융의 “개성화 과정”과 『원로정치가』

Jungian Individuation Process and the Analysis of The Elder Statesman

Hee-Jin BaeThis study aims to illuminate ‘Individuation’ in Jungian Analytical Psychology reflected in The Elder Statesman. Individuation means becoming an “in-dividual,” integration of the conscious and the unconscious, and it also implies becoming one’s own self. (CW 7. 173). When Eliot claimed that “poetry is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality” (Selected Prose 30), he suggested the existence of two levels of “personality” and the escape is made not away from the self, but deeper into the self, “below the levels of consciousness”. That means that he suggested two selves in man, the selfish and the self-respecting, which can be compared with Jungian psychology's difference between ego and self. There are three major steps involved in the total experience of the individual's unconscious knowledge in the process of achieving the ultimate stage of individuation. That is, we should follow procedure of overcoming the identification with Persona, assimilation of Shadow and Anima/Animus, and meeting with Self. In reality, however, these are not necessarily taken in order but mixed. Only when we are consciously aware of the disturbing forces of the unconscious, give them meaning, and maintain a counterbalance between the ego and the newly surfaced unconscious, we will accomplish that procedure. To demonstrate an individuation embodied in The Elder Statesman, this study analyzes protagonist Claverton and the relationship between him and other characters around him. I show how far Claverton is eventually individuated while experiencing the unconscious.