The Collective Unconscious Essays -- essays research papers

The famous psychologist Carl Jung believed that the universe and all of its inhabitants are made up of a measureless web of thought called the collective unconscious, it’s suggests that the collective unconscious is rooted in the genetic code of every living thing. This collective unconscious is evident in an individual’s personality, which is comprised of five separate personalities blended together; these are called archetypes. In Jungian psychology, there are five different archetypes: the shadow, anima, animus, persona and the wise old man or mana-personality. Each influences a different aspect of one’s personality. These influences vary from one individual to another depending upon the dominance of each archetype. In the play Hamlet, each one of these archetypes manifests itself as a dominant personality trait within one of the play’s main characters. It is also apparent that the collective unconscious itself is an underlying theme which exists throug hout the events in the play. Although, these concepts have only recently been discussed and proposed as a psychological theory, it appears that they pre-date Jung by three hundred years. I will provide proof of this hypothesis through parallels between Jung’s work and the play. Carl Jung believed that the structure of the human psyche is comprised of three main parts: the conscious, personal unconscious and the collective unconscious (refer to figure 1). The conscious is basically the function or activity which maintains the relation of psychic contents with the ego or one’s state of awareness. Personal unconscious consists of experiences or memories that can be recalled by an individual, either through the will of the person or by employing special technique (e.g. Hypnosis). The final part of the psyche is the collective unconscious, which can be considered something that links us all together. It is the reservoir of our experiences as a species, a kind of knowledge the human race are all born with of which we can never be directly conscious of (refer to figure 2). The collective unconscious influences all of our experiences and behaviors, particularly the emotional ones; however, we are only aware of it indirectly, as it can be revealed by looking at various facets of those influences. Those influences are the archetypes (refer to figure 3). The first archetype that we see in the play is that of the per... ...ge. If the collective community unconsciously thinks that a change is needed, a large and almost catastrophic event will occur leaving the community in a momentary sense of chaos. Order is restored through the emergence of a single individual with the ability to rectify the state of flux. This is seen through the events in Act 5, Scene 2 where Fortinbras enters the hall where the duel took place, is faced with the deaths of Gertrude, Claudius, Hamlet, and Laertes. Chaos ends and order is restored when Fortinbras is named monarch of Denmark during Hamlet’s final breath. There is strong evidence that all major Jungian archetypes are portrayed through key characters within the play. The manifestation of the archetypes as major characters within the play occurred hundreds of years prior to the development of Jungian theory. As well, the collective unconscious is developed throughout the play, culminating in the final chaotic scene; however, a single individual re-institutes normalcy. It is feasible that the concept of archetypes and a collective unconscious was understood much earlier and possibly Jung could have been influenced by their unconscious in the development of his theories.