A Jungian Analysis of How Like a God
Isaac Asimov was certainly correct when he stated that the writer of a story doesn't necessarily know everything about it. The author, Brenda W. Clough, claims not to have had an acquaintance with Carl Jung's work when writing How Like a God. However, the architecture of the book is strikingly Jungian.
In the beginning of the novel, the main character, Rob has very little interest in his appearance. Many computer people are like that, and he has his devoted wife Julianne to make all the sartorial decisions for him. He looks like a desk warrior, pale, uninteresting, and out of shape. He wears neutral colors, beige and brown, to symbolize his undifferentiated state. In second part of the novel, under the intolerable agony of losing his family, Rob's cold dark side emerges and quickly takes over. The new regime is inaugurated by unnatural and life-denying behavior: not eating, not drinking, not sleeping, but sinking down into the dark on a park bench. Rob's appearance alters as he takes to wearing rags and a dark blue toggle coat. He loses weight because he forgets to eat. Even his sexuality is warped. When he faces up to what's going on he immediately tries to change by getting a haircut. At the hairdresser he notices music for the first time in the book. He also notices he's blonder. He now has a light, and a dark, side.
In part three of the novel, under Edwin's beneficent influence, Rob cultivates his better inclinations and inadvertently worsens a one-sidedness. He forces the tramp, now stigmatized as a frightening monster, down into the sub-basement of himself -- the trap-door of which, however, has no lock. Edwin is the natural ally of Rob's good, lighter side...
... middle of paper ...
...the power warp him into not-self, of becoming Gilgamesh. He knows the face of his own evil now, and the knowledge is a responsibility.
In this soup of symbols Edwin has two roles. He is of course a hermeneut, guiding Rob towards self-realization. But he is also Virgil, the icon of reason and light and learning to Rob's Dante. (This is the reason why Rob is vaguely repelled by The Divine Comedy in the New York Public Library. At that point he's in full avoidance mode, and even the first line of the poem cuts too close to home. “Midway in our life's journey I went astray from the straight road, and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.” Ouch!) Edwin can guide Rob forward to the final confrontation with his dark side, but he can't battle the shadow himself. In fact Edwin finds Rob's unconscious realm intolerable, since reason has no place there.
The human psyche is formed by conflict. The mind is in a constant state of figurative war – subconscious antitheses and opposites vying for control of the conscious self. Psychic cohesion relies on the resolution and balance of these opposites. In his essay On the Nature of the Psyche, Carl Jung delves into the conflict within the psychic spectrum. The most base level of the unconscious (he uses the Gnostic term “hylic” to describe it) focuses on the instinctual and the immediate, temporal world. It exists in direct contrast to the highest level, the pneumatic (another Gnostic title), a “supraconcious” wherein spirituality and intellect reign. Robertson Davies’ novel Fifth Business symbolizes this antithesis in the characters of Boy Staunton and Dunstan Ramsay. Boy represents the materialistic, sex-obsessed lower psychic realm. His attitude towards woman, guilt, and mythology illustrate the manifestation of the hylic level of the psyche. Dunstan is the direct counterpoint to Boy. Where Boy demonstrates a fixation on physical sexuality, Dunstan distances himself from any material sensuality. Where Boy only worships a capitalist god created in his image, Dunstan pursues a world of saints and spirituality. Dunstan is evidently a representation of the pneumatic complex. As the characters personify this psychic contrast, their respective failings reveal another crucial concept of the mind. When consciousness primarily exists in one specific psychic dimension, the psyche is no longer complete. The opposite half goes unrecognized. At the end of the novel, Dunstan eventually has a revelation that continues to elude Boy: establishing equilibrium betw...
