Archetypal Activation and The Transcendent Function in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Richard Wright’s Native Son
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Date
2014
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Université Mouloud Mammeri de Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
This dissertation discusses the psychological instability caused by Gender and Race in
selected works of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s the Scarlet Letter and Richard Wright’s Native Son.
The aim is to examine the psychological situation of both the white women and the blacks in
America in the light of Carl Gustav Jung’s conception of the archetypes, the collective
unconscious and the transcendent function. It has also been referred to bell hooks’ theory of
‘Racism and Feminism’ that explains the cultural practice of gender and race that denigrate
the position of both the white women and the blacks. To fulfill this study, I have divided it into
two sections. The first one emphasizes the issue of gender and racism in America in the 19th
and 20th centuries. It attempts to highlight the context of the American culture which is
mainly built on the perception of the ‘other’. The second section will explore the impact of
gender and racism on the white women and on the blacks’ psyche by examining the
archetypal figures which flow out from the collective unconscious of the Americans. Finally,
the study provides solution to the psychic instability through the transcendent function’s
mechanism that has provoked individuation in some situations.
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72p.;30cm.(+cd)
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