What's the use of stories that aren't even true?  Learning, self-discovery, emotion, fun!  It's all the things that make us human.  As I said in my final paper, the ability to tell stories is our defining characteristic as humans.  Nothing exposes more of the essence of our selves than the ability to relate a tale, whether truth or fiction.

I want to thank Dr. Sexson for being our Senex, our Hoopoe through this semester of romance.  I can honestly say that reading, listening to and blogging about the stories that I encountered in the past few months has brought me a much greater understanding of not only what a story is, but who I am and who I want to be.

I think what we all have learned is not only what we have read, but what we have yet to read and discover in literature.  In the margins of my notes are dozens of authors and titles that Dr. Sexson and you, my classmates, have opened my eyes to.  I intend to read each and every one on my path toward life-long learning.  I am naive and I know it.  I have so much to learn and I am proud of it.  I am inspired by each of you and I humbly thank you for it.  Remember that, like in The Conference of Birds, the hoopoe can only be our guide.  It cannot bring us to where we want to go.  It is ultimately up to us to look in the lake and see ourselves as the masters of our own destiny.  Keep dreaming, keep writing and keep reading - I tell this to you all and, perhaps most importantly, to myself.

Streams of Consciousness

Here's my final paper:

Introduction

Though revered for its longevity and ability to reach across continents, the genre of romance literature is generally thought of as mere entertainment by a fairly large cross section of society.  It certainly doesn’t warrant close study.  It doesn’t reflect reality.  Therefore, what’s the use of these stories?  Why get a degree in reading and writing at all?  Why waste my time reading stories written thousands of years ago and then writing papers that try to make sense of it all?  “I hear data management is where the money is,” I was told recently by a family member, “maybe you should take some classes in that.” 

I believe literature provides us with a focused lens through which we can view valuable lessons, such as the concept of individuation.  Within the common elements of romance literature are the ingredients by which we realize our individual personalities. Throughout the collections of ancient tales, such as Daphnis and Chloe, and Lucius and the Ass, all the way up to and beyond Haroun and the Sea of Stories, elements of the story such as the quest, apparent death and revelation all lead to the hero and/or heroine realizing what is referred to in analytical psychology as "the self."

            According to Jung, the process of individuation is an important component of personal fulfillment.   He and other psychologists describe the process in terms of a holistic healing, with the end result being the maturation of the individual.  Individuation is the process of personal transformation in which the unconscious becomes part of the conscious self.  It is comprised of three components:  the shadow, the senex and the anima or animas.  In many of the romance tales we studied this semester, the main characters confront these elements on their way to a better understanding not only of themselves, but each other, and their psychological and physical environment.  And by reading and studying these stories, we can gain a better understanding not only of literature, but of our own selves.

Individuation in Literature

            Long before Carl Jung and his colleagues presented the world with a framework for the concept of individuation, storytellers and authors were creating characters that exemplified this transformational process.  Within these stories the hero and heroine, despite being fictionalized, can appear almost real in our imaginations.  We empathize with them.  We laugh at what they say and do. We cry tears of joy when they are reunited with their long-lost love.

But what is it about these characters and their journeys that draw us in to them?  What makes us forget, however briefly, that they aren't real?  What causes us to draw parallels between our lives and theirs?  Jung might say it's the need for all of us to become whole beings, that we're all on our own paths toward individuation and because fiction, however implausible it may seem to some, is a textbook for what it is to be human.  It helps us get closer to our goal of realizing our true selves.

In essence, individuation answers the question, "what's the use of stories that aren't even true?"  In order to realize our identities we must understand that the world we inhabit is much greater than what simply happens in our own lives.  We build walls around us, insulating ourselves from the people who walk by us on the streets and those living on the opposite side of the planet.  Stories tear down those walls and open us to the experiences of others.  Our lives are so short (and generally so dull) that we can hardly expect to encounter the number and scope of crises that our fictional friends experience in their lives. Stories open our minds to the world of the descent, of forbidden love, of death and destruction.  They remind us of our humanity and, ultimately, of our fragility.

