The Ego and The Shadow

Carl Jung was one of the founding fathers of Psychoanalytic approach and established the Analytic school of thought under it. It emphasizes the importance of the individual psyche and the personal quest for wholeness. Unlike most modern psychologists, Jung did not believe that experiments using natural science were the only means to gain an understanding of the human psyche. He saw as empirical evidence the world of dream, myth, and folklore as the promising road to deeper understanding and meaning. That method's choice is related with his choice of the object of his science. As Jung said, "The beauty about the unconscious is that it is really unconscious. Hence, the unconscious is 'untouchable' by experimental researches, or indeed any possible kind of scientific or philosophical reach, precisely because it is unconscious. 

This article is an attempt to understand the concepts of 'The Ego' and 'The Shadow', taken from 'Aion: Research into the Phenomenology of the Self'; 9th Volume of Collected Works of C.G Jung. 

Not unlike Freud, who saw personality as an interacting tandem of the Id, Ego and Superego; Jung saw 'the psyche' to be made up separate but interacting systems of the ego, the personal unconsciousness and the collective unconsciousness. The first layer called the personal unconscious is essentially the same as Freud’s version of the unconscious. The personal unconscious contains temporarily forgotten information and well as repressed memories. The 'collective unconsciousness', a concept that predominantly set Jung apart from Freud, defines a level of unconscious shared with other members of the human species comprising latent memories from our ancestral and evolutionary past. ‘The form of the world into which [a person] is born is already inborn in him, as a virtual image’.

The 'Ego' represents the conscious mind as it comprises the thoughts, memories, and emotions a person is aware of. The ego is largely responsible for feelings of identity and continuity. The ego usually assumes itself to be the center of the psyche, for it believes it knows everything and comprises the self when in reality, it only makes up part of the self which also comprises of the 'unconscious'. Jung, defines this as, "Anyone who has any ego-consciousness at all takes it for granted that he knows himself. But the ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its contents. People measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of himself, but not by the real psychic facts which are for the most part hidden from them. In this respect the psyche behaves like the body, of whose physiological and anatomical structure the average person knows very little too."

Therefore, one of the basic necessities for the process of individualization, the overarching goal of Jungian psychology is to differentiate the ego from the complexes in the unconscious which hold more about 'the self'. 

One of the components in our unconscious, as described by Jung, is 'The Shadow'. The shadow comprises hidden or unconscious aspects of oneself, both good and bad, which the ego has either repressed or never recognized. The shadow is composed for the most part of repressed desires and uncivilized impulses, morally inferior motives, childish fantasies and resentments, etc. – all those things about oneself one is not proud of. Jung defines the shadow as "The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real".

These unacknowledged personal characteristics are often experienced in others through the mechanism of projection, which is a defense mechanism where the inferior thoughts and motives in one are defined or seen as moral deficiency in the other person. This creates a veil of protection between the ego and reality. The realization of the shadow is inhibited by the persona, which is how we like to perceive ourselves as well as present ourselves to others. To the degree that we identify with a bright persona, the shadow is correspondingly dark. Thus shadow and persona stand in a compensatory relationship, and the conflict between them is invariably present in an outbreak of neurosis. The shadow in effect comes to comprise our entire unconscious. Jungians maintain that ‘the shadow contains, besides the personal shadow, the shadow of society ... fed by the neglected and repressed collective values.’

The shadow may appear in dreams and visions in various forms, and typically 'appears as a person of the same sex as that of the dreamer'. 

The shadow is not, however, only the dark underside of the personality. It also consists of instincts, abilities and positive moral qualities that have long been buried or never been conscious. An outbreak of neurosis constellates both sides of the shadow: those qualities and activities one is not proud of, and new possibilities one never knew were there.

If we were to analyze the character of 'the narrator' from the book the 'The Fight Club' by Chuck Palahniuk or the character of 'Gollum' from the series ' The Lord of the Rings' written by J.R.R Tolkien or even the classic 'Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' from a Jungian approach, we find that the neurosis in these characters stem from their conflicted 'Shadow'. These characters live their repressed desires and impulsive actions through a character that they manifest. This other character is their unconscious or their shadow. 

