I don't know whether this belongs in the Imaginari or not (if it does, feel free to move it), but I dug this up because I mentioned Carl Jung in the full length Book of Judas topic and Toecutter and I both agreed he was a loon, as I'm sure many people agreed to. Well, it made me want to read an essay that I wrote a while ago and since I'm home this week, I was able to get it! I passed this in as you see it during my 12th grade English class. My teacher was kind of a hippy and she made us do rather odd character analysis, so I had a lot of fun with this.
Sorry, the original formatting isn't being used, I'm just copy pasting it because I'm lazy.
Chad Stewart
Period 2
Anima / Animus
Puff. Puff. Give.
In the tales of A Doll’s House and The Awakening, probably two of the finest books that I have not read, female characters reveal their inner man, otherwise known as animus. Stemming from Latin, “us” being a male ending while “a” being female, the two main characters display both anima and animus. Dreamt up by some dude named Carl Jung, the idea of contra sexuality is being displayed throughout both stories of family abandonment. Mostly negative and positive male traits in females, the characters Edna and Nora become symbols for one Professor Quack, commonly known as Carl Jung.
Back in the sixties, when it was socially acceptable to drop acid and speak your mind, Carl Jung crafted a set of governing patterns that rule the brains of people born male or female called anima and animus. Edna and Nora project anima openly, which was what was expected of a lady back in the golden days. When you knew a lady was a lady, and not an independent business worker without any interest in the opposing sex. When you knew the lady on the corner was not in fact hiding Wang Chung. (Take that metaphorically or literally, neither should be seen in a lady’s pantaloons.) On page 54, Nora says… absolutely nothing, which is probably what she should have been saying in the day and age this play is set in. The negative trait, sensitivity, is shown as they both neglect others for their own feelings. Displaying vanity and sensitivity is considered negative.
Carl Jung, the rebellious brain child of Freud, introduced, as I will dub it, the completely crazy theory of contra sexuality. That’s right, he tells of the inner dude in dudettes, animus. In a Man and His Symbols Carl Jung says,
"In women, parallel masculine archetypes - the Animus - can be found. These figures are projected onto other persons and women at different points in their lives will be attracted to men accordingly. Radical!" (Sadly, the page number for this quote has been lost to the ages.)
This relates exactly to the scandalous cheats that are present in The Awakening and A Doll’s House, as they are females projecting masculinity unto other men, their husbands. They also project (or fail to project) unto their children, male traits. Nora and Edna both show a ruthful ness characteristic of men. They do show, all be it not to their children, a compassionate strength that us men are known to possess. Compassion and strength, strength and compassion and raw, bulging muscles are something that real men always have. To prove this fact, a famous quote about a man we all know should suffice.
"Reno's personal animus came into play and her drive to remove me from public office," Gersten said in a telephone interview yesterday from Sydney. "There had to be an agenda other than Reno's publicly stated agenda."
Reno, of course, is the famous Janet. Janet Reno displays outward, as well as inner animus. She’s about as animus as it gets.
The difference between Edna and Nora is how well they can fly, though. No, I’m not doing acid now as well; I was making a very well thought out reference to The Awakening on page 83. Edna can be quoted as saying the following.
Well, for instance, when I left her to-day, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. ‘The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.’
In The Awakening, Edna tries to open her wings up. She begins revealing her animus and standing up for herself. She ignores her children, like a feminist hero. Nora does this as well. She reveals an animus unseen in women of her decade. She becomes a hero of the feminist movement, ignoring her husband and children’s best wishes so that she may fulfill her own. In the end though, Edna falls to the ground like a flailing baby bird. She resorts to suicide in order to escape, displaying the negative animus of the “last word”. Nora soars, flies away from her family like a vulture, or some other despicable bird. Yes, I’m talking about what us modern people call it, a divorce. It did not exist in her day, so she really just ran away to start over.
