with, rather than the form itself. The trickster has a license, even an
obligation, to break the rules. Successfully breaking a taboo in this context means not only
transgressing a social rule or norm but also to point out the absurdity and/or folly of the rule thus
effecting a rule-change.
A Universal Myth
The critique of universalism is basically that if there is not sufficient evidence underlying the
observation – it becomes meaningless. In this I agree. But even if the idea of the mono-myth is
fundamentally untrue – in that it is not a structure of mind – the teaching of it – and the idea of it – is
out there, being believed in and applied – so even if it does not exist – then at least it is continually
coming into existence.
Hollywood is producing for a global market, so it has a vested interest in both reaching out to as many
different cultural groups as possible. By drawing on the cultural heritage of as many markets as
possible, and homogenizing the world into one coherent mythological langue, they are continually
looking for the lowest common denominators. This is why they hold focus groups and pre-screenings,
and why Joseph Campbell’s theory of the mono-myth, while discarded by the scientific community, is
embraced by screen-writers and work-shops on screen-writing.
But disregarding the mono-myth I look instead on Lord Raglans definition of the hero in The Hero – a
Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama. At least its a point of reference one can relate differing Hero-
myths to, and, unlike the mono-myth, it has underlying observations. Lord Raglan took the myth of the
hero, from different times, places, and cultures, and discovered what he labelled “a pattern” by
concentrating on recurring themes and events in the different myths.59 The myth that scored the
highest points on the hero-scale was Oedipus.
He goes on to match the different hero stories to the pattern to see how well they correspond to it.
Theseus scores 20 points, Jesus scores 19 points60, and so on. “It is with the uniform of the heroes and
59
Lord Raglan, 174-175.
60
By my own count.
16
not with their outfitters that I am at present concerned”, as Lord Raglan stated before presenting his
pattern.61
“Myth is a type of speech. Of course, it is not any type: language needs special conditions in order to
become myth: […] This allows one to perceive that myth cannot possibly be an object, a concept, or
an idea; it is a mode of signification, a form.”62 Within the word uniform the word form is hidden. It is
with form I am concerned. And form is based on action-reaction, or, as seems more common in native
American trickster mythology; reaction-action. By using Paul Radin’s pattern for the Winnebago
Trickster Cycle, and comparing it with studies on Trickster in other cultures and within other fields of
study, I hope to compile a similar “pattern” which I will refer to as “structure” for Trickster myths.
The beauty of the Hero-pattern is that a myth does not have to score full points to qualify – it simply
relates events that it can contain. Paul Radin compilation of trickster myths of native American
mythology charts plot-points as chapter descriptions.
I have taken the Winnebago Trickster Cycle of Paul Radin as basis for a model structure for the
universal trickster myth. I have attempted to generalize from specific act, or a group/series of acts, to
find the general idea behind them. By converting the plot-points into general statements I have tried to
avoid getting stuck in details and differences. I use Lewis Hyde’s ideas of the tricksters general traits
and Helena Bassil-Morozow’ ideas about what defines a trickster and the motifs that make up the
structure of a trickster narrative as filters to find the lowest common denominators.
This leaves a list of general statements that describe the narrative. The 49-point list compiled by Radin
can be found in Appendices. So to goes for Lord Raglan’s Hero-scale and the Winnebago twin cycle.
I have added one plot point that I couldn’t readily extract from the Winnebago Trickster Cycle. Point
(9), synchronistic to the ninth point in Lord Raglan’s scale. Here I place his powers as a psychopomp,
they seemed lacking in the Winnebago cycle but can be found in other stories of tricksters in
Winnebago literature and Helena Bassil-Morozow, Lewis Hyde as well as Jung agrees on it as a trait.63
It should also be mentioned that a trickster myth by no means has to be a comedy, it does not. I have
simply chosen these films since others confirm them as trickster myths and because the Winnebago
Trickster Cycle is a comedy. As for so many of them being twin trickster myths I refer to the previous
sentence and the chapter on Cleftness presented earlier in this essay.
61
Lord Raglan, 174f.
62
Roland Barthes, Mythologies, transl., Annette Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang, 1984), 1.
63
Paul Radin, 90.
17
There is also a problem of chronology. A pattern that evolves seems to be that the trickster myth is like
a synecdoche. Each chance encounter is like a small version of the whole. The main story is that the
trickster is incapable of dealing with his situation; he feels trapped, and breaks taboos to get out but
since he lacks knowledge he doesn’t really know what he wants and gets fooled until he learns.
Everyone he meets by chance is another trickster, and he must be duped by them, learn from his folly,
and turn the trick on them in order to succeed or survive. The characters he meets are representatives
of the orders of this world and by learning from their tricks he turns the con on them, fooling them
and/or overturning them in turn.
