Theories of Myth

What is myth? Some say they are fictional stories. Others think they are the deepest wellings of the human mind. No one can come to a consensus on the subject. Those who study myth have come up with several theories over the years. These are a few of the various theories about myth.

• One theory is that myth depicts important processes of a historical nature. For example, the change in religious beliefs from a female aspect of the fertile goddess to a male one of dominance. It was a shift of earth worship to the sky gods.
  

  
  

• Another theory is myths are the leftover parts of widespread fertility rituals derived from agriculture. Sir James Frazer, in his work The Golden Bough, explored the myths of many cultures and noted these links of similar myths.
  

  
  

• A third theory is that myths have a heritage of language joined with an interest in astronomical events that became culturally isolated. This theory comes from the fact that names of deities are similar in a regional area such as many of the myths from Mesopotamia.
  

  
  

• Myths arise from a deep, instinctive part of our minds. Carl Gustav Jung championed this theory of a collective unconscious where archetypes well up from to enter our dreams.
  

  
  

• Next is the theory that myths are stories for people’s survival or financial success by adapting to environmental constraints. This is a view that humans create myths to help in their successful survival.
  

  
  

• Finally there is the structuralist approach of Claude Levi-Strauss. He says that myths are people’s ways to work out a structure to explain their place within the universe. Humans always operate on some logic to use structure in their lives.