On the surface, they are just that - stories, fabrications, lies.  But within the world of literary criticism we can take the time to look beyond the story, to read between the lines, to find the truth within.  Frye emphasizes that not only is the story important, but “what is being said about the society that the story is 'reflecting'” (45) is important.  These stories are a looking glass, a window into our souls.  Frye also says that “man remains a Narcissus staring at his own reflection, equally unable to surpass himself,” (61) but the question is “what part of your reflection do you stare at?”  Do you look only at the image of yourself?  Or do you look also at the world surrounding you, the backdrop of your reflection, and do you see that world behind you also as a part of you?  “Reality, we remember, is otherness, the sense of something not ourselves” (60).  Romance teaches us this, while at the same time providing us with some much-needed entertainment.  That is the point of stories, after all – to educate and to entertain us.  The greatest works of literature can do both equally well. 

The King and the Corpse, as told by Heinrich Zimmer, is a short tale in which the hero, a king, is presented with a series of difficult riddles.  If he fails to solve them, he will die.  If he succeeds, he will be rewarded with much more than the promise of being a hero.  This story is a perfect example of a character who is presented with a path toward individuation.  An examination of this path, as well as the elements that comprise the process of individuation follows.

The Shadow

            Jung describes the “shadow” as turning one’s inferiority into a perceived deficiency in someone else.  This important step in the process of individuation allows the person to see their darker side as a part of their persona.  In The King and The Corpse, the King’s shadow is personified in the sorcerer.  “In the kingly person there can lie concealed a secret unkingliness,” (Zimmer, 212).  In this case, that unkingly figure arrives with the promise of adventure, magic and riches.  The sorcerer is symbolic of the King’s ego.  Despite recognizing the danger that the sorcerer represents, however, the King chooses to meet him at the burial grounds.  The sorcerer represents the King’s inferiorities, which the King has chosen to confront.  This is the first step in the individuation process:  accepting your darker side and bringing it under your conscious control.  The King faces the challenge and, therefore, owns up to his dark side.

The Senex

            The Senex is represented in a character that shows wisdom and sound judgment or, as we see in the character of the Corpse, an all-knowing, otherworldly being that brings the King face to face with the part of his ego that is the “dead weight from the past” (223).  The Corpse is a manifestation of the King’s ego that “dwells behind, beyond, within the kingly ‘I’ that we consciously consider ourselves to be” (223).  The Senex character leads the King on his path toward individuation, but he does not reveal the answers.  “The king’s problem,” says Frye, and the true answer to the riddles the Corpse poses to him, “is to become truly and entirely himself” (225).  By integrating the senex into both the conscious and unconscious, both the knowing and unknown, the King is able to find the answer, which is that he does not know the answer.  Overcoming his ego’s desire to know everything, as a king might think he should, allows him to discover what it is he is truly looking for:  his Self.

Anima

            Anima describes the feminine qualities of the male unconscious.  According to Jung, this oftentimes manifests itself in the dreams of a male.  The scene of the burial ground could certainly be considered a dreamlike sequence of events.  And the King comes to terms with his feminine side when he is forced to serve the whims of the Corpse.  He becomes submissive, which is more typical of a feminine character, and very rarely one of a king in folk tales.  This king finds himself carrying the corpse on his shoulders over and over again until the Corpse gets what it wants:  the King’s silence.  Zimmer says, “it is because we have finally submitted to its whim and will that it can save us” (229).  It is not until the king becomes the subject that he can become a truly “potent” king.

            In this stage of individuation, we see the Corpse symbolizing the coming together of the King’s conscious and unconscious.  It is only when we allow this to happen that we are able to realize who we are and where we are going.  This final stage, the realizing of the Self, brings us to a greater understanding not only of ourselves, but of everything around us.  We finally understand that our power comes not only from ourselves, but from everything else that inhabits our world.  Good comes from within us, but evil also lives in each of our minds.  “In the end, the ghost…proves to be the savior” and it turns out to be “the only one in the whole world, the only guide in the darkness of the night of our being, who can save us from the magic circle of our own self-created evil” (229). 

