Trickster

The trickster is a type of character found in myths and folk tales around the world, who throws cultural boundaries into relief by crossing them in sly and audacious ways. Tricksters often display primal and unbridled desire as well as clever thinking, pursuing gratification in an almost infantile manner even as their cravings remain decidedly adult. Ever on the move, they illuminate the centers of culture by carrying out their exploits from the margins. This entry discusses different types of tricksters, issues surrounding tricksters, and the appearance of tricksters in literature.

Trickster incarnations around the world include Eshu (Nigerian), Hermes (Ancient Greek), Loki (Norse), Till Eulenspiegel (German), Susa-No-o (Japanese), Bricriu (Irish), Maui (Maori), and Agu Tompa (Tibetan). Tricksters sometimes take animal form, such as Monkey (Chinese), the spiders Anansi (West African) and Ture (Central African), Bre’r Rabbit (African American), and various Native American manifestations, including Coyote, Hare, Raven, and Mink. The medieval tale of Marcolf, which gained particular popularity in Germany, pits the physically deformed peasant in competitive dialogue with the biblical paragon of wisdom, King Solomon, during which the trickster trumps his opponent’s every pronouncement with a base and witty riposte. Lists of tricksters see a certain amount of overlap with those of fools and clowns.

The Norse trickster Loki, as portrayed in “The Punishment of Loki” by 19th-century French artist Louis Huard

Source: Keary, A., & Keary, E. (1893). The heroes of Asgard: Tales from Scandinavian mythology. London, UK: Macmillan; Wikimedia Commons.

[Page 777]Paul Radin’s The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, published in 1956, is considered a breakthrough attempt to collect and theorize indigenous trickster cycles, although his critical stance is problematized by contributors to Troubling Tricksters: Revisioning Critical Conversations (2010). Radin’s study includes an essay by psychoanalyst Carl G. Jung, who theorizes a trickster archetype that embodies an undifferentiated consciousness with divine aspirations. In the social sciences, anthropologists like Claude Lévi-Strauss, Victor Turner, and Mary Douglas have in their own ways called attention to tricksters' engagements with categories of social thought and framing.

Statue of the German trickster Till Eulenspiegel in Mölln, Germany

Source: Hans Weingartz/Wikimedia Commons.