One thing I love about reading older fiction is encountering characters who are exactly like people I’ve met in real life.
How could something written 60, or 100, or more years ago in a totally different country and culture depict an individual who is exactly like some that I’ve met, in speech, mannerisms, actions, and ideas?
Archetypes are real. There are certain frames of mind, personality traits, and dispositions that attract people to certain vocations and milieus which further condition them into recognizable types.
None of this is groundbreaking, but I’ll never cease to be amazed at how universal these people patterns are. And it takes a great observer and describer of humans to tease these patterns out and insert them into stories.