Conclusion

Individuation can only occur when we have integrated the unconscious into the conscious, when the two become one.  In that way, individuation is very much like the coming together of two lovers.  This is the very essence of the romantic tales we have studied this semester.  “The improbable, desiring, erotic, and violent world of romance reminds us that we are not awake when we have abolished the dream world:  we are awake only when we have absorbed it again” (Frye, 61).  Love can be very much like a dream.  And so we must remember to absorb it like we do our favorite books. 

Frye says, “one of the things that the study of literature should do is to help the student become aware of his own mythological conditioning, especially on the more passive and critically unexamined levels” (167).  When I first read this, I understood it only in one sense, which is that we should be aware of how we have come to be indoctrinated with the cliché mythology.  But now I understand it as something more.  I believe that Frye is trying to tell us that we need to be aware of the myths that we have built around ourselves:  those stories that our egos tell us that are, at best, only half-truths.  Until we can recognize this dangerous mythology which we suppose to be our reality, it is our lives that will remain a cliché.  We will be the indoctrinated unless we can de-program ourselves.  And we can only do that by learning to look beyond our own Self and realize that we are part of a greater mythology – one that involves love for others, art, music, nature, and of course, literature.  The ability to tell stories is one of the defining qualities of what it is to be human.  I would go so far as to say it is our defining characteristic.  And because of this, we also have the ability to know who we truly are.  By reaching into the great Ocean of Stories, we can cleanse ourselves of the need to be in control and give ourselves to the story and maybe, if we pay close enough attention, or simply by letting go for one moment, we can find the value and wisdom that is inside each of us.

WORKS CITED

Frye, Northrop.  The Secular Scripture.  Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1976.  Print.

Zimmer, Heinrich.  The King and the Corpse.  Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1975.  Print.

Persephone and Hades

Here's our script from the group presentation (Group #3):

As narrated by Zeus.....

Ø OLYMPUS SLIDE

This is the story of Hades and Persephone, daughter of Demeter.  I, Zeus, King of all the gods, wish to share this, my favorite of all romance tales, with you…

I saw my brother watching her; he had been for many months – forming a plan to kidnap his niece, Persephone. Yes, Persephone was his niece, which would make Demeter Hades sister, both of whom are also my siblings.  We like to keep it in the family up here in Olympus.  Anyway, he planned to steal Persephone away from her mother, Demeter the goddess of the harvest. Hades savored the pain he would cause Demeter, and he savored the idea of having his beautiful niece once he stole her away.  He came to me one day to ask my permission to take Persephone as his wife.  Being my brother, I thought nothing of granting his request.  “She’ll make a fine bride, I’m sure,” I told Hades.  “You have my blessing.”  It also didn’t hurt that he gave me this sweet lightning bolt with unimaginable power.  “Here, my brother, is a lightning bolt with unimaginable power…for your trouble.”  So he began plotting his plunder.  He knew how upset Demeter would be at the thought of losing her daughter, for Hades lived in the Underworld and, if he took her, Persephone and Demeter would likely never see each other again.

One day, in the very beginning of spring, Hades knew his time to act had finally come.

Ø EARTH SLIDE

Hades waited, until he knew that Demeter would have her beautiful daughter in her sight, as she painted the flowers their bright colors. He rose from the earth, a deep pit rising from the very depths of hell in his golden chariot led by four of the blackest of black horses.

I heard Demeter’s screams as he stole Persephone away, and I heard him laugh at her. Hades felt the useless protest of Persephone.  As her mind registered what was happening to her, Hades turned the chariot around, and

Ø WATERFALL HOLE SLIDE

plunged back into the underworld. Hades chariot was swift as he maneuvered his way back to hell.