1. Trickster
feels
trapped
by
circumstance
(social
environment
and/or
the
nature).
In
his
trap
he
breaks
taboos,
by
being
inept,
displaying
incompetence
or
lack
of
knowledge
and
can’t
abide
by
the
rules
and/or
laws
that
govern
the
space
he’s
in.
He
decides
to
undertake
a
journey
or
go
on
a
quest.
It
is
a
hopeless
mission,
a
fool’s
errand,
and
recognized
as
such.
In
doing
so
he
takes
on
responsibility
but
it
is
the
responsibility
of
his
own
folly.
2. He
undertakes
the
journey,
which
will
lead
him
to
unknown
territory
where
he
encounters
people
and/or
animals
in
situations
unknown
to
him;
he
will
fail
in
most
of
his
doings
and
learn
from
them.
He
is
still
trapped
by
his
own
nature
and
driven
by
it
to
invention
of
trickery.
It
is
his
misguided
ambitions,
his
poor
control
of
himself
and
his
desires,
that
will
lead
him
into
situations
where
his
lack
of
control
continually
makes
him
fail
or
himself
become
duped.
His
body
is
behaving
strangely
through
the
ordeals.
3. Trickster
takes
on
responsibility
that
he
will
ultimately
fail
to
keep
and
he
is
chased
by
the
wronged
party
and
gets
lost.
4. While
lost
trickster
performs
act
of
pointless
stupidity
that
leads
to
insight
about
self.
He
competes
in
pointless
exercises
that
amount
to
nothing.
Against
nature,
or
against
people/creatures
he
meets
and
they
usually
outwit
him.
In
attaining
nothing
the
trickster
gains
insight.
This
mode
of
storytelling
will
repeat
itself
throughout
the
narrative.
Others
often
fool
trickster
through
his
own
stupidity/incompetence/ambition
–
they
are
connected
since
his
ambitions
are
follies
–
but
when
he
discovers
this
he
turns
the
trick
into
his
own
and
uses
it
to
dupe
18
others.
Also,
all
of
his
chance
encounters
are
with
other
tricksters
and
they
might
be
animals,
monsters
and/or
creatures
that
are
not
human.
5. Tries
to
satisfy
his
base
nature
by
trickery/trance
and
gets
others
to
lose
control
but
is
himself
tricked
of
the
spoils
because
of
loss
of
control.
He
can’t
control
the
situation
he
has
created.
The
situation
may
involve
animals.
6. Trickster
is
plagued
by
bodily
functions
and
performs
scatological
reference
in
order
to
attain
control
but
he
fails
since
he
can’t
understand
his
own
nature.
7. He
performs
one
or
several
failed
acts
of
uncontrolled
libido.
8.
Trickster
performs
a
ludicrous
and
impossible
act,
which
ultimately
gets
him
into
trouble
with
foe,
which
he
then
gets
out
of
through
trickery/deception.
9. Shows
proficiency
in
dealing
with
death,
either
by
communicating
with
the
dead
or
by
handling
of
the
dead,
which
includes
ghosts
and
the
undead.
10. Trickster
changes
sex
and/or
shape
and
performs
acts
of
gender
bending
usually
involving
deceit
of
others
to
attain
his
own
goals.
11. Trickster
has
a
scatological
episode
in
which
he
is
sullied
and
performs
dirt
work.
12. Fooled
by
a
deception,
he
uses
what
he
has
learned
to
use
the
trick
to
trick
others.
But
he
loses
the
spoils
of
his
con
and
is
trapped
once
again
by
circumstance.
13. After
being
trapped
by
social
environment,
in
another
plane,
physically
he
once
again
deceives
people
into
helping
him
get
out
of
the
trap
but
this
time
he
rewards
those
who
help
him
and
give
them
magical
gifts
and/or
inventions.
14. Trickster
then
decides
to
exact
revenge
and/or
finish
the
mission
on
foe
for
earlier
troubles
and
this
time
he
uses
scatological
reference
and/or
bodily
function
to
his
advantage
and
he
succeeds
but
15. In
his
victory
he
goes
too
far
16. And
loses
spoils
to
new
adversary
who
outwits
him
17. Which
leads
to
trickster
chasing
new
adversary
but
to
no
avail
and
trickster
gets
lost
and/or
trapped
and:
18. Has
a
libidinous
adventure
which
ends
in
emasculation
and/or
curbing
of
sex
drive
19. But
the
curbing
or
the
attainment
of
control
of
“licentious
libido”
has
beneficial
effects
and
leads
to
fruits
of
labour.
