SLAV 512, November 4, 2003
Look at Jung: in context of Freud
Freud - mind blank at birth
Unconscious filled with the repressed upsurges of the id, libido
Upsurges of libido into ego
Repressed by ego
Room model and Jaynes comments on modeling tendency of conscious thinking
If the repressed material causes pathology
Should be brought to the surface
So that the conscious/ego can deal with it
His focus on patients and pathology
Implication that repression is always bad and harmful
Reaction
People screaming at concerts
Doing "their own thing"
Children of Counterculture and realizing Oedipal fantasies of the child
Freud himself actually encourages repression
Sublimation produces art, scholarship
Freudian unconscious filled with material of what happened during a particular, individual life
But not in pure form, in symbolic form
Repressed material too frightening to be dealt with directly
Turned into symbols, same way it is in dreams
Many feelings, desires not acceptable
Sexual feelings for mother
Sexual feelings per se
Resentment of same sex parent
But, though feelings not acceptable, still exist and still strive for expression
(Aside on urge for expression)
Expression of these feelings occurs in symbols
Plucking flower - of mother, of daughter
Swimming and flying
Killing giants and dragons
Dark tunnels and other passages, esp. with
Slime
Teeth/clashing rocks = vagina dentata stories
Tales can be seen as a way to provide the child with a vocabulary for the expression that he needs for his mental well-being
Older child can play with dolls, or toy dinosaurs
Younger child needs help coming up with ways of expressing his emotions
Giant = dad, etc.
In the case of pathology,
Because these feelings are unacceptable and masked in symbols
Need trained therapist to discern true meaning of the symbol for the individual
Recognizes that many symbols are shared, common
(How therapist is able to interpret)
But attributes most of this to shared experience
Freud's focus on pathology
The individual and particular/peculiar
Freud's fear of the unconscious and goal of bringing the material of the unconscious up to the conscious, so the latter could take care of it
Jung - mind not blank at birth
Filled with memory of the development of the human race - the collective unconscious
Tabula rasa debate
Nature/nurture debate
Recent - IQ - to what extent determined at birth
To what extent determined by what done to child - stimulation
New test for baby intelligence
The various twins separated at birth experiments
Trend now is to emphasis the nature over the nurture
What is inborn, genetically determined?
More important than what happens to child
Political component of this stance
To what extent is government responsible for the well-being of children?
If you say problems are in-born, then government doesn't have to do much
Economic component - interest of drug companies in saying that this is something that CANNOT be taken care of through the "talking cure," needs medication
For Jung -
Contents of a particular person's unconscious
The collective unconscious - memory of human race
Plus individual experiences
(Repressed material somewhat like Freud)
Both - but collective more important
Structures the individual experiences
Collective - form, slot, generic, -emic unit
Personal - what fills slot, nominal, -etic unit
Jung's focus on what is shared
Rather than individual and peculiar
Comment on Jung in Med School library
Use of Jung in material with intended mass appeal
Advertisements
MTV
Lucas and Star Wars
TRC
Business
Jung tries to describe the unconscious
Being unconscious - not fully graspable by conscious
Seething protein mass
Because he cannot describe, tries to evoke
By artistic means
Contradictory nature of his writings
Seething protein mass of the unconscious tends to cluster
Clusters of ideas called archetypes
(Distinguish from historic-geographic archetypes)
Cannot define - name
Anima/animus
Mother
Child
Old man
Shadow
Archetypes as a grid through which the unconscious manifests itself to the conscious
Gives form to the unconscious
Jung mind model
Not ego or conscious alone
Ego (conscious par excellence) and
That part of the unconscious of which the ego is aware
Not necessarily articulate
Unconscious manifests self to ego through archetypes
This whole thing is Jungian model of mind
His term for it - psyche or self (not ego)
Archetype itself structured along axes of polar opposites
Anima - an opposite to the man in whose mind it is an archetype
Opposite further
Anima - old
Young
Kind and helpful
Devouring and destructive
Examples from tales
Structure by opposites extremely powerful
As such, can encompass a great deal
The variable axes
Traditional - Indian goddess Kali
Birth and death
Severed heads on her belt
Diana the huntress (killer) and also the protector of women in childbirth
Very powerful images structured on opposites used in commercials
Women sell men's clothing
How to sell Van-Heusen shirt
How to sell pantyhose - everyone remembers Joe Namath
Woman juxtaposed to man (sell products to men) and juxtaposed to animal
Woman - soft and cuddly
Juxtaposed to strong animal - horse to sell cologne: British Sterling
Juxtaposed to ferocious animal - cougar to sell cars
Calvin Klein ads using children
Fresh air motif in cigarette commercials
Hiking, out-of-doors
Strength of the bond of love-hate relationships
Story of O
Formulas for writing Romances - guy should be bastard to start out with
Lovers of very different ages - Lolita
John Barth and the boredom of the perfect wife - uni-dimensional
The power of abusive relationships - difficulty in breaking away
Bond to nurturing/destructive parents - Psycho
Other opposites - the Borg
Imperial walkers in Star Wars II - scarier because they are machine and animal form
Yours truly - immaculate, yet talk about poop, pee, snot, etc.