Ø HELL SLIDE

Hades welcomed Persephone to her new home in the underworld, her new Kingdom, Tartarus. “You evil man!”- my distraught Persephone cried out.

Hades laughed manically to himself as he led her further into the depths of hell. Hades laughed again, drinking the tears from her cheek before carrying her into his brimstone palace.

Ø THRONES SLIDE

He placed her upon her throne of ivory, and jewels, and knelt before her.

He pestered Persphone with questions of her happiness and she stated her hate for her new home and whispered that she would never speak to Hades as long as she lived. My cunning brother replied to this that she will not be speaking to anyone for a very long time. Hades stood wrapping his cloak around himself, his black eyes staring down on her. Hades, as her captor, urged her to get used to it because he had no intention of letting her go any time soon. 

Ø DEAD SOULS SLIDE

Hades left her side and walked among the dead, their souls weeping, and crying out for his mercy. He ignored their pleas, and stalked on. It was true, he had a black anger, but he was patient, and he would wait for Persephone to adapt to her new home. When she did, he would make her the happiest woman in the entire world – his wife, his queen. The owner of the all the finest jewels, the finest silks, anything she could ever want, or need, she would have, wither she asked for it or not.

Persephone sat upon the ivory throne Hades had gifted her.  Her hair was no longer silky and lustrous, but was now stringy and dirty having taken on a dingy color of dirt and dust. It hung over her face as she took her place next to her husband, Hades.

Ø GOTHIC CHAPEL SLIDE

 The wedding ceremony was held in a sacred place in Tartarus among the weeping dead. Persephone had not cried. She had remained quiet in her gown of silver and gold thread that the maidens of Hades' court had dressed her in. Her tears were gone, and instead she was a sullen shell of a woman. When the ceremony was over, he led her by the arm to their thrones,

Ø THRONES SLIDE

where he had only left her side to conduct his rounds of the kingdom. He draped her with jewels, and kisses, and gowns spun of silver and gold. He watched her with admiration of her beauty, but he missed her voice. (Disco ball!)

Ø LADY GAGA VIDEO

Ø THRONES SLIDE

In the early evening of summer he made his move to get her to speak to him again. He took her hand from where he sat on his throne, and raised it to his lips, kissing her pale skin.

Persephone held true to her word and had not spoken to Hades or anyone since being drug to the underworld. Hades pestered her asking “my darling Persephone, it has been so long since I have heard your voice....surely you wish to speak to me...to someone?”  His voice was calm and sickly sweet. It had to be – he ruled the underworld and his subjects must trust him, quite literally, with their souls.  He was cunning, that Hades.  Or so he thought. 

Persephone looked at him from the dark pools that were her eyes and sullenly replied “Only my mother.”

Hades stood, rage and jealousy filling his body, spreading like thick green paint and curtly replied, “You will never see your mother again.” His voice was no longer sweet, but cruel.

“Then I shall never speak again.” Persephone said her final words, before casting off her jewels and turning her back to her husband. 

Ø EARTH SLIDE

---> On Earth, my sister Demeter was heartbroken. The earth had grown cold, and plants would not grow. She missed her daughter, and she wept. She shared her woes with me, for I was king of the gods and I had not intervened with Hades initial plan. And now the thought of the lighting bolt with unimaginable power that Hades had bribed me with had shaded my judgement. I ignored my sister's pleas (“Please, Please!”) for her daughter back, until I saw the earth being swept into a frozen tundra, a plague of starvation and death. Plants wouldn’t grow, animals became scarce. I could no longer ignore the kidnapping of Persephone and the sorrows they caused Demeter. 

Finally I gave in and told Demeter that she could have her daughter back, but only if she had not eaten anything while in Tatarus. If she had eaten the food of the dead, by the Law of the Gods she cannot be returned. “So you better hope she didn’t eat anything, Demeter.”  I patiently explained this knowing that Hades would be furious when he found out. 