Psychoanalysis is a theory that explores personality traits on the conscious and unconscious level. According to TheFreeDictionary.com, “Psychoanalysis is the most intensive form of an approach to treatment called psychodynamic therapy. Psychodynamic refers to a view of human personality that results from interactions between conscious and unconscious factors. The purpose of all forms of psychodynamic treatment is to bring unconscious mental material and processes into full consciousness so that the patient can gain more control over his or her life” (Psychoanalytic Treatment). Sigmund Freud is the founder of the Psychoanalysis Theory. He had many followers. One of those followers was Jung. As time went on, Jung’s perspective on personality
In my original paper on Carl Gustav Jung, I took a rather skeptical view of the doctor and his work, for several reasons that I will reiterate. However, after studying further into his work, I realized that these objections only related to his early psychiatric cases, and I found myself to be far more intrigued and impressed by his later work and theories. While I had stated in my first consideration of Jung that, “there is a frustratingly limited, almost biased quality to much of… his work”, I was pleasantly surprised later on to find that many of his later theories and assumptions were anything but limited. I still believe that in his early case work he took tremendous risks, both clinically and professionally, yet it is that risk-taking aspect of his personality that ultimately allowed, or rather, propelled him to boldly go forward with some of his most groundbreaking and controversial contributions to the fields of psychology, and philosophy as well. It can even be said, and has been, that Dr. Jung is the father of modern “new-age” thinking. He also laid the groundwork for those who were inspired by his thoughts, perhaps much in the way that he himself was originally inspired by Freud. Once again, while my original opinion of Dr. Jung caused me to “wonder how much of Jung’s work was truly visionary, and how much of it benefits from a positive hindsight bias because of the successes he was able to achieve” in his early casework, I must say that my current opinion, early casework aside, is that Jung was in fact truly visionary, and was the originator of some of the most revolutionary conceptual thinking that the human experience has to offer.
The Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung held the belief that archetypes served as models of personalities, people, and behaviour. He proposed that the psyche was made up of three (3) components: the ego (conscious mind), the personal unconscious (stores all memories, even suppressed ones), and the collective unconscious (contains all the knowledge and experiences shared by the human species).
The relationship between personality and resilience has become a topic of interest due to the prevalent concept that some people are less vulnerable to the impacts of stress and recover faster from stress. Personality is regarded as a crucial factor that affects the behavioral aspects of humans in their social and personal life. The personality of an individual represents different patterns of behaviors that are relatively predictable and stable. In this perspective, personality can be seen as an expression of distinction from one person to the other and allows for the enables in the prediction of relative behaviors in various situations. Personality type is regarded as a psychological method of classifying various types of people. Personality
Edward, the android-like being portrayed in Tim Burton’s film Edward Scissorhands, is essentially killed off from society because he falls victim to the malicious lies spread by the community and by the hatred that is cultivated by those lies. Although he never physically dies, Edward’s rejection from society leads to a life-long seclusion away from the outside world. The events that lead Edward into this isolation are brought on by a few misunderstood acts that he commits and the negative reception of those acts by an impressionable community. He is caught committing a break-in (a felony that is not completely his fault yet nobody gives him the benefit of the doubt) and is, from then on, seen as a dangerous criminal. He is also deemed a sexual predator because a townswoman claims that he sexually assaulted her. Also, his attraction to and love for Kim (the Bogg family’s daughter) provokes her jealous and violent boyfriend into harming Edward and trying to turn Kim against him. Edward is never given the chance to explain himself of the accused acts and so he finds himself the target of the town’s hatred; a hatred that is based upon and fueled by jealousy, lies, and rumors. The eventual shunning of Edward by the community is not surprising or shocking because Edward never really fits in with society to begin with. However, what is shocking are the justifications of hatred that are used by the community. Their emotions and attitudes are influenced by the lies and jealousies of a few people and by believing in the religious motivations and accusations of the erratic Christian woman who lives in the neighborhood. By being non-human, Edward is immediately suspected of being guilty of all he is accused of. Hi...
