Archetypes In The Story Of Exodus

The stories presented in the reading represent not only an idea of deliverance to the people that read the stories at the time of or shortly after the time of writing, but have relevance to people everyone and everywhere. This is because the stories are manipulated in ways that then present a group as the “good guys” in the story, strengthening their position or cause. This has real-life political and social consequences, and also is indicative of the need to make stories about ourselves, to see ourselves in the “good guys.”
One particularly utilized example is the reclamation of the story of Exodus. It repeats itself throughout the Gospel, to the point of Northrop Frye declaring it an archetype. This story further solidifies itself as an archetype as many, if not all, groups that have connections to Judeo-Christianity, interpret the story to be about themselves. There are thousands of examples of this, resulting from the Western belief in superiority; Western societies often have a “West is best” attitude that is easily furthered by groups that take this to believe that they are the best.

The Americans needed to create a seal that represented them as a people. One of the proposed seals depicted the Americans as Hebrews passing through a sea, while the British are left behind. Through this, the Americans are signalling that they are the “good guys,” and the British are like the Egyptians, oppressing them. This has extreme political value, as the Americans could then see themselves as the “chosen people” and be inspired to fight for and believe in their own land, just as presented in the Exodus