Ø HELL SLIDE

Hades’ rage turned to a plan that would foil my words and allow him to keep Persephone for his wife. He coaxed her into eating something before she left for the surface. Surely she did not want to return to her mother looking malnourished. He handed her half of a ripe pomegranate. Persephone looked into his eyes and took the fruit.  Suddenly she was very hungry, not realizing she had neglected to eat anything while she had been in Hades’ kingdom. 

Persephone took a bite, eating six of the red berries, just as I was descending to inform her that she would be free to go back to her mother.  “NO!” I cried out. But it was too late.  Upon discovering her having consumed the food of the dead I called my brother and sister to a meeting in Olympus. 

Ø OLYMPUS SLIDE

I scolded Hades.   It was a terrible thing he had done.  “That was a very, very bad thing you have done.”

"Is it my fault I found my wife to be most desirable? I knew I must have her, Zeus. And anyway, what’s done is done. I can't return her…she ate the food of the dead. She is mine forever." Hades smirked.

I then told Hades that Persephone must be returned to her mother. The people of the earth were dying in the frozen tundra they were forsaken to. I spoke sternly as I stood, lighting bolt in hand, anxious for the storm that I knew was growing.

Hades boastfully replied that he could not return her because she had eaten the food of the dead and that she will now be his forever. 

I was then perplexed at how to reach a resolution. I knew that a continuation of the current arrangement would not suffice; then I figured it out. Persephone will be returned to her mother for six months, before returning to Hades for the remaining six, the equivalent of the number of berries she ate from the Pomegranate. “Half the year with her mother on the surface and the other half with Hades in his kingdom.”

Hades looked at me quizzically for a second before laughing and then agreeing to the terms I had laid out. 

Ø HELL SLIDE

Several hours later, he found himself alone in his kingdom with only the dead and the music of the harpies wings as company. Six months he was expected to spend alone…six months without his beautiful wife.

Maybe she would realize she missed him. Maybe she missed his attention, his jewels, his riches, the amusement he provided her, her gowns of silver and gold, or maybe just him…him, and the way he spoke to her, the way he looked when he was idolizing her, even in her sullen state…  He knew he missed her, even if she never spoke, even if she was never happy.

He knew nothing but that he had to wait.

Ø FALL SLIDE

The six months passed slowly for Hades, but quickly for Persephone. On her last night with her mother, she painted the leaves in shades of yellow, orange, and red, and slept beneath the stars in a lush meadow of green grass.  She was delivered back to her husband who had not changed since she had left him.

Ø TECHNO SLIDE

Her heart was torn once more but it was different this time. Half of her heart went towards her mother, but the other half went to her husband.  As she looked at him, the angle of his jaw, the curl of his black mustache and goatee, how his clothes clung to his body – she found herself wrapping her arms around him, half out of grief and half out of relief.  She was home, whither she liked it or not.....

Ø DANCE SCENE!

:: In one of my favorite movies, Closer, Clive Owen reminds Jude Law: “you don’t know the first thing about love because you don’t understand compromise.”  Hades, Persephone and Demeter all had to learn to live with compromise.  Sometimes, in the grand sea of stories, there is a tale in which love involves concession, and hope is our happy ending.  In Olympus, anything can happen. But on Earth, love and reality can come up against each other tragically.  You see, the perfect romance doesn’t always have a storybook ending.

Revelation Revealed

This is a kind of follow-up to my last post, where I think I left my disjointed thesis dangling. I admit I still remain confused, but perhaps I'm a little closer to figuring out this element we call "recognition" or "revelation." I think it has a lot to do with the process of individuation. In fact, I would say that they are interminably linked.

I've been thinking of revelation in terms of the climax of the story. I think I'm a little bit right and a little bit wrong in that assumption. The characters in any given romance have gone through hell and high water and now they're poised to either explode or live happily ever after. Their lives hinge on this tiny moment in their lives in which everything changes - they finally recognize that their blood is royal, that they are richer than kings and that they can marry, or whatever plot line you choose. The point is that I have been thinking of the recognition as a short burst of "ah-ha!"

