DezQuannee' ChavisDr. HendersonEnglish 10225 April 2014ArchetypesYou typically have stories that usually have a character, situation, or symbol that appears so often in a work that has a deep universal meaning or response; as the color red represents passion or blood, three would represent the trinity or mind, body, spirit; and the desert is a danger. This literary device is called an archetype. Numerous stories have the same archetype such as Trifles by Susan Glasspell and El Santo Americano by Edward Bok Lee. Both of these two playwrights use the victim archetype in these two plays. The victim archetype is when a character is hurt by someone or lives in fear of someone hurting them. In “El Santo Americano,” Jesse, Clay and Evalana's son is the victim character. You could say how Jesse is a victim in this scenario; well, he is a victim of a failed marriage between his mother and father. He is also a vulnerable boy, without power, which is symbolized throughout the play because he has no lines. Evalana demonstrates her marriage during her argument with Clay when she says “Jesus, Clay. Listen to yourself. All your life you've been pretending. Fake husband. Fake father. Fake man. They should call you that: Fake Man” (943). Throughout the play it is also shown that Jesse is a victim because his father kidnapped him and his mother with a gun and left at the end of the night. However, there is another quote that shows how Clay craves his son's approval when he says in his monologue “My five year old [. . .] friends call his father a loser", (944). You can just imagine how the kids tease Jesse because of his father's struggling career. A little... middle of paper... or e.g. , did you notice how both comedies had a troubled married couple? Or that the men in these comedies both exert control? Or could both victims have no lines? Jesse could be a later male development from a different perspective Mrs. Wright showed how someone in a marriage can be victimized and Jesse showed how a child can be victimized because of marriage All in all both of these characters are good examples of victimized archetypes Works Cited Glassspell, Susan Trifles. an introduction to fiction, poetry, theater and writing 4th ed. Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing 4th ed.Ed. XJ Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Pearson, 2012. 941 – 946.