Archetypal components’ analysis of fairy-tale images (plot ATU 480 B “Vasilisa the Beautiful”)

The article analyzes archetypal components of folk tale female characters. Within the framework of well-known archetype theories, there are no archetypal models and images of female characters at large. The article proposes a model for analyzing archetypal images based on a specific folklore material. The object of the analysis is the fairy-tale plot of ATU 480 B “Vasilisa the Beautiful” as the most representative one for describing four female images from folk ideas about age-related affiliation and about the opposition “ours/theirs”. Our purpose is to analyze and systematize female archetypal images based on one plot. To this end, we describe the existing theories of archetypes, as well as the basic dominants in the construction of fairy tale characters. Of these dominants, an actual embodiment scheme of a fairy tale female character, its characteristic features, models of behavior and the attitude of the audience is formed. This analysis allows us to make conclusions about the dependence of the plot structure construction on the quality and number of the described typical images, as well as on the nature and formation of stable cultural and behavioral patterns associated in particular with the rite of female initiation reflected in folklore. In the future, similar research work, based on different cultures, will identify not only genuine archetypal parts in the images of the characters, but also highlight cultural characteristic features of female images associated with national specifics.