Repetition-Compulsion, Power Instinct, and Apprehension in Ursula K. Le Guin's a Wizard of Earthsea

The Catalyst Volume 4 | Issue 1 Article 6 2017 Mind Over Magic: Repetition-Compulsion, Power Instinct, and Apprehension in Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea Phillip Snyder The University of Southern Mississippi, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://aquila.usm.edu/southernmisscatalyst Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Snyder, Phillip (2017) "Mind Over Magic: Repetition-Compulsion, Power Instinct, and Apprehension in Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea," The Catalyst: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 6. DOI: 10.18785/cat.0401.06 Available at: http://aquila.usm.edu/southernmisscatalyst/vol4/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in The aC talyst by an authorized editor of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Catalyst Volume 4 | Issue 1 | Article 6 2017 Mind Over Magic: Repetition-Compulsion, Power Instinct, and Apprehension in Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea Phillip Snyder Ursula K. Le Guin was born into a close Le Guin’s novel tells the story of Ged, a young family with “reasonable financial security, wizard from northern Earthsea born with and an abundance of intellectual stimulation” great magical aptitude. Even as a young boy (Carmean, Williams, and Rich). Biographers of twelve, he protects his humble village from Carmean, Williams, and Rich explain that a band of foreign raiders with his magical after Le Guin graduated Magna Cum Laude in talent. This feat of magical power attracts 1951 and attained a Masters degree in 1952, the attention of an accomplished wizard by her first real breakthrough in writing was the the name of Ogion. Ogion takes the young publication of her short story “April in Paris,” boy under his tutelage and gives him his true in 1962, after which her “literary output name of Ged. Ged, however, is prideful and steadily increased.” Le Guin’s A Wizard of impatient and tries to find a more powerful Earthsea was first published in 1968 and was spell among Ogion’s tomes. He finds a spell to awarded the Boston Globe Horn Book Award summon dead spirits, but not understanding in 1969. It has been hailed as a classic in its power he attracts the attention of a the fantasy genre. Le Guin details her realm shadow-beast from the realm of the dead. of myth and magic through “use of songs, Ogion saves Ged, and Ged decides to study stories, folktales, maps, and depictions of wizardry on the Isle of Roke. On Roke, he material culture,” in ways that reflect her excels in his studies but eventually succumbs upbringing (Carmean et. al.). Carmean and to his pride at a challenge to summon a dead her fellow biographers continue that Le Guin spirit and inadvertently releases the shadow grew up in an intellectually rich environment he had attracted before, which is determined surrounded by books and academic minds. to possess his body. After once again being With an anthropologist as a father and “a restored to proper health following the respected writer with an advanced degree shadow’s attack, Ged spends the next two in psychology” as a mother, it comes as no years fleeing from the shadow until Ogion surprise that Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea convinces him to hunt it instead. Ged barely easily lends itself to psychoanalytic analysis returns from death’s door on numerous (Carmean et. al.). The novel’s protagonist, occasions but finally confronts and overcomes Ged, repeatedly interacts with a creature the shadow. known as the shadow despite the pain that each meeting brings him. While the novel A Wizard of Earthsea has been the subject readily lends itself to psychoanalytic criticism of various frames of study, notably feminist through the lens of C.J. Jung’s work, an analysis and Jungian psychoanalysis. In her avenue of analysis previously explored article “Witches, Wives and Dragons: The by scholars such as Gordon E. Slethaug, I Evolution of the Women in Ursula K. Le Guin’s find that using a Freudian approach allows Earthsea—An Overview,” Melanie A. Rawls for new points that would otherwise go analyzes the limited role that women play in unaddressed. When viewed through Sigmund A Wizard of Earthsea. Rawls writes that all of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Ged’s the relevant women in the story “fit into stock interactions with the shadow in Le Guin’s A categories” (130). Rawls points out that Ged Wizard of Earthsea affect our understanding goes “to the school for wizards on Roke Island, of Freud’s concept of repetition-compulsion an all-male institution,” and that it is only after and show the process by which people repeat the appearance of a fair maiden at Roke that painful actions in order to approach mastery there is a “disastrous wizard’s duel . thereby over a situation. reinforcing