The Jungian Art. The Jungian Persona in Shakespeare's works

Document from the year 2021 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: A, , language: English, abstract: This work deals with various characters from Shakespeare's works and analyses them according to the Jungian Art.

In the individuation process, Shakespeare sides with Jung related to the role and importance of the concept of free will. None of Shakespeare's heroes follow their fate as an externally imposed, inevitable chain of events which lead to their doom. Rather, it is their lack of self-knowledge and self-control as a sign of their failed individuation that causes their tragic ends. These characters embody a soul which is in many ways great and noble, but which has a fatal flaw which plays the role of fate. In Jungian terms, fate can be interpreted as unrecognized psychological processes or archetypes that are not dealt with, which therefore influence or lead the actions of the ego conscience. Shakespeare explores in depth these flaws to which the tragic hero, after an inner conflict, fails to attempt to deal with the archetypal psychic forces. The result is that the tragic hero loses his soul, the link to the archetype of Self as both the motivator and the goal of the individuation process.

In that regard, when we examine, for example, Othello, it is obvious that the cause of his crisis and ruin is psychological and that his intellectual confusion is not the cause but rather the result of the chaos in his psyche. In Jungian terms, Othello, as the ego consciousness, struggles and fails to understand and establish a functioning relationship with both Iago and Desdemona, respectively seen as his shadow and anima. The importance of dealing with these archetypes as a means of reaching psychic balance as one of the indicators of a successfully ongoing individuation process, is described from a Jungian point of view.