Patrick Pecoraro

Lisa Orta

English 123

4/11/18

The Jester of Echo Park

In psychology, an archetype is a universal, pattern or image that forms from a

collective unconscious. When applied to ideas or characters, a motif is formed that

summarizes that idea. (Golden). When it comes to Carl Gustav Jung’s character

archetypes, the Jester is someone who really stood out. At first glance, one might think

that the Jester’s role is to entertain, but the core desire of the Jester is to live in the

moment with full enjoyment, to have a great time and lighten up the world. When

looking at ​The Madonnas of Echo Park​ by Brando Skyhorse, the character Freddy

embodies this perfectly. Freddy is a hustler who takes advantage of any situation that

he can, and he never seems to learn from his mistakes. When he is seen in the book,

he is returning from a twelve year sentence in jail immediately to a life of hustling once

again. Freddy is characterized in a very static way in that he never really changes

despite being repeatedly punished for his actions. This was done intentionally to

highlight the true nature of the jester archetype. Freddy lives his life doing what he

wants with relatively no regrets which is what the Jester archetype lives for. But

however, by doing this Freddy alienates himself from the other characters which leads

to the theme of Freddy’s chapter: Live life to the fullest, however if you don’t take others

lives into consideration, there can be very negative connotations.

 By definition, hustling is not a crime. Many honest people with goodwills have

mastered the art of hustling and reaped large rewards. Freddy is not one of these

people, however he has mastered the art of hustling and through that he has gained

many rewards for himself. By hustling people however, he has isolated himself from

others. But why would someone be inclined to do this? From a psychological

perspective, a hustlers actions could be validated or partially justified due to the idea of

being able to get something for almost nothing through cheating people. For many

hustlers, they seek to get the most that they can out of life by doing the least amount of

work (Johnson). When contrasted with the Jester archetype, they seek to bring

enjoyment to the world and to live life to the fullest. When analyzing these two mindsets,

they both come off as very static. They both live for enjoyment and not much else. And

to truly capture the theme of the chapter, Freddy was accurately portrayed as both. If

Freddy had changed at all throughout the chapter, then he would be breaking his

archetype.

The entire time that Freddy is portrayed throughout chapter six, he is cast into a

very negative light. His sentence in jail for commiting murder had just ended and instead

of trying to turn his life around, he simply goes back to what he does best, hustling. He

sees people as an advantage and takes it instead. This can be seen when he says

“Stay speaking spanish and you inherit a fucking crimp in your neck from nodding ‘si, si’

all day long. I could make a killing selling neck braces to Mexicans who nod their heads

instead of opening their mouths and saying ‘cut your own goddamn lawn’” (106). Freddy

is an opportunist, and while his character could be judged and criticized all day, he truly
embodies the idea of living life in the moment with full enjoyment, and has no care for

the future or what might happen. He has caused a lot of people loss and grief and, in

one case, death; and almost all of it was for personal gain so that he could live his life

how he wanted to. Freddy has tried to lead a clean life a couple of times after

punishment only to revert later to his life of crime. This is because every time that he

sees an opportunity he takes it with almost no hesitation. This has led him to stealing

cars, wallets, and various other things for almost no reason other than he is capable of

doing it. This really embodies the archetype of the Jester because he does whatever is

best for himself at the time in order to get the most enjoyment out of life, even if this

means having little to no regards for other people’s lives.

The goal of the Jester is to lighten up the world, however the definition of the

world can differ depending on what people hold important. For someone it could be

taken in the very literal sense of the physical earth, or in another case it could be taken

as one's immediate surroundings. But in the case of Freddy, the world is simply himself.

Freddy holds himself on a pedestal where he is the center of his own universe. When

Freddy aims to lighten up the world, he is simply taking any advantages that he can get

to either add meaning to his life, or to get any sort of short term pleasure to have more

enjoyment in the moment. This is shown throughout the chapter when he interacts with

other characters. It is clear that he doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than

himself. So why would he attempt to please them. The Jester’s greatest fear is being

bored, and this is something that Freddy embodies well. Whenever he tries to go clean,

he never is able to stay on that route for long before he strays back to a life of crime.
“Walk down the street with a twelve-pack, chat someone up, give em a few beers,

smoke some weed, and ​boom ​you got the score. You telling me that ain’t easy? Easier

than a day-to-day job bending your back or your knees twelve hours a day” (107). This

is simply because he doesn’t feel satisfied in life unless he is hustling. The final aspect

of the Jester is that their weakness is wasting time. When Freddy was shown in the

past, he is shown doing the exact same things that he is doing currently. This couldn’t

be more accurate to Freddy’s lifestyle as he is seen never being able to hold a job down

for too long, dropping out of school despite his intellect, never really accomplishing

anything in his life, and ultimately going nowhere fast in his life.

Overall Freddy gets painted as a jester more than anything. While normally a

Jester is seen as someone who brings joy and happiness to the world, Freddy ends up

doing nothing other than bringing joy and happiness to himself because to him, there is

nothing deemed important in the world other than himself. He didn’t change throughout

the chapter because he will undoubtedly return to a life of hustling as soon as he gets

off of the bus. His characterization was really important in making him such an

unpleasant person, however it was necessary for him to follow the jester archetype.

This really ties into the theme of this chapter which is: Live life to the fullest, however if

you don’t take others lives into consideration, there can be very negative connotations.

This can be seen towards the end of the chapter when Freddie gets kicked to the curb

and decides to leave town. This was something that was entirely his choice, but due to

his actions and his tendency to use people as tools, he alienated himself. So he

ultimately ended up getting on a bus on a road to nowhere with no aspirations, no

friends, and nothing to call his own. Freddy is very unattractive as a character due to his

tendencies, but that made him starkly different than the other people in this book. The

majority of the characters went on a journey either to fuller understand themselves or to

figure something out whether internal or external. Freddy seemed to do nothing other

than make things worse for himself and the people around him due to his tendencies as

a hustler, but by learning more about his archetype I now know that in order to highlight

certain negative behaviors of a character, it is necessary to make them static because

in a way that teaches more of a lesson than the dynamic characters do.

Works Cited:

Skyhorse, Brando. ​The Madonnas of Echo Park: a Novel​. Free Press, 2011.

Golden, Carl. “The 12 Common Archetypes.” ​The 12 Common Archetypes​,

www.soulcraft.co/essays/the_12_common_archetypes.html.

“Elements of Fiction: Character.” ​Find Your Creative Muse​, 11 Oct. 2013,

davehood59.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/elements-of-fiction-2/.

“Jungian Archetypes.” ​Wikipedia​, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 May 2018,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes.

“Hustlers Live Better.” ​Psychology Today​, Sussex Publishers,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-hurts/201503/hustlers-live-better.