Dennis Rodman
Doctor who is going to stick fingers in various dirty parts of you has to be super clean and wear white coat
This is the person who really should be dressed in messy outfit - esp. the one who will go and cut you, but absolutely not
Something that contains within it an opposition is perceived as greater, more powerful in some way
The wisdom of fairytales in this regard
Hero or heroine knows not to reject what seems disgusting
Drinking from the river of pus or the blood fountain
Removing the thorn from the paw of the lion
Knowing that the girl in the Pigskin cloak or Cinderella is beautiful and that the frog is lovable
Divine wisdom/mystery
The power of Mother Theresa
Please note that, to balance, the process of ascension to sainthood is very formal, rigid and structured
Let us assume that unconscious, structured by the archetypes built on polar opposites exists
Then ---
Child establishes ego
After this, makes journey to explore the unconscious
(About age 10 - period of many nightmares)
Journey called process of individuation - establishing self in Jungian terms, establishing self as person, one's personal version of the collective unconscious
Also called integration - joining of conscious and unconscious
(As therapist, Jung talks about adults, posits some never make this journey of discovery, remain blobs)
At same time implies this journey normal
Should be made
Trying to somehow suppress or get rid of the unconscious
Impossible
Or at least leads to mental illness
Like trying to get rid of a physical organ of the body
Journey into unconscious starts in late childhood
Unconscious part very frightening and threatening, but must be dealt with, as above
One of reasons for fear - apparent threat of unconscious to take over conscious mind
Another reason for fear
1st archetype encountered on journey of individuation - the shadow!
All the negative aspects of the self - what the ego does not like
Pictured as deep, dark well
Dark, uncontrollable, instinctual, violent
(Jaynes and metaphor of vision)
Its representation as something deformed, particularly in the head
Phantom of the opera
Darth Vader
One of best examples of the encounter with the shadow is Empire Strikes Back and the education of Luke (mental)
By Yoda in the swamp - nice for seething protein mass of unconscious
Luke made to crawl through a dark passage - one of first stages of training, needless to say
Encounters Darth Vader as self
Necessary to admit shadow (Darth/dark) part of self exists
Threat of unconscious to take over - Darth Vader calls Luke to join him
Attempt to get rid of unconscious part of self, esp. in shadow form
Like excision of physical organ - Luke's hand
Darth Vader does become incorporated into self in final one of the three movies
Yoda as old man archetype - teacher, wise, ancient
At same time child-like
Size
Curiosity
Baby talk - or speech in contradictory and wise sayings
Strange food
Seeming inability to take care of self
The Jabba the Hut scene in 2nd Star Wars - Wrath of Khan
Leia as anima - object of sexual desire and sister
Masculine and feminine
Appears as bounty hunter in front of Jabba the Hut - not recognized as being female
Then nearly naked (and sexy) slave
Remember also that she is vulnerable and needs to be rescued and is also
Companion and fighter who battles along side Luke and Han Solo
Jabba as a shadow - libidinal and devouring
How he behaves - even has a little creature called Salacious Crumb?
