archetype

Typical or perfect specimen of its kind. In the psychology of Carl Jung, it refers to one of the basic roles or situations, received from the collective unconscious, in which people tend to cast themselves – such as the Hero, the Terrible Mother (stepmother, witch); death, and rebirth. Archetypes are recurring motifs in myth, art, and literature.

The figure of the Wanderer condemned to roam the earth until released from a curse appears in the Greek legend of Odysseus, in the story of the Wandering Jew (told throughout Europe from the 16th century on), and in the hero of Richard Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman.