A Jungian Reading of the Hero's Journey
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A Jungian Reading of the Hero‟s Journey Page 2 http://acoldandlonelystreet.blogspot.com/ Ash Hibbert A Jungian Reading of the Hero‟s Journey Page 3 Contents Abbreviations 5 Introduction 6 Chapter 1: The Hero and the Shadow 10 Literary Active Imagination 11 Implications of Literary Active Imagination 14 Reconciliation with the Shadow 17 Chapter 2: The Hero and Androgyny 22 Androgyny 22 Reconciliation with the Anima 24 Chapter 3: The Hero and their Community 30 Vision and Truth 31 Ego and the Unconscious 34 The Community 38 Passing the Torch 40 The Spiral-Shaped Journey 42 Reconciliation with the Persona 44 Conclusion 49 Appendix - Synopsis 51 Chapter 2 (25-54) 51 Chapter 4 (78-105) 52 Chapter 6 (129-59) 53 Chapter 8 (194-223) 53 Chapter 10 (254-76) 53 Chapter 1 (5-24) 54 Chapter 3 (55-77) 54 http://acoldandlonelystreet.blogspot.com/ Ash Hibbert A Jungian Reading of the Hero‟s Journey Page 4 Chapter 5 (106-28) 54 Chapter 9 (224-53) 55 Chapter 11 (277-89) 55 Chapter 13 (313-9) 56 Bibliography 57 Primary Texts 57 Works Cited 58 Works Consulted 61 http://acoldandlonelystreet.blogspot.com/ Ash Hibbert A Jungian Reading of the Hero‟s Journey Page 5 Abbreviations Parenthetical page numbers refer to Le Guin, Ursula. The Dispossessed. London: Orion Publishing Group, 1999. „CW‟ refers to The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, vols. 1-22 edited by Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, Gerhard Adler, translated by R.F.C. Hull. New York: Pantheon Books, 1953-<1991> http://acoldandlonelystreet.blogspot.com/ Ash Hibbert A Jungian Reading of the Hero‟s Journey Page 6 Introduction I will be using Jungian psychology to show how literature strongly relates to everyday life, how Speculative Fiction is especially capable of helping facilitate psychic and social development, and how Ursula Le Guin‟s novel The Dispossessed offers valuable insights to the human condition. The Dispossessed, as well as being Speculative Fiction, is about an individual. Le Guin‟s essay on the importance of a realistic protagonist, „Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown‟ (Language of the Night 112), emphasizes how The Dispossessed, and all of its characters, grew out of a vision of a person. Le Guin‟s adamant privileging of the individual in The Dispossessed makes it an ideal novel for an exploration of a model of personal development. Jungian Psychology will assist in reading The Dispossessed by focusing on the main protagonist, Shevek. While characters do not possess an unconscious or subconscious (Stiller 36; also see Holland „Shakespearian Tragedy‟ 207-17, and Holland Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare) they are the canvas that receives the projection of both the writer and reader‟s ego - Shevek can thus be situated as the exclusive „ego‟ of the novel as he is the “primary carrier” of Le Guin‟s unconscious personality (Cambridge Companion to Jung 256-7; see also Franz An Introduction to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales). This illustrates Le Guin‟s particular investment in realistically developing Shevek. In spite of its shortfalls, Jung‟s psychology remains an authorized (CW 15 par. 133) and useful tool for feminist and non-feminist critics alike to read literature by (Lauter and Rupprecht 3). Robert Segal highlights that while Freud is useful to understand an individual in their early years, Jung is useful to understand the latter years (Jung on Mythology 8-9). While Shevek‟s infancy, childhood, and youth is highly relevant to his later development, it is only detailed in one of the novel‟s http://acoldandlonelystreet.blogspot.com/ Ash Hibbert A Jungian Reading of the Hero‟s Journey Page 7 thirteen chapters, thus providing far less material to work with compared to the rest of his life. The exclusion of Freud from an analysis of Shevek, then, is not from loyalty to Jung -Jung‟s theories are simply more pertinent. Jung and Le Guin also hold very similar views on personal development of the individual and it is in part due to their similarities that I will use an allegorical reading of The Dispossessed to illustrate Jung‟s views. Though this approach is but one of many possible ways of reading the novel and characters, I plan to demonstrate the success of a Jungian reading of Le Guin‟s work even though Le Guin is not Jungian (Rochelle 31n.120). Rather, I intend to demonstrate that Le Guin, especially in light of The Dispossessed, shares similar views on the human condition with Jung. I will also briefly discuss Orson Scott Card‟s Enders Quartet, which also reflects views similar to Jung. Jungian psychology will also be useful as the mode of communication between Le Guin and mythologist Joseph Campbell whose model of the hero‟s journey I will explore. Campbell preferred Jung‟s view on myth to Freud‟s because of Jung‟s view that “the imageries of mythology and religion serve positive, life