Personality types stems from Carl Jung spend time observing personality preferences, which he later on published in his in 1921. Carl’s discovery of the two major typical differences in human psychology such as extrovert and introvert influenced Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers theories and lead them to experiment during World War II. Myers and Briggs worked on methods that would help women, who heretofore had no prior workplace experience, find those types of jobs that were most comfortable and effective (Myers & Myers, 1996). The three learning styles I have chosen to write about would meet the needs of the learners and provide an effective learner/teacher experience. Therefore, the need for learning level in people varies at all levels, to make sure the delivery method meets the learners’ expectation, it is important to re-evaluate the styles of learning chosen and make sure all background
Carl G. Jung was a psychiatrist and psychotherapist from Switzerland (Lightfoot, 2010). Jung has constructed and developed several concepts including extraversion and introversion, collective unconscious and archetypes (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992). Besides, Jung has a system of personality (also known as psyche), which is analytical psychology, suggested that intrapsychic forces can motivate humans and the shared evolutionary history among people can actually derived different images (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992). The deep-rooted spiritual concerns are involved in the inherited unconscious and this also can explain why people in the world strive for creative expression and psychic completion (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992). In this essay, it will discuss about Jung’s collective unconscious, different evidences that support it, the theory of Archetypes and how it can affect our daily life.
Affirmative action or positive discrimination can be defined as providing advantages for people of a minority group who are seen to have traditionally been discriminated against. This consists of preferential access to education, employment, health care, or social welfare. In employment, affirmative action may also be known as employment equity. Affirmative action requires that institutions increase hiring and promotion of candidates of mandated groups. (Rubenfeld, 1997, p. 429)
In Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God, I found that there is a lot of figurative language. An example of a figurative language used in the sermon is, “The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire (Edwards 48).” That simile is comparing a sinner to an insect. When someone thinks of an insect people show a face of disgust, which shows how much disgust Edwards had towards sinners.
A world without the Big Mac, Happy Meals, Chicken McNuggets, and the phrase “I’m lovin’ it,” is almost inconceivable. People around the globe have become accustomed to the high gleaming golden arches that make up the famous emblem for McDonald’s. McDonald’s has grasped the concept that culture flows from power. In this case, the American culture flows through the veins of this fast-food giant and the more that is supplied, the greater the demand. It is no secret that McDonald’s has become one of the world’s largest fast-food retailers. It has become a well known icon that has played a huge part in globalization, with chains located in many different countries… transforming the meaning of fast-food all around the world.
The impact of diversity in the workplace is contingent upon several factors. Across companies diversified workforces are becoming increasingly common. To successfully manage a diverse workforce, organizations are ensuring that employees understand how their values and stereotypes influence their behavior toward others of different gender, ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds; are gaining an appreciation of cultural differences among themselves; and behaviors that isolate or intimidate minorities are being improved (Noe et al., 2010, pg. 302).
Carl Jung was a great, yet, controversial psychological theorist of the twentieth century. Originally, he worked side by side with his role model, Sigmund Freud. Subsequently, the two faced many theoretical clashes and parted to conduct their own research. Mainly, Carl Jung remains famous for his research and discoveries on the collective unconscious, that consists of archetypes absorbed through dreams, myths and symbols.
According to Carl Jung, the Father of Analytic Psychology, “humans descend from ancestral-based also known as, racial phylogenetic predispositions” that form our personality, behavior, and consciousness. Jung regarded the psyche, a complex interacting system composed of the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious, as the primitive, innate, and unconscious structure of personality. Jung emphasizes that we share a common humanistic collective unconscious and its archetypes, or “psychic instincts”. Moreover, we share the ability to experience innate psychological patterns, representations of images, and symbols, originated from our antecedents and throughout ancient history and its generations. The Jungian archetype of animus and anima represents the importance of the collective unconscious in relation to personality.
The nature of God differs in every religion. Some religions have one, many, or even no God that they worship. However, no matter who or what they worship, there is always a spiritual aspect to their belief system. These spirits play a key role in influencing their actions in their everyday life.