Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1973 The aD rk Night of the Soul: the Archetype and Its Occurrence in Modern Fiction. Ibry Glyn-francis Theriot Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Theriot, Ibry Glyn-francis, "The aD rk Night of the Soul: the Archetype and Its Occurrence in Modern Fiction." (1973). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 2577. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/2577 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108 •I i I 74-18,373 THERIOT, Ibry Glyn-Francis, 1942- THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL: THE ARCHETYPE AND ITS OCCURRENCE IN MODERN FICTION. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1973 Language and Literature, modern University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan © 1974 IBRY GLYN-FRANCIS THERIOT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL: THE ARCHETYPE AND ITS OCCURRENCE IN MODERN FICTION A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Ibry Glyn-Francis Theriot B.A. , Nicholls State University, 1964 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1967 December, 19 73 To Ibry and Anaise ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Thomas L. Watson of the English Department at Louisiana State Uni­ versity for the enlightenment and encouragement he provided during the preparation of this work. I also wish to thank the members of my committee for their careful reading and advice in the preparation of this dissertation: Dr. Law­ rence Sasek, Dr. John Wildman, Dr. Annette McCormick, and Dr. Donald Stanford. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. H. Maxwell Quertermous of the English Department at Nicholls State University for his contributions of knowledge and advice. Finally, I thank my friends for their invaluable and un­ tiring moral support, advice, and aid in preparing this study— particularly Stella Nesanovich, Tracey Peterson, Jr., and Jeri W. Williams. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION . ............................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................... iv ABSTRACT ................................................. V CHAPTER I Introduction ......................................... 1 CHAPTER II The Theological Vision: Saint John of the Cross . 33 CHAPTER III The Moral V i s i o n ....................................... 67 Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness ................ 70 Julien Green's The Dark Jo u r n e y .....................95 Charles Williams1 Descent Into H e l l .............. 143 Conclusion.......................................... 183 CHAPTER IV The Ontological Vision: Friedrich Nietzsche . * . 187 Louis-Ferdinand Celine's Journey to the End of the N i g h t .......................................19 8 Samuel Beckett's Molloy..... ....................... 270 CHAPTER V C o n c l u s i o n ............................................ 312 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................... 321 VITA ....................................................... 325 ABSTRACT One of the earliest expressions of the archetype of the Dark Night of the Soul is the epic convention of the "descent into hell." Generally speaking, this early meta­ phorical expression involves the hero's journey into a netherworld where he meets the inhabitants of the place of darkness who provide him with a series of awakenings to the reality of human existence. Often, the truths he learns take the form of ethical advice concerning his conduct in the world of the living. The pagans, who dealt almost ex­ clusively with externalities or objective reality, presented this archetypal experience as a journey into a dark land of even darker spirits. However, in the introspective, psy­ chologically-oriented twentieth century, the metaphorical journey must be inward, a journey into the darkness at the heart of the individual psyche. For this reason, more recent expressions of the archetype of the Dark Night of the Soul resemble the treatment of darkness expounded by Saint John of the Cross in his treatises. In his' Ascent of Mount Car­ mel and The- Dark Night of the Soul, Saint John examines in great detail the psychological effects which characterize the archetypal experience: a discovery of the true dark nature of human existence, a loss of ability to perceive ex­ ternal reality through the senses, a tendency to lose direct v vi contact with the world of objective fact, a sense of aliena­ tion from everything except the self, and a close examina­ tion of the inner self which leads to an intense boredom and, eventually, the inertia of accidie. The many recurrent expressions of these ideas through­ out literature indicate the archetypal nature of the experi­ ences which Saint John describes as the Dark Night of the Soul. C. G. Jung, in devising his theory of personality, particularly his ideas concerning the "Shadow" archetype, re­ cords these same types of experiences. In addition, many modern writers have shown a similar interest in these same psychological experiences and have, consequently, employed symbols, images, and ideas which are directly related to the archetype of the Dark Night of the Soul. Friedrich Nietzsche employs the archetype to formulate his aesthetic theories about the Dionysian and Apollonian impulses in the artist and, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he indicates an interest in the knowledge to be gained from this archetypal experience- More­ over, many modern authors utilize the archetype to present their particular moral vision of the world. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Julien Green's The Dark Journey, and Charles Williams' Descent into Hell all involve a use of the archetype as a means of expressing the author's particular moral vision. Yet other modern writers utilize the arche­ typal experience to present their ontological visions. Louis- Ferdinand Celine's Journey to the End of the Night and Samuel Beckett's Moiioy employ the archetypal mode to explain ontology. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Much of modern criticism is devoted to the exegesis of literature through a study of its archetypal content. Maud Bodkin, who may be termed the founder of modern arche­ typal criticism, says that the role of the critic when study­ ing archetypal patterns is two-fold: "We may study the themes that show this persistence within the life of a com­ munity or race, and may compare the different forms which they assume; also we may study analytically in different in­ dividuals the inner experience of responding to such themes."1 These two activities are the necessary limitations that the archetypal critic must impose upon himself in order to have a coherent mode of analyzing literary work. As far as the present study is concerned, these limitations will be ap­ plied to the analysis of the archetypal content sometimes re­ ferred to as the Dark Night of the Soul. It is not merely the recurrence of the theme and its concurrent metaphorical