Female Archetypes (focus on Ursula)

Today in class we were asked to respond to a question of why we thought the chapters 3 and 4 were of importance and why the author did what he did in that portion of the book. I decided to write about Jose and how in these chapter we see the disintegration of his sanity and his over obsessiveness with the new things the gypsies bring. Jose's fascination with the new discoveries eventually drive him to become detached from the real world and thus I thought this section focused on his change from reality to insanity. I then found myself going on a tangent in my response about his wife, Ursula. Some of my classmates had touched on their opinions of Ursula in class as the evil temptress and then as somewhat of an accessory to Jose's madness, but I found her "archetype" to be very different in my mind. If you focus on just these two chapter of the book, Ursula doesn't do anything that would suggest she is in anyway evil or aiding Jose's path to self-desrtucion. Ursula is, of course, a strong woman with a personality and progatives of her own but her interests do not necessarily have malicious intent towards anyone (specifically not Jose). This section of the book focuses not on her, rather her husband but there was one part of the book I recall specifically that proves (at least to me) that Ursula is not an evil temptress. On page 86, it talks about how Ursula unties Jose's wrists and ankles and then helps others to build him a shelter to protect him, which in my mind shows a great deal of compassion on her part (I have heard from some people though that by untying him and leaving him just tied at the waist is more painful, however I would disagree). Thus, I can take "evil temptress" off the list of archetypes which brings me to the other two which are "good mother" and "soul mate". While Ursula is a devoted mother and a good one at that, I would probably characterize her more as the "soul mate". Why you ask? She doesn't have a divine husband and thus isn't in a divine couple? While true, I think (being a feminist!) that she creates her own sense of fulfillment without her husband, knowing that he is on the road to madness. Ursula fits this archetype because she does have that spiritual connection and she knows what she wants. For example, when she ventures out to find her son without telling anyone, she does it out of her own will and her own sense of want. She knew she could not be happy without knowing where her son had gone and thus she knew to fulfill herself she needed to find him. This demonstrates both sense of self and determination, which is why I think she's a "soul mate" archetype. Feel free to disagree!