Popular Culture Review Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1999 | Page 107

Archetypal Metaphor and The Shadow Radio Drama All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes. Carl Jung (45-6) All cultures appear to share beliefs in archetypal heroes that model the ideal virtues of humanity in general and of the culture in particular. Indeed, Northrop Frye believed that the heroic quest was the central archetype of narrative literature (16-18). Ray Browne stated it this way: Heroes serve as models and leaders of people and nations because they reflect the projection of the consensus of the dreams, fanta sies, self-evaluations and needs of individuals and of society it self Heroes like a lens concentrate the power of people, of a na tion and serve as the muscle for the movement and development of a people, which they epitomize. (91) Though all eras have had heroes, the advent of mass communication tech nology has perhaps made the heroic archetype more pervasive than ever. Roger R. Rollin observed that mass communication has accelerated the production of myth in general and heroic myth in particular (30-31). Heroes frequently employ a common set of archetypal metaphors in the construction of their heroic narratives. Some of the most common archetypes that occur in heroic myth are the hero’s birth and rebirth, the conflict of good (repre sented by the hero) and evil, the hero’s use of magic or other superhuman abilities, the heroic quest, and the consummation or triumph of the hero. If, as Rollins suggests, it is true that archetypal heroes become even more prevalent in a mass communication culture, it should be informative to examine the heroes of America’s first broadcasting mass medium: radio. This study will explore how archetypal metaphor figures in constructing the myth of the greatest of the radio heroes. Archetypal Metaphor and The S h adow Radio Drama When the continuing dramatic series developed on radio in the early 1930s, heroic drama quickly became one of its most popular forms (MacDonald 29,42). Heroic drama came in a number of variations—adventure, detective, mystery, sciencefiction, western—^but all had one thing in common: a strong heroic character (or characters) battling the forces of evil. In other words, radio heroes were arche typal heroes, as J. Fred MacDonald wrote: “Radio heroes, like most champions in