furthering ends”, contrast to Freud who saw myths as “errors to be refuted, surpassed, and supplanted finally by science” (Myths to Live By 12-3). Yet while Segal describes Campbell as “Jungian-oriented” (Jung on Mythology 13) he is also described as “too eclectic to qualify as a full-fledged Jungian” (43). Campbell “praises Jung rather than defers to him” (125-6). Both Jung and Campbell attributing the origins of myth to Independent Invention, yet while Campbell saw the invention of myth arising through commonly shared experiences, Jung attributed myth to Independent Invention through heredity – specifically through the inheritance of archetypes (Joseph Campbell 126-30). Moreover, like Jung, Campbell saw myth as revealing http://acoldandlonelystreet.blogspot.com/ Ash Hibbert A Jungian Reading of the Hero‟s Journey Page 8 The existence of a severed, deeper reality … as a vehicle for actually encountering that reality [and] as a model for others. But where for Jung myth fulfils these functions even when its meaning remains unconscious, for Campbell myth works only when ‘sages’ reveal its meaning. (131). Campbell also saw myths as linking people to the cosmos, society, and themselves (131). Compared to Jung, Campbell is a transcendental mystic who “preaches absorption in the unconscious” – while Jung is an immanent who “preaches balance: neither rejection of the unconscious nor surrender to it” (133). Since Pearson and Pope‟s landmark Female Hero in American and British Literature however, Campbell‟s Hero with a Thousand Faces has been less of an affirmative touchstone for the hero‟s journey and more used as sport by Feminists. Pearson and Pope attempt to make up for Campbell‟s poor representation of women in his model of the hero, but even their title suggests that the endeavour to find a model of the hero‟s journey applicable to both men and women is far from complete. Jung‟s notions of androgyny and the contrasexual figure offer a remedy for the gender exclusivity of Campbell, Pearson and Pope, and thus it will be helpful in an attempt to include both men and women in a single model of the hero‟s journey. Another shortfall of Campbell is the absence of a balanced, egalitarian relationship portrayed between the hero and their community. Campbell, while constantly privileging the hero and casting them as fitting to become tyrant of their world shows the hero as a timeless instrument of their community. Subsequently, I will endeavour to highlight ways in which The Dispossessed challenges Campbell, by providing models of relationships between individual and community, man and woman, based less on mutual use and more on mutual respect. Finally, a Jungian analysis of Shevek provides an illustration of Jung‟s concept of the Archetype – of their personal characteristics, and of the unmediated relationship http://acoldandlonelystreet.blogspot.com/ Ash Hibbert A Jungian Reading of the Hero‟s Journey Page 9 that can be formed between them and the ego. http://acoldandlonelystreet.blogspot.com/ Ash Hibbert A Jungian Reading of the Hero‟s Journey Page 10 Chapter 1: The Hero and the Shadow This chapter will, like those following, attempt to link literature with personal development. In this chapter, I will specifically be drawing from the Jungian practice of Active Imagination, and Jung‟s notion of the reconciliation with the shadow figure. The approach of this chapter is indicative of the trend in the latter chapters: to show Jungian psychology as useful in challenging conventional notions of, and approaches to, the hero‟s journey. This challenge precedes a demonstration of how Shevek, as the vehicle of Le Guin‟s Jungian-like sentiments, specifically illustrates the way that readers can live out that alternate model. Shevek‟s acts of reconciliation with the archetypal figures represented by some of the characters, which become the focus towards the end of each chapter here, are valuable as a literal model for readers‟ own personal development. I will also highlight instances where The Dispossessed provides counter-examples – where Shevek and other characters fall victim to possession by, and projection of, archetypal figures. Shevek‟s acts of reconciliation are also useful as a medium for the audience‟s own development - a potential that Appleyard suggests in school-age readers (14) and that I will suggest is available to all readers. While Appleyard condemns uncritical or precritical approaches to reading (2) his descriptions of what motivates lay-reading outside of academia highlights such readers‟ yearning for relevancy (1). Though some of the subsequent strategies used by lay-readers to gain a sense of relevancy can be highly questionable (1) the desire to find meaning in one‟s life is of pure intent. Just as traditional literary criticism aims to help inform the dialogue that we establish between ourselves and a text (Novels for Students xi), so too does the spontaneous form of reader response endeavour to bridge a link between author and audience.