Whether or not they make it is not the focus, though. They both desert their families and heroically become amoral. What is the focus is that women have a deep inner feeling of manliness, as well as men have a deep feeling of inner femininity as well as Carl Jung has a huge head. Whether it was from all the drugs he had done, or the ever-growing ego that collected while he worked under Freud, the world may never know.
Sorry, the original formatting isn't being used, I'm just copy pasting it because I'm lazy.
Chad Stewart
Period 2
Anima / Animus
Puff. Puff. Give.
In the tales of A Doll’s House and The Awakening, probably two of the finest books that I have not read, female characters reveal their inner man, otherwise known as animus. Stemming from Latin, “us” being a male ending while “a” being female, the two main characters display both anima and animus. Dreamt up by some dude named Carl Jung, the idea of contra sexuality is being displayed throughout both stories of family abandonment. Mostly negative and positive male traits in females, the characters Edna and Nora become symbols for one Professor Quack, commonly known as Carl Jung.
Back in the sixties, when it was socially acceptable to drop acid and speak your mind, Carl Jung crafted a set of governing patterns that rule the brains of people born male or female called anima and animus. Edna and Nora project anima openly, which was what was expected of a lady back in the golden days. When you knew a lady was a lady, and not an independent business worker without any interest in the opposing sex. When you knew the lady on the corner was not in fact hiding Wang Chung. (Take that metaphorically or literally, neither should be seen in a lady’s pantaloons.) On page 54, Nora says… absolutely nothing, which is probably what she should have been saying in the day and age this play is set in. The negative trait, sensitivity, is shown as they both neglect others for their own feelings. Displaying vanity and sensitivity is considered negative.
Carl Jung, the rebellious brain child of Freud, introduced, as I will dub it, the completely crazy theory of contra sexuality. That’s right, he tells of the inner dude in dudettes, animus. In a Man and His Symbols Carl Jung says,
"In women, parallel masculine archetypes - the Animus - can be found. These figures are projected onto other persons and women at different points in their lives will be attracted to men accordingly. Radical!" (Sadly, the page number for this quote has been lost to the ages.)
This relates exactly to the scandalous cheats that are present in The Awakening and A Doll’s House, as they are females projecting masculinity unto other men, their husbands. They also project (or fail to project) unto their children, male traits. Nora and Edna both show a ruthful ness characteristic of men. They do show, all be it not to their children, a compassionate strength that us men are known to possess. Compassion and strength, strength and compassion and raw, bulging muscles are something that real men always have. To prove this fact, a famous quote about a man we all know should suffice.
"Reno's personal animus came into play and her drive to remove me from public office," Gersten said in a telephone interview yesterday from Sydney. "There had to be an agenda other than Reno's publicly stated agenda."
Reno, of course, is the famous Janet. Janet Reno displays outward, as well as inner animus. She’s about as animus as it gets.
The difference between Edna and Nora is how well they can fly, though. No, I’m not doing acid now as well; I was making a very well thought out reference to The Awakening on page 83. Edna can be quoted as saying the following.
Well, for instance, when I left her to-day, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. ‘The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.’
In The Awakening, Edna tries to open her wings up. She begins revealing her animus and standing up for herself. She ignores her children, like a feminist hero. Nora does this as well. She reveals an animus unseen in women of her decade. She becomes a hero of the feminist movement, ignoring her husband and children’s best wishes so that she may fulfill her own. In the end though, Edna falls to the ground like a flailing baby bird. She resorts to suicide in order to escape, displaying the negative animus of the “last word”. Nora soars, flies away from her family like a vulture, or some other despicable bird. Yes, I’m talking about what us modern people call it, a divorce. It did not exist in her day, so she really just ran away to start over.
Whether or not they make it is not the focus, though. They both desert their families and heroically become amoral. What is the focus is that women have a deep inner feeling of manliness, as well as men have a deep feeling of inner femininity as well as Carl Jung has a huge head. Whether it was from all the drugs he had done, or the ever-growing ego that collected while he worked under Freud, the world may never know.
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