source: www.answers.com/topic/archetype

from Oxford University Press ...

"archetype

archetype [ar-ki-typ], a symbol, theme, setting, or character type that recurs in different times and places in myth, literature, folklore, dreams, and rituals so frequently or prominently as to suggest (to certain speculative psychologists and critics) that it embodies some essential element of ‘universal’ human experience. Examples offered by the advocates of myth criticism include such recurrent symbols as the rose, the serpent, and the sun; common themes like love, death, and conflict; mythical settings like the paradisal garden; stock characters like the femme fatale, the hero, and the magician; and some basic patterns of action and plot such as the quest, the descent to the underworld, or the feud. The most fundamental of these patterns is often said to be that of death and rebirth, reflecting the natural cycle of the seasons: the Canadian critic Northrop Frye put forward an influential model of literature based on this proposition in Anatomy of Criticism (1957). Archetypal criticism originated in the early 20th century from the speculations of the British anthropologist J. G. Frazer in The Golden Bough (1890–1915)—a comparative study of mythologies—and from those of the Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung, who in the 1920s proposed that certain symbols in dreams and myths were residues of ancestral memory preserved in the collective unconscious. More recently, critics have been wary of the reductionism involved in the application of such unverified hypotheses to literary works, and more alert to the cultural differences that the archetypal approach often overlooks in its search for universals."
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if this is true, as people, we use these images sub-conconsciously in our daily activites...

the associated emotions releative to each archetypes character are basic emotions we carry, there but not conciously considered... a set of prior thoughts and examinations with rooted foundations manifesting themselves in our personality and fully present in our interations with others...

many actors are capable of portraying several archtypes.. some report the role being more natural than their own personalities.. could the reason for this be because of the implanted archetype characters having been so implanted, that literally, the role is second nature?

the stories of centuries past may be implanted on our memory at birth through geneology...

it would explain child prodigies... past life memories perhaps ... children who recall historical, factual events but have had no exposure to anything relative to the memory..

as some part of our parents seed, not only flesh and bone, but, the memories, the knowledge, and the emotions are passed onward to the following generation, why not the memory of Archetypes?

with each generation the mind of a particular, more exposed parent would have larger resources of memories, knowledge, emotions...

some children could perhaps be born with encyclopaedic knowledge.. explaining exceptional children...

children may be born primed for certain vocations due to these past influences... if the child were not given opportunity to fulfill these base, natural tendencies, he/she may feel the effects of depression brought on by missed connections/opportunities...

a child may have exceptional talent in music due to family histories.. not always presented from one generation to the next, but, skipping an indeterminate number of generations only to re-appear in full blossom many generations later...

we begin telling our children stories from birth forward... aren't we teaching them archetypes? as adults, doesnt this education by media continue throughout our whole life?

are all of us, now carrying these hidden sources of self-empowerment? waiting to enlighten and encourage, if only we became more aware of their presence and their influence in our everyday life, and in extension, our current world and world conditions?

ive spent time exploring these concepts, and these are my thoughts and questions...

i'm grateful for others additions...