20. Trickster
(is
led
to
a
sanctuary
and/or
civilization
and)
learns
what
he
needs
to
know
to
get
what
he
wants,
(and
maybe
find
out
what
he
really
wants)
19
21. And
in
attaining
knowledge
he
uses
it
to
exact
revenge
on
adversary
with
scatological
reference
and/or
bodily
function
and
in
so
doing
upheaves
the
former
social
orders
and/or
nature
of
things,
which
adversary
has
been
representative
of,
and
bestows
gifts
on
all
mankind
by
reshaping
nature
and/or
social
order
to
better
suit
all.
22. Is
recognized
and
the
troublesome
part
of
him
is
banished,
symbolically
killed
or
killed.
20
Results of applied analysis
Below are listed the results from applying the pattern to four movies. I have chosen Jack Black’s Year
One (2009) as my own example of a modern trickster myth. It is a clear moral twin trickster myth that
display many of the lowest common denominators discussed above in the essay. I have then admitted
two of the films Helena Bassil-Morozow uses as examples of modern trickster myths, Farrely’s Dumb
and Dumber (1994) and Jim Carrey’s The Mask (1994). I especially wanted to include the mask since
it is the only one of the films that isn’t a twin trickster myth where the mark of the trickster is so
clearly expressed in the internal split between Stanley Ipkiss and The Mask. The Coen brothers The
Big Lebowski (1998) might seem the odd one out in comparison but is if scrutinized not only an
excellent example of what is written above but also asserted to be a trickster myth by a separate
study.64
Scores 19/2265
Scores 17/2266
Scores 18/2267
Scores 20/2268
64
William A., Ashton, 7.
65
Appendix 4
66
Appendix 5
67
Appendix 6
68
Appendix 7
21
Conclusion
There are obviously too few observations to make any claim to a universal pattern for the trickster
myth. But as I set out on a fool’s errand I deserve nothing but a fool’s reward.
Still the pattern works as a filter applied to the content of study. All the films contained almost all the
plot devices and used them repetitiously. And I believe that with more observations and adjustments
to the list it could amount to, if not a universal one, then at least a lowest-common-denominator
trickster myth. I don’t think it would be useful as a tool for understanding trickster myths but it might
be a tool for identifying them and measuring their trickster-mythness.
There is a problem with chronology regardless of amount of observations. Even though I managed to
get his clothes off I think I might have undressed him in the wrong order and that makes it impossible
to recreate the dress. What is clear to me after performing this exercise on a few films is that the
incidences can start independently of each other and span out over several other events and/or each
other. If one were to expand on the idea it would be better to use more archaic trickster myths than just
the Winnebago Trickster Cycle. Generalize as many as possible and weed out the lowest common
denominators, and then testing it against more modern expressions. So more observations are needed,
both in the back- and the foreground. Regardless, the theoretical discussion provided much more
insight than the pattern itself I think. There is obviously a problem with universalism.
The trickster myth deserves something better than a plot point summary robbed of its details and
specifics. But I set out to find a form, not meaning, and a suit does not have a soul.
But even as a suit, it desperately needs both adjustments and a lining. But that will have to be the
object of another study.
I also regret using only comedies. I don’t think I would have gotten a better result, the observations
would still have been too few, but maybe some other insight.
And I don’t believe it needs to be a comedy, after all, a joke is nothing but a familiar premise – with an
unexpected outcome.
After performing this stupid and pointless exercise I feel even stronger than before that the trickster
myth has at least one recurring pattern. And that is the synecdoche. The arch of the trickster myths are
repeated in the events that trickster encounters on his journey. He is deceived and deceives until he
attains sufficient knowledge to master the situation.
For myself, I have not yet done so, but I hope to have served as a bad example, at least, of what not to
do.
22
Reference List:
Ashton, William A.. “Deception and Detection: the Trickster Archetype in the Film, The Big
Lebowski, and its Cult Following”. Trickster's Way: Vol. 5 (2009): Iss.1, Article 5.
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Translated by Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang, 1984.
Gordon, R.M. “To Wit or Not to Wit: The Use of Humor in Psychotherapy”, Pennsylvania
Psychologist 67, no. 3, 2007.
Hyde, Lewis. Trickster makes this world - how disruptive imagination creates culture. New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Jung, C.G.. On the psychology of the trickster figure. Translated by Paul Radin. New York:
Schocken Books Inc., 1972.
Lévi-Strauss , Claude. Myth and Meaning - Cracking the Code of Culture. New York: Schocken
Books, 1979.
Radin, Paul. The Trickster - A study in American Indian Mythology. New York: Schocken Books Inc.