Threatens to devour like the unconscious -
The monster in the underground dungeon into which Luke falls
Throws all of the heroes into a sand monster in the dessert - this seems like a pit, but is the mouth of this huge devouring creature
VISCERAL thinking and the various things with animal heads - in the Jabba the Hut scene
In the various Star Treks
Visceral thinking can be animal head on relatively human body
Can be head on your viscera - stomach
Old pictures of devils and other demons
Journey of individuation implies a kind of sequence
Though not all that clear - recall Jung evocative and contradictory
First archetype is shadow - pretty sure
Very large, encompasses a great deal
All negative of self
Final archetype very large - opposite sex version of self
Anima for man
Animus for woman
Represents unconscious in totality again - only now not negative - positive and attractive as physical mate
Union with same - represented by marriage (as in tales)
Various intermediate smaller archetypes
Mother
Old man
Child
Idea of syzygy - archetype pairs
R2D2 and C3PO
Han and Chewbacca
Discovering and dealing with one's archetypes done by
Interaction with real, external world
Projection of one's archetypes on to people of ones surroundings
Also with the help of material such as in fairytales
The various dramatis personae described by Propp do very nicely as the various Jungian archetypes
Why dealing with as many archetypes as possible
In as many of their manifestations as possible
(The polar axes)
Desirable
Greater knowledge of own mind - its unconscious component
Greater mental health
Problem - repression of urge
Something in unconscious causing pathology
If more archetypes known and more manifestations of them known -
Easier to call up the pathological material from the unconscious to the conscious and deal with it
Greater self-knowledge - wiser, more interesting, artistic, religious person - mentally richer
Better able to produce good stories (and other art), good commercials, and MTV videos
Recall once more - power of the Propping pattern
Power of Jungian imagery - the archetypes and their structure
CONNECT JUNG AND PROPP
Show that tales actually are like Jungian journeys:
Propp's lack of motivation and character development in tales, of tale characters - now understood
All are aspects of one personality, individual
Tale is process within one's self
Journey to encounter various aspects of self
If tales have to do with internal journey into self
Explains many of the peculiar features/problems of Propp
Contradictory attributes of the dramatis personae
Another problem with Propp - attributes of the dramatis personae
Seems anything can fit into slot, but not so
Can appear to be infinite - precisely if it corresponds to an archetype
Stories of boy hero and his journeys
Anima can take all sorts of forms
Can be girl he marries
Can be his sister, with whom he is united in the end
Brother/sister, boy turned into deer
But must be opposite sex pair
Opposite sex pairs in TV sitcoms
Also, tendency in Western society for boy heroes
Leads male to see self as ego par excellence
Female to see self as other, unconscious
Tales like multiple journeys into the unknown
Like recurring dreams of adulthood
Variation and yet sameness - as noted by Propp
Could be reason why Propp pattern found all over the place, too
Multiple journeys within and encounter of same archetypes
But different facets of the archetypes
X and various non-X
Propp's morphology IS a fundamental pattern of human (subconscious) thought
It is the basic "journey," that within
Folktales and Propping patterned stories not only the same
With variation
Not only found all over the place and pleasurable
Note also positive outcome - marriage and rule
Integration of the psyche
You CANNOT tell a child a negative (outcome) story
Greg's concern for positive outcome
What happens when he watches Tin Soldier one morning?
Especially at the stage before integration has been achieved
(The first, not the second level)
Positive and negative endings in material for adults
If ill adult - mentally or physically (shamanism)
Must be told a positive outcome story
Section in Bettelheim about using folktales for adults with mental problems
Go back and redo what tales already did for most kids
Folktale-like material for NORMAL adults when there is a SOCIAL PROBLEM
SOCIAL UPHEAVAL
Blok's Neznakomka
The Russian idea of motherland which loves and protects and also demands the ultimate sacrifice
Love and hatred for Stalin
The good father and the tormentor
Legendary leaders and legends about leaders
Abe Lincoln - smart, but educated in 1-room school house
George Washington - rebellious, but conforming to all moral codes imposed by parents
The cherry tree
The appeal of story-like characters like Arnold Schwartzenagger
Notice his good guy-bad guy switch in the Terminator series
The trickster figure and animal tales
The trickster is wily and foolish
The wisdom of the child (before social norms and their limitations are imposed
And of course the child does not know so much
The "listen to your inner child" phase
The all I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten phenomenon