The Nurturer Verbal Portrayal in Cinema: Narrative Analysis

The research focuses on psycholinguistic analysis of a female cinematic archetype. The characters’ narratives are predominantly defined by the heroines’ archetype and personality; to a lesser extent by the context of the cinematic story. The study is based on Jung’s idea of the archetype as a repetitive image of the collective unconscious, common for different cultures, languages, and societies. Each archetype performs a certain function in the plot, predetermined by a number of constant motivations, defining the characters’ (verbal) behavior. Post-Jungian researchers have developed various typologies of psychological archetypes. Among the proposed repetitive images, one of the most recognized is the Great Mother / Caregiver / Nurturer, which is distinguished by care, protectiveness, devotion, and sacrifice. Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs serves as the basis for delineation of archetypes. Despite numerous changes in the representation of female characters in mass culture cinema, the Nurturer archetype (term by Schmidt, 2007; Cowden, LaFever, & Viders, 2013) stays essential and frequently exploited. This study focuses on the verbal representation of the Nurturer archetype in three top box office cinematic stories recreating the Beauty and the Beast motif, namely Beauty and the Beast (2017), The Twilight Saga (2008-2012), and Fifty Shades trilogy (2015-2018). The paper focuses respectively on the turns of Belle, Bella Swan, and Anastasia Steele, leading female protagonists representing the Nurturer archetype in the examined franchises. The founding idea of the present paper postulates that the verbal representation of the same archetype bears similar narratives, which mediate the heroines’ needs and motivations. The aim of the research is to establish the set of narratives, characteristic of the Nurturer archetype in contemporary cinematic stories. The Nurturer archetype is an altruistic, parental character, distinguished by protectiveness, compassion, and generosity. The Nurturer needs to care for the loved ones, which defines her narratives about providing food, comfort, safety, protection and reassurance, dependence, stability, love, and affection. The ‘virgin-beast trope’ predetermines the heroine’s narrative of a romantic relationship.