1972.
Raglan, Lord. The Hero - A study in tradition, myth and drama. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1936.
23
Appendix 1
Lord Raglan’s Hero-scale
24
Appendix 2
Winnebago Trickster Cycle as compiled by Paul Radin, with my commentary in parenthesis.
1. Trickster
cohabits
with
woman
before
war
party
(breaking
taboo)
2. Trickster
wishes
to
go
on
warpath
alone
(taboo
–
in
that
it
is
both
impossible
and
crazy)
3. Trickster
discourages
his
followers
from
accompanying
him
on
warpath
(By
throwing
sacred
warbundle
and
and
arrows
into
the
ground
and
stepping
on
them.
He
claims
that
he
alone
can
go
to
war
–
and
that
nobody
else
can
–
not
even
his
weapons
can
accompany
him.
This
is
of
course
folly
–
and
those
that
he
hasn’t
succeeded
in
discouraging
leaves
at
this
point.
This
to
would
constitute
breaking
a
taboo.)
4. Trickster
kills
buffalo
(Driven
by
hunger,
as
Lewis
Hyde
would
point
out,
trickster
kills
Buffalo.
Since
he
has
thrown
away
his
weapons
he
is
forced
to
use
trickery.
This
trick
used
to
kill
the
Buffalo
is
a
reassertion
of
the
Winnebago
preferred
way.
Thus,
trickery
that
inspires
new
rules.
This
could
be
seen
as
his
hunger
forces
him
to
think.
Also:
it’s
trickery.)
5. Trickster
makes
his
right
arm
fight
his
left
arm.
(Folly)
6. Trickster
borrows
two
children
from
his
younger
brother.
(Takes
on
responsibility)
7. Children
die
because
trickster
breaks
rules.
(Fails
to
keep
responsibility)
8. Father
of
children
pursues
Trickster.
(being
chased
for
failing
with
his
responsibility)
9. Trickster
swims
in
ocean
inquiring
where
shore
is.
10. Trickster
chases
fish.
11. Trickster
mimics
man
pointing.
(In
fact
–
it
is
a
tree-‐stub
that
Trickster
mistakes
for
a
man
and
decides
to
compete
with
in
pointing.
So
not
only
does
he
not
se
the
world
for
what
it
is
–
he
competes
in
pointless
exercises
that
amount
to
nothing
–
it
is
also
here
that
he
understands
why
they
call
him
the
foolish
one.
So
in
short
folly
that
leads
to
insight
into
self)
12. Dancing
ducks
and
talking
anus.
13. Foxes
eat
roasted
ducks.
14. Trickster
burns
anus
and
eats
his
own
intestines.
(Learns
to
control
hunger?)
15. Penis
placed
in
a
box.
(sexuality)
16. Penis
sent
across
water
(Trickster
rapes
a
chiefs
daughter
but
is
foiled
by
a
witch
and
is
not
able
to
complete
the
intercourse)
25
17. Trickster
carried
by
a
giant
bird.
(Wants
to
be
able
to
fly
and
tricks
bird
to
carrying
him.)
18. Women
rescue
trickster
(The
bird
gets
rid
of
trickster
by
dropping
him
into
a
tree
but
women
cut
down
the
tree
because
trickster
deceives
them
into
believing
that
there
is
a
big
racoon
in
the
tree.)
19. Trickster
and
companions
decide
where
to
live.
(find
a
place
to
dwell)
20. Changed
into
a
woman,
trickster
marries
chiefs
son
(cross-‐dressing
or
as
I
prefer
to
call
it,
gender-‐bending.)
21. Last
child
of
union
cries
and
is
pacified.
(Jesting
power
–
the
chiefs
son
cries
for
impossible
things
to
play
with
–
and
has
to
be
placated.
Radin
assures
us
that
this
is
an
irony.
In
that
case
this
is
making
light
of
power
and
status.)
22. Trickster
visits
wife
and
son.
(Equating
taking
on
responsibility
with
trouble.)
23. Trickster
and
the
laxative
bulb
(excrement)
24. Trickster
falls
in
in
his
own
excrement
(excrement)
25. Trees
mislead
trickster
in
finding
water.
(disharmony
with
nature)
26. Trickster
mistakes
plums
reflected
in
water
for
plums
on
tree.
(mislead
by
hunger
–
mistrust
of
senses.)
27. Mother
seeks
plums
while
Trickster
eats
children
(Trickery.
(I
see
a
pattern
here,
or
at
least
a
mode
of
storytelling.
That
is
that
trickster
is
often
fooled
by
his
own
stupidity
but
when
he
discovers
this
he
turns
it
into
his
own
con
and
uses
the
what
he
has
learned
to
fool
others.))