  

The overarching goal of Jungian psychology is the attainment of self through individualization. Jung defines "self" as the "archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the psyche." Central to this process is the individual's encounter with his/her psyche and the bringing of its elements into consciousness. Humans experience the unconscious through symbols encountered in all aspects of life: in dreams, art, religion, and the symbolic dramas we enact in our relationships and life pursuits. Essential to this numinous encounter is the merging of the individual's consciousness with the collective consciousness through this symbolic language. By bringing conscious awareness to what is not conscious, unconscious elements can be integrated with consciousness when they "surface."

Carl Jung And Psychoanalytic Theory

The Psychoanalytic Theory propounded by Sigmund Freud, is a ground breaking that changed the way human psyche was understood. It affected not just the field of psychology but transversed across various fields and the understanding of the subject of their study. Carl Gustav Jung, was another pioneering figure who collaborated with Freud and supported his theory of the deep-seated unconscious. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung was born July 26, 1875, in Kesswil, Switzerland. The only son of a Protestant clergyman, Jung was a quiet, observant child who packed certain loneliness in his single-child status. However, perhaps as a result of that isolation, he spent hours observing the roles of the adults around him, something that no doubt shaped his later career and work. Jung was widely believed to be the one who would continue the work of the elder Freud. However, viewpoints and temperament ended their collaboration and, eventually their friendship. In particular, Jung challenged Freud's beliefs around sexuality as the foundation of neurosis. He also disagreed with Freud's methods, asserting that the elder psychologist's work was too one-sided. The final break came in 1912 when Jung published Psychology of the Unconscious. In it, Jung examined the unconscious mind and tried to understand the symbolic meaning of its contents. In the process, the work also took head-on a number of Freud's theories. Seeking to further distinguish his work from Freud's, Jung adopted the term "analytical psychology" and delved deep into his work. His most important development from this early period was his conception of introverts and extroverts and the notion that people can be categorized as one of the two, depending on the extent to which they exhibit certain functions of consciousness. Jung's work in this area was featured in his 1921 publication Psychological Types. During this period he also allowed himself to explore his own mind, eventually proposing the idea that there was not only a personal unconscious but also a collective unconscious from which certain universal symbols and patterns have arisen throughout history. Shared by all individuals in a culture, the collective unconscious could be regarded as the, repository of racial memories  and of the primordial images and patterns of experiences, which he calls archetypes. A philosopher, psychoanalyst and a disciple of Freud, Jung treated the human self as the totality of all psychic processes. While Freud believed literature to be an expression of the repressed conflicts and desires of the author, Jung regarded literature as an expression of the collective unconscious, as it provides access for readers to the archetypal images buried in racial memories, thereby helping in revitalising the psyche of the culture as a whole.Hence the importance of using myths and legends in African, Native American and other resistance literatures in a desperate attempt to reclaim the past, redefine history and assert their cultural identities. A powerful explication of this concept can be seen in Eugene O’Neill‘s Emperor Jones. Jung’s theory has also been a cardinal formative influence on Northrop Frye‘s Archetypal Criticism. Jung also postulated the concept of the Self as constituting of the anima and the animus—the anima being the unconscious female component in men, and the animus being the unconscious male component in women. At the heart of analytical psychology is the interplay of these with the ego, a process he labeled individuation, by which a person develops into his or her own "true self." Jung published numerous works during his lifetime, and his ideas have had reverberations traveling beyond the field of psychiatry, extending into art, literature and religion as well. He died in 1961.

THE OVAL PORTRAIT THROUGH THE LENS OF LIBERAL HUMANISM

Liberal Humanism is a traditional approach to English Studies that stems from the works of I.A Richards, William Empson and F. R Leavis. Liberal Humanists highlight the agency and value of human beings, both individually and collectively. They believe human beings essentially possess ‘free will’ and perceive themselves as well as thers based on experience. There are some underlying aspects of liberal humanism which have been made into the ‘ten tenets’. They serve as the guidelines and the core for studying a text from a liberal humanist viewpoint.

