Eminem Archetypes

Eminem’s song, “When I’m gone” follows his journey to become a better father. He is helped along the way by multiple archetypes however his success would not be possible without Hailie. She has the ability to morph into different types of archetypes to help Eminem concur different feats. The reason she is able to do this is because she is a blank slate, the essence of purity. This means she can be moulded easily into the things he needs making their relationship symbiotic as she helps him overcome obstacles and he is her father. As Eminem goes on his journey, universal patterns in all stories and mythologies show up. Carl Jung says, regardless of culture or historical period a part of the human mind contains a collective unconscious shared

These people represent Eminem’s Loyal Retainer archetypes; they listen to his story and reflect upon his nobility and power. While his journey progresses they are passive observers and agree and applaud him for his heroics. The starting point of his quest is represented by the camera focusing on his microphone; this shows that he plans to take a closer look at his life. He begins to tell his story and sets up the scene, this is the first time that his shadow archetype, Slim Shady, is introduced. He is spoken of when Eminem says, “That's Slim Shady, yeah baby, Slim Shady's crazy Shady made me, but tonight Shady's rocka-by-baby”. This is Eminem telling Hailie that whenever he does something wrong it’s because of Slim. Slim Shady is Eminem’s alter ego, he helped Eminem get to the top of the charts but in consequence he lost his family. This shows that Eminem’s situational archetype is the battle between good and evil and the need to concur his demon in order to be at peace. They are depicted multiple times throughout the video such as the change between colour and background or in lyric and when he looks into mirrors and sees Slim. The illusion of colour is important, as it is prevalent throughout the video. The most relevant example is the way the main characters dress, they only dress in four colours, red which represents sacrifice, black which represents chaos, white which represents purity and grey

He embarks on the road of trials and difficulties when he’s in Sweden. He is again faced with the issue of career vs. family, seeing Hailie as the platonic ideal Archetype he goes through the difficulties of abandoning his children and he hurt his wife shown by Hailie saying “You lied to me dad and now you made mommy sad… But baby wait”. It shows Eminem gaining inspiration from Hailie because he now fully realises the consequences of his actions. Furthermore, she talks about her mother who is not present throughout the video showing the lack of mother archetype making Eminem’s quest to become a better father more important. Additionally, within her monologue she references Slim Shady again when she says, “they keep screaming your name, and it’s the one you can’t go to sleep. Just take another pill yeah bet you, you will, you rap about it, yeah word keep keep it real” Showing now he has truly hit rock bottom as he has fully become Slim shown by Hailie saying “Yeah word keep keep it real” as Slim has become his reality. The show ends and he goes backstage where he sees in the mirror, Hailie and Kim dressed in all white, this is representative of the blessing archetype shown by their white clothes and importance in his life. Here Eminem realises that he needs to be there for his kids. Understanding he has hit rock bottom he realises his only way to overcome his