Lockrem 1

Kaylan Lockrem

Lisa Orta

ENLG 123 - 5008

22 April 2019

The Rebel

In ​The Madonnas of Echo Park​, a novel by Brando Skyhorse, we are introduced to Echo

Park located in Los Angeles, California through the eyes of many different characters. In one

short story of the novel, “The Hustler,” we are introduced to Freddy Blas, an ex-convict who is

returning home after his last stay in prison spanning twelve years. In the article “The 12

Common Archetypes” by Carl Golden, Carl Gustav Jung defines twelve archetypes that he

claims to be universal, The Rebel being “outrageous” and living their life as the “wild man”

(​Soulcraft.co).​ Throughout this short story, Freddy directly aligns with the archetype of The

Rebel as he embarks on his journey in Echo Park post-prison, revealing to him the ultimate truth

that things and people change but time does not stop to let us catch up.

The motto for The Rebel archetype is “Rules are made to be broken.” This motto is

representative of the life that Freddy Blas lived from a young age. Before finishing high school,

Freddy dropped out. He was smart and educated but not in the way that he wanted to be. There

was book smart and then there was street smart. According to Freddy, school was not a priority

and he wanted to spend his time learning to do what interested him - hustling on the streets.

School was the path that many young men his age were taking but Freddy did not see it fit as

others did and decided to take a shot at his own path. At what he defined as his first “straight”

job, Freddy thought up a plan to steal money from the customers at his 24 hour taco stand,
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gripping their wallets while simultaneously placing their orders down on the counter (Skyhorse

107). After accumulating many wallets and the cash inside, Freddy “borrowed” his boss’s van to

dump the evidence (the wallets) but never returned. He did not run because he was trying to

escape a bad home life or to run from a gangster who had his name, but he did it simply because

he wanted to break the rules and do as he pleased, whether it was the right thing to do or not, just

as The Rebel would choose to do. These actions, on the surface, look to be those of just another

mischievous youth, but when using the archetypal analysis, are explained through the lens of The

Rebel and the motto by which they choose to live their life - according to no one but themselves

and no rules except for their own. This straying from the rules of everyone else did not allow

Freddy to assimilate and “fit in” with the Echo Park crowd and he learned this after his return,

seeing that choosing the life he did meant choosing to lose the people he once knew and the

connection with the place he once lived.

With the breaking of rules also comes the weakness of The Rebel archetype, participating

in criminal activity. Whether for the thrill or just to say that it was done, The Rebel loses to his

inner voice during most occasions and turns to crime. This weakness can be seen in Freddy.

While introducing himself at the beginning of the short story, Freddy reveals that he had spent

nineteen out of his forty two years of life locked up in some way as doing good was “too much

work” (Skyhorse 109). The urge to get on the straight and narrow occurred to Freddy on more

than one occasion, simply thinking of how life would be with a wife and possibly a few kids, but

it terrified him more than going back to jail or being locked up again. To many people, this

would be absurd, wanting a life with children and a significant other seeming normal to them,

but this wasn’t the case for Freddy. Using Jung’s definition of archetype, though, these thoughts
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and actions of Freddy that may seem unreal to others, are defined as a universal pattern for a

group of people considered to be The Rebels of the world. With this idea, Freddy’s need for

disruption and destruction can help to establish a reasoning behind his actions that many

otherwise be seen as simply rebellious and irrational. But with these actions also comes his

extremely lonely reality after he is released from prison. The “normal” future that he chose to

disrupt and destroy left him all by himself in a place that was no longer familiar filled with even

less familiar faces after spending more than half of his life behind bars.

Identifying as a rebel does not leave Freddy in a good place after returning home from his

latest incarceration. Places change and people change but time does not stop for you to catch up

to those changes as much as you may want it to or need it to. This was the universal truth that

Freddy learned as he found himself struggling to find the comfort that he once had in the place

that he once called home. Spending almost half of his life making memories of being locked up

in cells and correctional camps, he lost the connection with both the place and the people who

were supposed to be the ones with whom he was making the memories that would last him a

lifetime. Had Freddy not fallen into The Rebel ways and patterns of life, he may have been able

to change for the better, along with his hometown and the people that lived there but because he

strived so much to live by his own rules, they changed without him and did not wait for him to

catch up to change with them.

Echo Park is a character of its own, changing with the times and reacting to the changes

around it, both within its inhabitants and its surroundings. Through the eyes of Freddy Blas, we

can see just how much Echo Park and the people living there changed without regard to if those

who originally lived there were changing along with them. Freddy chose to live the life of THe
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Rebel, making and living by his own rules, consequentially losing the connection with the people

and place that he used to call home as time passed on and they moved on without him. Jung’s

archetype, The Rebel, was useful in understanding the character Freddy Blas in the short story

“Hustler” in ​The Madonnas of Echo Park b​ y Brando Skyhorse and, in turn, how this

characterization of him lends to the lesson learned within the story that is his life - things change

and people change, but time does not wait for us to catch up.

Works Cited

Golden, Carl. ​The 12 Common Archetypes,​

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

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