28. Skunk
persuaded
by
Trickster
to
dig
hole
through
hill.
29. Mothers
lured
in
hole
by
Trickster
and
eaten.
(Hunger,
but
they
don’t
get
eaten.
What
happens
is
listed
below.)
30. Tree
teases
trickster
who
gets
held
fast
in
fork.
31. Wolves
come
and
eat
Trickster’s
food
under
tree.
(He
gets
foiled
of
his
spoils.)
32. Flies
in
elk’s
skull
lure
Trickster,
who
gets
caught
in
elk’s
skull.
(Tricked
by
nature.
It
has
to
do
with
dancing
and
singing.)
33. People
split
elk’s
skull
off.
(After
being
tricked
into
freeing
Trickster
–
he
bestows
them
with
the
remains
of
the
elk’s
skull
which
has
medicinal
powers
–
it’s
the
old
hero
bestows
boon
on
fellow
man
from
Campbell’s
monomyth-‐theory.)
26
34. Trickster
changes
self
into
deer
to
take
revenge
on
hawk.
(He
catches
hawk
by
luring
him
into
his
rectum
and
then
clench
hawks
neck
so
that
he
can’t
get
loose.)
35. Bear
lured
to
death
by
trickster
(Trickster
uses
his
new
tail
–
the
hawk
lodged
in
his
anus
–
to
get
into
bears
anus
and
kill
him.)
36. Mink
outwits
Trickster
and
gets
bear
meat.
(Here
trickster
first
actually
tries
to
be
nice
and
invites
mink
,
but,
letting
his
hunger
get
the
better
of
him,
challenges
mink
for
a
race
over
the
food,
which
he
loses.)
37. Trickster
pursues
mink
in
vain.
38. Chipmunk
causes
trickster
to
lose
part
of
his
penis.
39. Discarded
pieces
of
penis
thrown
into
lake
and
turn
into
plants.
(restrained
sexuality
turning
into
fruits
of
labour?)
40. Coyote
leads
Trickster
to
village.
41. Trickster
imitates
muskrat
who
turns
ice
into
lily-‐of-‐the-‐valley
roots.
42. Trickster
imitates
snipe’s
method
of
fishing.
43. Trickster
imitates
woodpecker’s
way
of
getting
bear.
44. Trickster
imitates
pole-‐cat
in
getting
deer.
45. Mink
soils
chief’s
daughter
as
Trickster
planned.
(Here
Trickster
exacts
revenge
on
mink
for
fooling
him
earlier
–
he
does
this
by
giving
mink
a
laxative
which
causes
him
to
defecate
while
courting
the
chief’s
daughter.
This
is
in
other
words
trickery
that
leads
to
scatology
and
embarrassment
for
his
old
foe.)
46. Coyote
is
being
duped
into
being
tied
to
a
horse’s
tail.
(Tricks
an
old
foe)
47. Trickster
removes
obstacles
on
the
Mississippi.
(Changes
nature
to
mans
benefit)
48. Waterfall
is
forced
to
fall
on
land
by
trickster.
(Changes
nature
for
mans
benefit)
49. Trickster
eats
final
meal
on
earth
and
retires
to
heaven.
27
Appendix 3
Winnebago Twin cycle
28
Appendix 4
(1) Zed is the least competent hunter and Oh is the most incompetent gatherer in a harmonious, apart
from the pair who are marked as different, pre-historic society. They are shown as incompetent and/or
different by failing to hunt, failing at getting the women they want, failing at displays of masculinity.
Zed eats from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil thus breaking a tribe taboo, the shaman and
Marlak, the head hunter, banish him from the tribe. Zed claims to have the power of knowledge of
good and evil, also he decides to travel beyond the end of the world. After Zed burns down the village
by accident Oh decides to go with Zed on his journey to discover what the world has to offer.
(2) (3) (5) (6) Trickster encounter Cain and Abel through a failed attempt at hunting. Cain kills Abel
and dupes Zed and Oh that they must escape with him or else be accused of killing Abel. Failing to
keep responsibility of knowing good from evil, by aiding Cain in concealing Abel’s body.
(7) Afterwards, Zed and Oh find that their failed love interests from their former tribe have been
captured and are being sold into slavery. (5) They try to buy the girls' freedom, but get tricked by Cain
who ends up selling Zed and Oh.
(5 cont.) Sodomites attack and take the slaves prisoner. Zed and Oh escape. And decide to rescue the
girls.
(8) While seeking their love interests they come to a mountain and find Abraham about to kill his son
Isaac. Zed stops them, claiming that the Lord sent him to do so.