The text in question is Edgar Allen Poe’s, ‘The Oval Portrait’, is a classic

short story that narrates a tragic tale of a young girl. What’s interesting though is that there is no context given to the story. The narrator doesn’t identify himself, the chateau is non-descriptive nor does he dwell on the circumstances that got him there. The story makes sense in itself and doesn’t require the elaborate process of placing it within a context. This serves as one of the fundamental tenets of liberal humanism where a text should make sense in isolation. The socio-political, literary-historical circumstances and the autobiographical details or influences of the author need not be known for the text to make sense. Though some critics emphasize on the need to study context, liberal humanists counter it by stating that the ‘words on the page’ should be self sufficient and induce what’s called ‘on-sight close reading’, which allows for focus on nuances in the story.

The absence of a particular time-frame that allows it to be placed in any epoch and the use of understandable, everyday language makes it relatable to the audience no matter where and when they read it or what their beliefs or values are. This brings us to the next tenet that states that what marks a true literary piece is its timelessness or the fact that it can be read generations later and it would still make sense and be relatable to the reader. The story is gothic with a sense of eeriness that brought forward by the dark setting. The story talks about fear, beauty, love, passion and death. These are emotions which are universal and, for the lack of a better term, eternal. Thus, the story sits well with the tenet that “human nature is unchanging” and “continuity in literature is more important than innovation”;i.e. the storyline may change and new topics maybe discussed but they all should deal with the same human emotions that’s what makes the story relatable and impactful.

The story also brings out contrast between life and art. As liberal humanists put it, literature has the power within it to enhance human life and evoke powerful emotions that can move them but literature is not a means for propaganda. The story captures how art drives a character to madness, and a damsel whose love compels her to sacrifice her life with every stroke of her lovers brush. It brings out emotions of empathy and a diabolic exchange of life and death.

The story thus, fits well into the liberal humanism viewpoint. Though it can be studied from multiple viewpoints and the approach has been criticized by some, such as the structuralists, it stands on strong grounds and it can’t be refuted that it is one of the first and major ways of studying literary texts.

Literature and the Russian Formalists

“What is Literature?”  is a question that has been contemplated on for centuries. What distinguishes it from everyday writing and what are the characteristics. In her essay, What Is Literature?, Terry Eagleton explores these questions and the essence of literary theory. There is a difference between ‘literature’ and ‘Literature’. While any piece of writing can be literature; Literature has certain characteristic features. The author explains how literature can be defined as ‘imaginative’ and ‘fictional’, yet that’s not the clearest form of distinction for defining literature.

Literature is more easily definable through the language used than through whether the writing is creative and imaginative. The author talks about the literary theory of Russian Formalism which was an influential school of literary criticism in Russia from 1910s to the 1930s. The critics were highly radical and skeptical who focused on differentiating between art and mystery so that there was emphasis on the functional role of literary devices. According to the Russian Formalists, literature was different from religion, psychology and sociology and rather was an organization on its own with its own distinctive structures and rules that guide it and through which it can be studied. Literary work should be studied objectively as a machine would be and not as a reflection of societal and psychological reality of the author and the time period. For the formalists, form was not the expression of content rather content was the motivation for the form. The author uses the example of Animal Farm to elucidate the point. From the Formalists point of view, the Animal Farm written by George Orwell is not an allegory for Stalinism rather Stalinism provided the opportunity for the construction of an allegory. The literary devices that are used in Literature are what sets them apart by making them ‘defamiliar’. Literature uses common, everyday language twists it using devices such as imagery, sound, syntax, meter, narrative technique. This makes the content hard to perceive forcing the audience to think in new ways. Thus, for the Formalists, saw literary language as a deviation from ordinary language.

