Jung and The Neverending Story
lynnej
I'm writing a postgrad research paper on Michael Ende's The
Neverending Story (The book, not the film). I'm keen to hear from
anyone who has done any academic work on the novel, or those who have
a personal interest in understanding aspects of the novel. Very little
in terms of scholarly research exists on the topic to date . My
particular focus is a Jungian analysis of archetypes within the novel,
with a focus on Child, Mother and Father. It's an introduction of
sorts, a quick overview (10 000 words) of a topic I have the potential
of working onto a longer thesis.
The chapter I'm writing now concerns Bastian's manifestation of his
Light and Dark Mothers in the form of Dame Eyola and Xayide
respectively.
ReMo...
Hmm. On the topic of its cultural place and possibilities,
scholarly research about that literary form in relation to Jungian
tropes and threads does seem sparse.
Interpretations or analyses of particular instances are sparse enough.
The only one I'm aware of is _The Problem of the Puer Aeternus_
(Marie-Louise Von Franz), which has (if I recall) three literary subjects,
one of which is _The Little Prince_ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
(Which you're likely already aware of.)
Really, the only thing I can think to reply that might even be remotely
useful is that the Dark Mother has quite a lot in common with the Father
archetype.
Donna Lee
I looked at the original post of this thread and had nothing salient to
say, but wanted to read your thoughts.
I am very curious to hear how you understand the Dark Mother to be
related to the Father Archetype. I'm not sure I understand how these
two are related, except as MLVF said, if you don't have a good relation
with the mother, or are a "father's daughter," that you will have a
negative relation to the mother imago and will experience the mother and
women as the Dark Mother. I understand that MLVF had this configuration
as I believe do I.
The Wikipedia entry on MLVF, claims that one of the reasons that Jung
suggested that MLVF and Barbara Hannah live together was so that MLVF
could see that not all women were brutes like MLVF's mother. Also, if a
girl relates more to or reveres more her father than her mother, she may
experience the mother and women as the Dark Mother. Also, if a girl is
deprived of her father's influence, growing up, as I was, but as MLVF
was not because she talks about him all the time, one gets very in touch
with the Father Archetype, as Daryl Sharp said in his books, The
Survival Papers. Is this any of what you meant by your statement that
the Dark Mother is related to the Father Archetype?
Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit (Invoked or not invoked the god
will be present)
Multi-Billion Dollar www.amazon.com is unwilling to refund $17.00 to
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ReMo...
> Hi, Remo,
>
> I looked at the original post of this thread and had nothing salient to
> say, but wanted to read your thoughts.
Which is a tacit confession that YOU CANNOT read my thoughts!!!
That you're aware of, anyway...
> I am very curious to hear how you understand the Dark Mother to be
> related to the Father Archetype. I'm not sure I understand how these
> two are related, except as MLVF said, if you don't have a good relation
> with the mother, or are a "father's daughter," that you will have a
> negative relation to the mother imago and will experience the mother and
> women as the Dark Mother. I understand that MLVF had this configuration
> as I believe do I.
(I previously asserted that the Dark Mother archetype had much in common
with the Father archetype, or so I remember.) Because it's sexism
incarnate to distinguish them. It assumes, like almost every bit of
psychoanalytic literature, that every "man" and every "woman" has some
ineluctable boundary of psyche according to their sex assignment.
Theoretically, the archetypes are all mixed together and become
perceptible only (perhaps) via their relationship with figures of the
personal unconscious. The Dark Mother becomes collectively perceptible
in all manner of myths and stories: where is the Dark, Nasty, Evil
Father in the myths and stories and parables that are (seemingly) an
integral part of all possible talking cures?
Answer: the Black Sun, for one. The salient point here would be that
"the sun" isn't a personified figure. Early on, CeeGee recommended and
practiced relationship with imaginary figures as *persons*. But not so
in the case of this penultimate description of the depths of despair.
So: it just seems to me that there's a continuum of "lightness/darkness"
implied by those sex distinctions that seems to imply that the depths of
despair accessible to women is somehow milder, or less dark--or perhaps
less significant in some sense--than those accessible to men. (And that
"the divine Feminine" aka "goddess," called or not, is here. Yeah.
OOOOHHHHH yeah. [0] Or perhaps there's simply no darkness possible for
"The Father."
...Also, my father was physically present up to my 15th year, but my
mother took on parenting effectively single-handedly nonetheless, even
including being the "breadwinner" (Am.), beginning the in the late 1950's.
> The Wikipedia entry on MLVF, claims that one of the reasons that Jung
> suggested that MLVF and Barbara Hannah live together was so that MLVF
> could see that not all women were brutes like MLVF's mother. Also, if a
> girl relates more to or reveres more her father than her mother, she may
> experience the mother and women as the Dark Mother. Also, if a girl is
> deprived of her father's influence, growing up, as I was, but as MLVF
> was not because she talks about him all the time, one gets very in touch
> with the Father Archetype, as Daryl Sharp said in his books, The
> Survival Papers. Is this any of what you meant by your statement that
> the Dark Mother is related to the Father Archetype?
Having not read any of Dr.Sharp's stuff, but intuiting the tone here,
my answer would likely be a qualified "probably" (perhaps). [1] Generally,
I *think* the case could be made that integration of "Dark Mother"
type life experience may evolve toward a positive affinity[2] with a
culturally-bound "Father" archetype, understood perhaps as "Parent"
(on theoretical grounds, and according to the tiny spark of
my own life-experience).
[0] The rest of you FOLKING NEW AGERS should carefully note that there's
no little smiley smile emoticon here.
[1] I could have been an economist, if I had only been born with FOUR
MORE ARMS.
[2] Oh, the etymological irony.
Donna Lee
psychologically as well as physically, and between what is familiarly
known as feminine energy and masculine energy, or yin/yang, although in
different balances in individuals. And there is nothing sexist about
asserting that.
Again, according to Daryl Sharp, a father complex, I believe would
subsume the negative aspect of the father, as the mother complex does so
in the case of the mother. Daryl Sharp also differentiated between the
complex, often negative (mother/father) and the archetype, often
positive (mother/father). The archetypes are all mixed together in the
unconscious, so Jung said, but are filled out, individually, so to
speak, with our individual conscious experiences of them.
In some places you seem to refer to yourself as she and in others I get
the impression you're a he. Care to clarify? I think my identity,
gender and otherwise is pretty clear and straightforward (puns
intended).