Zed and Oh head off for Sodom after Abraham threatens to circumcise them.
(10) They are captured in Sodom and has a near sex reversal situation. But Cain saves them from
being sodomized. Not of own accord, trickster reminds him that they know his secret – that he killed
Abel.
The two were sold by Cain as slaves but Cain apologizes and offers them food. They become guards.
They see the princess. The princess invites Zed to a meet. (7) He wants intercourse – she wants to
overturn higher orders.
(7) Inside the palace, Zed sees love interests serving as slaves. (10) Oh is shape-shifted into effeminate
golden statue and forced to follow the very effeminate and has gender-bending adventure.
(1) Princess asks Zed to enter the Holy of Holies, and tell her what it is like, thinking that Zed is the
"Chosen One." Inside the temple, Zed encounters Oh, who is hiding from the high priest who has
sodomized him (10). There, they get into an argument and are then imprisoned for going inside the
29
temple. While imprisoned Oh has a scatological episode (11), he pees in his hair hanging upside down,
and Zed discovers (invention) that piss is good for the hair (13).
(12) The two are sentenced to be stoned to death but Zed gets the people on his side as the chosen one
but loses control of the situation and they are sentenced to hard labor until they die from work.
The king then announces that he will be sacrificing his daughter and two virgins (love interests) as a
gift to the gods.
(13) Zed interrupts the ceremony, claiming he is the "Chosen One” (20)(21).
(14) A riot starts. (18) Oh saves love interest. Oh and loveinterest lay with each other inside the
palace, which not only consummates their relationship, but also means that love interest cannot be
sacrificed. (19) They then come out to help (15)(16) Zed fight the soldiers (including Cain). The
crowd kills all the leaders and proclaim (22) Zed as the Leader being the "Chosen One", invents
clapping, brings rain, invents individualism. (22) Zed turns this down, letting The Princess rule, and
leaves this world (to go to Egypt). (22) Oh becomes the leader of the village where the whole
adventure started and is recognized as smartest man in village.
The only real point that is missing is (9). (4) runs through-out and is represented in a number of
instances leading up to the show-down in the Holy of Holies, and (17) can also be found in any of the
pointless chase scenes that occur during the brouhaha from the revolt and onwards. Jack Black’s Year
One (2009) scores between 19 and 21 points.
30
Appendix 5
(1) Lloyd Christmas is an incompetent limo-driver. His passenger, Mary, becomes his Prime love
interest on her way to the airport. Prime love interest intentionally leaves a briefcase in the airport
terminal. It is ransom money for her kidnapped husband. Lloyd, lacking this knowledge, rushes in and
grabs the case thinking she has accidentally left it.
(1) Lloyd's buddy, Harry Dunne (together they are trickster), is an incompetent pet groomer who
drives a van converted into what looks like a dog.
(2) Lloyd convinces Harry to break out of their loveless, and luckless, lives and drive to Aspen to find
Prime love interest and return the briefcase. On their trail are two foes, those thwarted by Lloyd’s
stupidity at the airport. One of the foes has an ulcer.
(3) Leaving on their journey in the huge dog-like vehicle Harry and Lloyd stop at a roadside diner
where Harry offends a redneck by accident. After a confrontation Lloyd offers to buy redneck and his
friends a round of beers, but then trick them into paying for their meals.
(6) Lloyd pees into empty beer bottles in the vehicle. They are pulled over by a motorcycle cop who
mistakes bottles for alcohol and drinking the pee he gets so outraged that he chases them off.
(4) Foe catches up with them and deceives them into giving him a lift. He intends to find out what they
know and kill them. At roadside restaurant, "Dante’s Inferno", the three men engage in trickery with
chili-fruit. Foes ulcer and Lloyd tries to cure him with the rat-poison pills Foe has intended to use on
Lloyd and Harry. Foe dies.
(7) Later, at a gas station, Harry meets a love interest, while (10) Lloyd is having a gender-bending
type situation with original tricked redneck. (11) Harry sets his foot on fire and runs into the bathroom
and in an act of scatological reference, he puts out the flames on his foot in the toilet while
simultaneously knocking out red-neck and accidentally saving Lloyd from homosexual rape.
(13) They get lost. They have no money. They have no gas. They argue. They split up.
(13 cont.) Lloyd returns riding a mini-bike, he has performed the “selling the dead bird trick” again
but this time he has given a magical gift to the kid “in town” in the form of a dog-like van.
(14) During a stupid fight the briefcase opens revealing a large amount of cash inside. They receive
the spoils but write I.O.U.’s for the spent money.
(14) (15) They check into an expensive hotel. Purchase a Lamborghini Diablo. They get full-body
31
makeovers.