the general belief that women and SNYDER A6 42 proper wizardry do not mix” (130). Rawls “Applying Freud’s theories to shows that the novel subtly implies social issues with the way that women are viewed Ged’s relationship with the in the land of Earthsea, but that this first shadow in Le Guin’s A Wizard text in the Earthsea series does not address women’s issues directly. of Earthsea offers additional insight into the way we un- The novel seems much more interested in the psychological issues presented by Ged’s derstand the shadow and its relation with the shadow, a topic explored mastery.” in more depth by Gordon E. Slethaug. In his article “The Paradoxical Double in Le Guin’s will repeat a particular action even if it is A Wizard of Earthsea,” Slethaug discusses psychologically painful for them, particularly the way that the novel depicts elements in the case of reliving or reenacting traumatic of Jungian psychoanalytic theory. Slethaug events, seemingly in spite of Freud’s theories on focuses his analysis on Jung’s “theories of the unconscious drive for pleasure. the personality and of the struggle for power between the conscious and the unconscious, Freud offers a possible explanation in what the rational and the shadow, and of the Brill translates as the power instinct. In Section necessary reconciliation of the two” (327). II of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud Slethaug continues to explain how the proposes that repetition-compulsion “might be relationship between Ged and the shadow ascribed to the impulse to obtain the mastery reflects Jung’s view that “the shadow . of a situation . which remains independent of . unless recognized and integrated, will any question of whether the recollection was a remain pitted against the moral or rational pleasant one or not” (sec. II). This power instinct self” (Slethaug 329). The Jungian views that could then be seen as a potential drive for the Slethaug discusses are clearly present in A repetition-compulsion; the more an individual Wizard of Earthsea, but other, less obvious experiences a situation, the more he or she psychoanalytic theories present themselves knows how to handle and, consequently, gain as explanations for how Ged interacts mastery over that situation. with the shadow, such as Sigmund Freud’s concepts of repetition-compulsion and the The concept of the power instinct would power instinct. also help explain Freud’s other dilemma, that traumatic experiences tend to cause nightmares In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sigmund that “continually [take] the patient back to Freud discusses his concept of “repetition- the situation of his disaster,” which seems to compulsion” (sec. III), which he explains as counteract his theory that dreams operate “an instinct for mastery,” or what A.A. Brill on the concept of wish-fulfillment (sec. II). He translates as “the ‘power’ instinct” (sec. II). explains this by proposing, “These dreams are Freud describes how these concepts seek attempts at restoring control of the stimuli to explain behavior that would otherwise by developing apprehension” (sec. IV). Freud defy his previous theories on the pleasure defines “apprehension” as “a certain condition principle, which suggest that people should as of expectation of danger and preparation seek pleasure rather than pain. The problem for it, even though it be an unknown one” his theories encounter is that individuals (sec. II). In this context, the repetition of SNYDER A6 43 “It should therefore come as no Le Guin next shows the shadow after Ged surprise that Ged is nearly killed misuses a spell to summon the dead. After it comes through the portal Ged has made, the after this attack and that the shadow is presented in more mundane terms Archmage must drive the shadow like “beast” and “child,” which remain familiar away to save him.” to the human mind, though the shadow is still foreign enough to have “no head or face” (85). nightmares is exposing the dreamer to the While this is the first time that Ged sees the traumatic situation in order to help make shadow in the physical world, seeing it as an the experience more familiar and therefore apparition in Ogion’s hut has already caused easier to master. With the familiarity Ged apprehension. This apprehension allows apprehension brings, one develops the for the shadow to be better understood, capability to actively confront past trauma. allowing it to be perceived in more familiar terms. However, Ged has only seen the shadow Applying Freud’s theories to Ged’s once before and over a great distance bridging relationship with the shadow in Le Guin’s A two separate planes of existence, so the Wizard of Earthsea offers additional insight apprehension he has developed through his into the way we understand the shadow past experience cannot be sufficient to fully and its mastery.

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