Jack Sparrow as Trickster Archtype
How I see Jack
I thought I might give my interpretation of who I believe Jack Sparrow to be, and how I interpret the character. I know I am in a minority with this view, but to me Jack Sparrow is somewhat a mystical being, that springs out of nowhere and affects the lives around him. No past, no strings to bind him, he is a free spirit: the Trickster.
The writers were playing off the Trickster archetype, particularly in regards to being a catalyst for change. Some of the characteristics of the Trickster, according to Lewis Hyde, author of the book Trickster Makes This World are:
1. He is witty, clever, sly, and cunning; he thinks faster than everyone else and his mind follows patterns that differ from most people's normal thought structures. He can juggle and calculate and dance. But he has great appetite. And great charm.
2. Trickster travels; he is on the move. He lives often between places.
3. He is a brilliant liar, a master of disguises, inveterately curious, a master of the art of bait-and-switch, something for nothing (or, as Jack Sparrow says, "Take what you can, give nothing back.")
4. Trickster is a loner, a wanderer; he doesn't have a love interest (or he has many).
5. The Trickster may be the protagonist of the story; he may even in some sense be heroic, but he is not the hero in the classic, iconic sense, because his story has no closure. Trickster doesn't get the girl, nor does he settle down. Rather, he is the artist (conjurer of something from nothing), the catalyst, the rainmaker who enters the story of the hero and heroine and triggers changes in them or their world, which bring about their happy (or tragic) ending.
6. As an agent of change, Trickster is a manipulator of circumstance and chance. To use the Greek poetic terms, he is the opposite of Fate (moira), Necessity (ananke), and Destiny (nemesis). He is catalytic without particular purpose, random and accidental.
7. Trickster a born liar, a manipulator, and therefore a good story teller. His stories tend to be about himself. The stories he tells are not exactly true, but not exactly false, either. He's constantly inventive, because he is constantly in sticky situations that require new creative sparks to resolve.
I believe most people agree on the first three points. The point of deviation for the different interpretations of Jack start usually with the fourth and fifth points. I do not see Jack as settling down, or even settling for one love interest, male or female. A free spirit, I tend to see Jack as one not willing to be tied down at all.
Instead, he is a catalyst for change; for example, he enters into the story of Will and Elizabeth and causes chaos. He turns their worlds upside down, causing them to reconsider everything they had believed…examples would be the idea that you can be a pirate AND a good man, that the only rules that matter are what a man can do and what a man can’t do.
Jack, as the Trickster, is an agent of change, a manipulator of circumstance and chance. When given the opportunities to display these traits, Jack shines through.
In another interview, the writers stated they see Jack as having no back story, no past. He just shows up, an enigma. I prefer that as well, keeping with the points made above.
Each person has their own interpretation of who Jack is. This is where I come from.