(7) (16) In order to attend a society function hosted by Prime love interest. They wear candy-colored
tuxedos. They quarrel over her interest. Neither one gets her but this is ongoing from now til end.
(6) (11) Lloyd puts laxatives in Harry's drink to foil attempt at getting Prime love interest. He has
diarrhea and his plans with Prime love interest are foiled. He is delayed back to the hotel where he
meets secondary love interest. (20) She has information for him. But this is off-camera.
Show-down in their hotel room. Prime love interest comes to claim the briefcase from Lloyd. Tells
him she’s married (18) Main adversary enters with gun. Lloyd and Harry quarrel over Prime love
interest. They are both out of luck. (19) The FBI shows up in the nick of time to save the day with (21)
secondary love interest who is also undercover Fed.
The final scene shows Lloyd and Harry on the road walking back home. They are banished. A busload
of bikini-clad girls pulls up beside them. They mindlessly decline an offer to join the girls on their
bikini tour as "oil boys". Can be seen as turning down heaven for not recognizing it.
They wander on.
32
Appendix 6
(1) Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski returns home to be assaulted by two thugs who has confused him for
another Lebowski. After beating him and urinating on his rug, they realize they are looking for a
different person with the same name, and they leave. (2) Walter Sobchak, his friend and bowling
teammate, insists The Dude to seek compensation for the rug from the other Jeffrey Lebowski.
Lebowski, a millionaire, refuses The Dude's request. Labels The Dude as outcast. The Dude steals a
carpet by trickery.
(7) The Dude meets Bunny Lebowski, the other Lebowski's young and promiscuous trophy wife,
while leaving.
(3) Other Lebowski contacts The Dude. Bunny has been kidnapped. He wants The Dude deliver the
million-dollar ransom.
(6) New thugs enter The Dude's apartment, knock him unconscious, and steal his new rug.
(6) (8) When Bunny's kidnappers call to arrange the ransom exchange, Walter tries to convince The
Dude to keep the money and give the kidnappers a briefcase filled with dirty underwear.
(12) Trickster is left with real suitcase. Later that night, The Dude's car is stolen, along with the
briefcase filled with money.
(13) The Dude visits other Lebowski's daughter, Maude, at her art studio. He learns that Bunny is a
porn star working for Jackie Treehorn and that she believes Bunny faked her own kidnapping.
(14) She asks The Dude to recover the ransom, as her father had withdrawn it illegally from charity.
(15) Other Lebowski confronts The Dude over the missing ransom money. He shows The Dude a
severed toe that he claims belongs to Bunny.
(16) (17) The Dude receives a message that his car has been found. Mid-message, three German
nihilists invade the Dude's apartment, identifying themselves as the kidnappers. They interrogate and
threaten him for the ransom money.
(18) (7) The Dude returns to Maude's studio, he learns the German nihilists are Bunny's friends.
(4) (5) The Dude gets his car back after scatological reference. He and Walter track down the
supposed thief, a boy. Their confrontation with boy is a pointless act of stupidity, and the pair leave
without getting any money or information.
33
(12) Jackie Treehorn's thugs take The Dude to Treehorn. Treehorn inquires about the whereabouts of
Bunny, the money. He promises the Dude a cut. Treehorn then tricks The Dude and poisons him.
The Dude is arrested and is then placed in front of the police chief of Malibu. The police chief
physically assaults The Dude and he banishes the Dude from Malibu.
(18) (19) The Dude meets Maude Lebowski, who seduces him.
He learns that her father has no money of his own. Maude's late mother was the rich one. She left her
money to the family charity.
(20) The Dude understands what has happened which overturns the situation. Other Lebowski heard
that Bunny was kidnapped and used it as a pretense for embezzlement. He stole the ransom from the
family charity. He gave the Dude an empty briefcase to trick him into being the fall guy.
Bunny took an unannounced vacation. And the nihilists invented the kidnapping in order to get money
from other Lebowski.
(21) The Dude and Walter arrive at other Lebowski. Bunny is back at home, alive and with all toes
intact. They confront Lebowski who confesses. Walter physically assaults him.
(21) But it’s not the end as they are attacked by the nihilists. They once again demand the million
dollars. They illuminate the nihilists about there being no money. Walter uses excessive force to save
them but their friend Donny has a heart attack and dies.
Walter and The Dude go to a cliff overlooking a beach to scatter Donny's ashes. After a ceremony
which Walter turns into pointless act of stupidity. Walter accidentally covers The Dude with Donny's
ashes. The Dude accuses Walter of turning everything into "a travesty". Unfazed, Walter suggests,
"Fuck it, Dude. Let's go bowling." (22) And they are once again banished to whence they came.
