What is a archetypal story that applies to a literary work?

Question

i cant think of anything for this one not even the literary work ive been answering so many questions for this english assignment

Answer 1

First, you need to identify an archetypal story.  Usually fairy tales are good examples; their themes are universal and characters are fairly common from one story to the next:  orphaned child, evil stepmother or witch, prince-in-hiding, magical character who helps the orphaned child, etc..  (Those characters are archetypes, btw.)

As archetypal stories, they tend to serve as the basis, or framework, for many literary works.  A good example is Disney.  Not that Disney tales are literary, but you can see how many of their movies are just retold/rehashed fairy tales.  Also, Great Expectations by Dickens?  Just a classic fairy tale reworked into a 19th century text.

It would help if you provided which literary work you're talking about.