Quite the contrary! I think that this element deserves a lot more credit. I think that, like individuation, revelation is a process. It must be nurtured and given time to steep. It's true that at the climax it provides a welcome (and necessary) resolution to the tale, but it is not that simple. Or, at least, it shouldn't be. I think that's what separates good and bad romances - the quality of the revelation. Let it build, incubate it throughout the story and only when it is ripe and ready for us to swallow, should the author allow it to be harvested.

It seems to me that revelation is more of a constant element throughout a given story than simply a moment. It is an evolution of the characters and the plot rather than a flash in the pan. I think this element is what gives us the meaning that we want so desperately from literature. And something so important and so complex cannot come out of left field, or we, as the reader, won't think it's genuine.

What is it to know ourselves? The process of individuation through revelation attempts to reveal that for us through these stories. It is the "use" of stories that aren't even true. Through the process of descent that we follow the characters on, and the subsequent finding of their identities, we can glean what it is to know ourselves. At that point it's up to us to recognize it - to experience our own recognition. Unfortunately, we often choose to ignore it.

"What a great story," I may say to myself after turning the last page in "The World According to Garp." But if I simply turn that last page and say "it's finished," and move onto the next paperback on the shelf, the story never becomes more than that. It is our ability, as students of literature, to look beyond the story and analyze the characters, the elements of the story and at least speculate what it is these tales are trying to tell us. This is the value in an English degree. Truth, knowledge, individuation, revelation - it's all in there, hiding in the pages of Ala al-Din. We have been given the keys to the truth through the lies of fiction. We don't have to fall victim to an unexamined life. We can, as Frye says, "become aware of our own mythological conditioning" (167). If nothing else, we can sit there and smirk someday while watching a Disney movie with our kids, knowing that a greater story lies beneath the surface, waiting to catch just the right current in the Oceans of Stories so that it can wash up on our shore and reveal itself to us.

Rukh's Eggs

What the heck's a Rukh egg? This picture makes it look like some sort of demonic vulture with bat wings. It's certainly not something you'd want to have swoop down on you in the middle of the desert. In any event, this symbolic egg, I believe, served as the catalyst for the recognition in Ala al-Din. It was only after the demon in the lamp revealed to Ala al-Din that the "false" Fatima was in their midst that this romance is allowed to have its happy ending. But is this the true "recognition" that we speak of when we look at the requirements of romance? Or was he recognition in Ala al-Din back in Africa? Or somewhere else? This is a subject I feel we have not spent much time on, though it represents a fairly significant part of the romance formula.

The recognition, revelation, romance, whatever you'd like to call it, is noted by Frye in regard to the "revolutionary quality...the proletarian element rejected by every cultural establishment" (163). Here Frye points out what I would call the irony of romance, in that it is designed to be accepted by the masses, but features characters and circumstances that are distinctly the realm of the nobility, far from the understanding of everyday subject. But this is worth considering further, in that the recognition in a story like Ala al-Din may be different on different levels.

What causes Ala al-Din to lose everything and descend back into the life of a peasant, with no wife, no palace and no money? Losing the lamp. Is that his revelation? Perhaps, if you believe that individuation demands suffering. So many of us only seem to appreciate what we have only when it is taken away from us. Or was the recognition later in the book, as Frye says, "near the end of a romantic story" (163)?

We've mentioned that many of these stories have such complicated plots and so many twists and turns that serve to keep the story going, is it possible to have several recognition phases? I think this is worth spending some more time looking at some of the other stories we've read in order to get to the bottom of this murky concept of revelation. Frye uses the story of Christ "rising from the dragon of death and hell with his redeemed captives" (163) as an example of the recognition. Certainly this is the revelation in the Christian faith, but was it Christ's individual revelation? A fitting question for the Easter weekend and one for which I don't yet have an answer.