18/22
34
Appendix 7
(1) Stanley Ipkiss, a bank clerk that is a shy, luckless romantic who is regularly bullied by nearly
everyone around him. (His boss, his landlady, and car mechanics.) His only friends are his dog Milo,
connection to animals and possibly representation of animal within, and his co-worker Charlie.
Meanwhile, gangster Dorian Tyrell runs the Coco Bongo nightclub while plotting to overthrow his
boss Niko. (7) Tyrell sends his singer girlfriend Tina into the bank where Stanley works with a hidden
camera, in preparation to rob the bank.
Later that night after being denied entrance to the Coco Bongo, his car breaks down on a bridge. In the
water below he finds a mysterious wooden mask.
(2) He takes the mask home and puts it on (10). (4) The mask transforms him into a "The Mask", a
trickster with the powers of Loki, his body seems able to do anything and he has none of (5) Stanley’s
personal inhibitions. (6) The mask exacts comical revenge on some of Stanley's tormentors: landlady
and car mechanics. Also at a street gang that attempts to mug him.
(3) The next morning, Stanley encounters world-weary Edge City detective Lieutenant Callaway, who
represents the responsibility to be lawful, and newspaper reporter Peggy, who represents the
responsibility to be nice. Both of whom are investigating/chasing the Mask because of activities of the
previous night.
(5) Despite these threats, the temptation to again use the mask is overwhelming and he puts it back on
that evening (10). Needing money to attend Tina's performance at the Coco Bongo, the Mask noisily
interrupts Tyrell's bank robbery and steals the targeted money exacting revenge on his boss in the
process (8).
(7) (5) The Mask buys entry into the Coco Bongo, where he performs acts of licentious libido, as
Helena Bassil-Morozow would term it, and hypnotical dancing/ “loss of control”, with Tina, in front
of the guests at Tyrell’s club.
(12) Tyrell violently asks who was responsible for thwarting the bank robbery and thug points to the
Mask who is on the dance floor.
Tyrell chases/confronts The Mask. In the kerfuffle Mask gets piece of tie shot off, which transforms
back into Stanley's distinctive pajamas, thus leaving evidence of his being there on the scene.
The Mask escapes. Lt. Callaway arrests Tyrell for the bank robbery. (Callaway also finds the pajama
evidence).
35
(13) Callaway confronts Stanley at his apartment.
Stanley consults an expert on masks who tells him that the object is a depiction of Loki, the Norse god
of darkness and mischief.
(14) Stanley stands up to his boss and arranges for Tina to meet the Mask at the Park. (15) The
meeting goes badly when the Mask's advances scare Tina away. Lt. Callaway arrives and attempts to
arrest him. The Mask thwart their attempt at arresting him and tricks the entire police force into
joining him in a musical mass-hysteria/loss of control.
Stanley manages to get the mask off and Peggy helps him escape. (16) (17) (18) She then betrays him
to Tyrell for money.
Tyrell steals the mask and usurp Stanley’s powers. He becomes a monster. Stanley is dumped in
Callaway's lap as a decoy/fall guy.
(19)Tina visits Stanley in his cell (20). He tells her to flee the city. Tina thanks Stanley for treating her
like a person rather than a trophy. And he learns that she fell for the man behind The Mask, and not
the mask itself .
She attempts to leave the city but Tyrell catches her. She becomes Tyrell’s hostage at his raiding of
head gangster Niko’s charity ball at the Coco Bongo. “Everyone that’s anyone is there” type of
situation.
Monster Tyrell kills Niko in a gunfight. He then goes on to destroy both the club and kill Tina.
(21) Milo helps Stanley break out of his cell and they go to the club to stop Tyrell. Lt. Callaway goes
along with him under gunpoint as his hostage.
Stanley is spotted by thug and captured before he can do anything to stop Tyrell.
Tina tricks Tyrell into taking off the mask. Milo puts on mask turning him into a cartoon-like super-
dog who defeats Tyrell's men. Stanley fights Dorian. Stanley recovers the mask and wears it one last
time to swallow the bomb Tyrell has planted. He then flushes Tyrell down an imaginery drain of the
club's fountain in a scatological reference which defeats Tyrell once and for all.
Mayor Tilton explains that Dorian was the Mask all the time. Thus saving Stanley from Callaway and
recognizing him as a hero (22).
Stanley, Tina, Milo, and Charlie take the mask back down to the water. Tina throws it into the water
and they kiss.
36
Charlie attempts to retrieve the mask for himself, only to find Milo swimming away with it and out of
the picture.
Scores 20/22
37
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