The problem with this was what is defined as ordinary language. What is defined as ‘ordinary’ for scholars is different from what encompasses ‘ordinary’ for a common, working man. They also realized that norms changed from time to time based on the social and/or historical context. A piece of literature that is “estranging” to one group of people, or at one point of time does not guarantee that it will always remain so.  When a piece of literature loses this characteristic, it ceases to be a piece of literature. The literariness of a piece is not a property that’s eternal rather will change from one context to another. The Formalists therefore, defined what was literariness rather than literature.

Literature thus, cannot be studied as an ‘objective’ category far removed from what’s around it, neither is it anything and everything that people decide to call ‘literature’. The study of Literature is deep rooted in various structures that require value judgment. These value judgments change over context but have a strong relation to the ideologies of the time. Literary texts usually reflect this as well as the psychological state and thoughts of the author, which the Formalists had termed as redundant.  Studying literature out of this context,  doesn't give a proper understanding of the text.
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, reflected the Victorian society and the state of women in it. It also had certain autobiographical elements. This piece of literature, that has stood the test of time and is considered a classic literary text. Thus, Jane Eyre, has reflections from the life of author and the language used is not "defamiliarising" to the context it was written in. 

Emperor Jones and the Loss of Identity and Unhomely

‘Emperor Jones’ is a play written by Eugene O’Neil during the 1920s, that received great critical acclaim. The plot is a literary analyst’s dream, for it is an experimental play by O’Neil that delves and makes use of expressionism, Jungian psychoanalysis and the themes of race and identity. 

In her critical essay “Reconsidering Race, Language and Identity in The Emperor Jones” Michele Mendelssohn studies how the themes of race, identity and language are expressed through the journey of the protagonist. Mendelssohn analyses the play using Frantz Fanon’s racially embedded psychoanalytic theory to look at the themes and the shadows they cast. Jones tries to show his distance from the black community and his affiliation to a supposedly superior white race through his language, thought, religion and appearance. His thoughts are mostly reflected in his interactions with Smithers. In her essay Mendelssohn looks at the effect of colonization of not just the material world but of intellect as well. Jones’ conflict arises from his being both the ‘colonized and the colonizer’. His effort to internalize the language of the whites shows his intellectual colonization which he believes puts him above the others and the rite of passage to rule over the natives. His knowledge of the native language, he believes, is only so that he can communicate and exploit them to his benefit. He suns away the jungle and only makes use of it for the thrill of adventure, for hunting. The dark jungle almost comes to represent the black community, one he does not want to have any association with;"the colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country's cultural standards. He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his jungle”.  He considers any association to the black community a pretense. Though Jones seems to be clear about his believes, it is clear that he is caught between two cultures. Mendelssohn also brings to notice how Jones compares the attempts to capture him made by the whites and the natives as Smithers warns him of it. This also brings out how Jones does not seem to belong anywhere, neither with the colonizers or the colonized.

Jones also tries to associate himself with the whites through his religion and appearance. His appearance is an amalgamation of stark black physical features while his clothes and grandeur reflected white superiority. He was also a Baptist, an English religion out of place in the native land. The author identifies the dress Jones wore as a uniform. The foreign nature of which is brought out as he advances through the jungle and gradually tears away his grand clothes one after another as he strips away at his unconscious as he faces “literal and metaphorical darkness”.

Jones has lost a sense of self doing everything to disassociate himself from the black community, to escape his past but not finding acceptance in a race whose values he tried so hard to follow. He only draws his identity from how he views the natives as inferior and the whites as what he aspires to be, but in the having no identity of his own. He ends up being ‘unhomed’, as he loses his roots and belonging anywhere. He places himself neither as an African nor an American. Thus, Emperor Jones is a story of a man who has lost his sense of identity in his quest for power. He is a man, who seems to be running away from the colonizers and the colonized, finding himself neither to be an American or African nor finding a middle ground. He is an homeless man with a lost sense of identity and Michele Mendelssohn's essay brings out these aspects clearly.