Carl Jung and The Great Gatsby

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Carl Jung and The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic story about the shallow aristocracy of the 1920's American society, is the topic of much interpretation. This paper presents the proposition that the "Roaring Twenties" were years dominated by an SP (part of Carl Jung's archetypal psychology that will later be explained in more depth) society and the characters in The Great Gatsby reflect and were deeply affected by this fact. Daisy will be analyzed herein, as well as the effect that an SP society had on her actions and development.

The human psyche has been the basis of study for millennia. Dating back to Hippocrates around 370 BC, the earliest belief was that people are fundamentally predisposed at birth, that their psyches are programmed. The idea continued to manifest in mainstream sciences up until about the 19th century AD. There arose, in the early 20th century, the notion that people are born without predisposition, and are molded by their environment from the time of infancy. John Watson, and early American behaviorist, proposed that he could shape a child into any form he wanted, provided that he had control of the child from infancy. Similarly to the notion of psychological malleability was the belief that people are driven by a single basic motive. Sigmund Freud claimed that we are all driven from within by instinctual lust. There were also the existentialist psychologists, such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, who had people seeking self-actualization. Finally, in 1920, Swiss physician Carl Jung disagreed. In Psychological Types he wrote that "people have a multitude of instincts, what he called 'archetypes', that drive them from within, and that one instinct is no mo...

... middle of paper ...

... II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence.

2. Keirsey, David. Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence.

3. < http://www.paulsann.com/thelawlessdecade/20_s.html>

4. < http://www.paulsann.com/thelawlessdecade/20_s.html>

5. < http://www.homework-online.com/tgg/quotes.asp>

6. < http://www.homework-online.com/tgg/quotes.asp>

7. < http://www.homework-online.com/tgg/quotes.asp>

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925.

Keirsey, David. Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence.

Moniaci, Jonathon. "The Great Gatsby"

< http://www.homework-online.com/tgg/index.asp>

Sann, Paul. "The Lawless Decade" < http://www.paulsann.com/thelawlessdecade/20_s.html>

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