Shakesp

Book review:

Tucker, Kenneth. Shakespeare and Jungian Typology: A Reading of the Plays. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2003.

This book integrates Jungian type theory with literary theory as it analyzes several Shakespearean plays. Tucker confronts many thinkers who show resistance to using type. In response to their fears of stereotyping, Tucker makes a strong case for the idea of using type as a “tool” for better understanding of characters, ourselves and others. In citing Montaigne, Tucker reminds us that human beings are full of inconsistencies and yet we can see some part of ourselves in almost every other person, real or fictitious.

On Shakespeare

There has been much speculation on who Shakespeare was – the historical Shakespeare as well as finding Shakespeare in his writing – and attempts to pin him down through his plays and poems have also revealed great inconsistencies. Even if primary sources, such as drafts, notes, personal letters, biographies and autobiographies existed, Tucker doubts we would truly be able to know who Shakespeare was.

Not only are we unable to capture the essential author while pursuing our quarry through his daily Protean shifts of perceptions, moods and attitudes, but also, in a sense, we cannot ever know precisely how our subject felt on a particular day at a particular time about a particular subject when a particular line was written. (10).

However, it may be possible to understand aspects of the author. In scholarship, little use has been made of Jung’s typology in this regard, although literary analysts are comfortable discussing Jung’s archetypes: the shadow, anima, animus and persona. Individuating, or becoming oneself, involves both recognizing one’s psychological type as well as wrestling with archetypical conflicts.

Because Jung believes the personality of each of us is based on two of the four functions – intuition, sensing, thinking and feeling – our primary and secondary functions determine how we deal with the world. Our dominant traits often blind our ability to comprehend others, a device often employed in Shakespeare. Writers work towards setting different characters in opposition to create these conflicts. In Othello, for example, Shakespeare pairs Iago, the cold rationalist, with Othello’s emotional idealist.

In reading and writing characters, there are three levels at work: our view of reality based on our knowledge of real life people, characters as created personalities, and the actual personalities of both the author and the reader/viewer. In tandem with this, are the different views of understanding what knowledge is. Since the modern era began, we have had with us scientific explanations of nature, society and individuals, mainly based on figures and statistics. This has carried over to the modern literary critic who turns to psychoanalysis to explain people’s behavior. In the postmodern era, we have come to understand that there is no objective knowledge; information is always filtered through the subjective mind of the observer. Tucker leans towards a critical realism in his work, a balance of the previous two views. All knowledge is subjective but external phenomena can be understood in a “normative” manner; that meaning can be agreed upon by subjects who share a common view of life.

Tucker warns that some characters are easier to type than others. All the same, he finds certain consistent themes in Shakespeare that reflect the psychological tendencies in the author himself. He believes in particular, that there is a repetitive conflict between thinking and feeling in Shakespeare. Among them,

- A need to validate love

- To avoid political upheaval

- To return to an Edenic state with nature

- The necessity of reacting to chaos, both inner and outer (relationships and within the individual psyche)

This is partly based on the Renaissance view of the outer experience reflecting the inner world and vice versa. Tucker believes that the chaos outside must have called forth complex, deeply rooted reactions from the feeling function in Shakespeare’s psyche. From that, parallel actions and counteractions issued from his thinking function.

Philosophy and literature both ask questions about how to live our lives. Literature shows us how to deal with unexpected reversals, inevitable disappointments, undeserved tragedies and ineffable mysteries. Philosophy seeks answers through “right reason” in the hope that through learning the “truth” people will be able to become more educated, more civilized so that society will order itself in such a way such that more people can achieve happiness and society will flourish. The problem is that we cannot agree on what right reason is; there are too many differing views. These differing views, Tucker says, may be simply due to personality differences. He cites Montaigne again who tells us that human beings are never able to see reality in its totality. Because of the limitations of the human mind, and also perhaps due to being walled within our dominant type, we are troubled by the need to make choices. No one person can be in control of every situation. (36). Hence, in Shakespeare, we have the elements for grand tragedy.

Othello

As we have said, there is a recurring conflict in Shakespeare between the thinking and feeling functions, and Othello serves as a fine example. What happens when a character flips between the two functions is a loss of identity, both externally and internally. In other words, the thinking-feeling nexus is central to the protagonist’s disintegrating self. Othello personifies romantic idealism and places great faith in human values of love and war, as they are romantically conceived. His love for Desdemona is at the center of his life, so much so, that he conjoins the matrimonial with the military, when he greets her as, “my fair warrior”, after she has courageously left her home to be with him. But more than this, he is remaking her in his own image; she has transformed into his anima, the archetype of the ideal being within a man’s psyche, in female form. Put another way, he recognizes a soul mate in her. Iago, however, as a strictly rational T, does not believe in love. In light of his base cynicism, he only sees lust. Once Iago’s pride has been stung, he actively begins to destroy their ideal love and Iago’s bitterness injects poison into Othello’s romantic idealism. He goes after Othello’s intense need of loyalty and Othello’s inferior function, T, arises and begins to put him in the shadow's grip. Because Iago knows Othello believes him to be tested and loyal, Iago is able to dangerously disrupt Othello’s psychic stability. Othello’s language even starts to resemble Iago’s; he no longer “feels” something is true, but he “thinks” it is true. And yet, even as Othello’s suspicions grow, when he sees Desdemona, he is overcome by strong feeling that has no rational basis. Thus, the F and the T are at war within him, faith and cynicism, vacillating between the two, within and without.

Many critics have asked what Shakespeare’s intention may have been in portraying such doomed lovers. He seems to be asking us to consider what happens when we need to idealize the love object. This same theme runs through the Dark Lady sonnets. Othello succumbs to Iago’s betrayal and his own jealousy, and murders Desdemona, only to discover she was innocent. When he learns she was true to him, his feeling function reasserts itself and he kisses her before killing himself. Like other fated Shakespearean lovers, he hopes to be reunited with her in the afterlife. And yet, in Shakespeare, we have a complex view of life and we cannot say for certain if the bard wanted to ultimately emphasize Othello’s return to faith, to offer some glimmer of hope to his audience, or to return to the idea of abiding love in marriage. What we can say is that for Shakespeare, there was a strong fascination for the dichotomy of idealization and disillusionment in love.

Hamlet

Although the most haunting conflict between T and F in Shakespeare may be in Lady Macbeth, it is more deeply explored in Hamlet. Lady Macbeth experiences complete psychological break down because she attempts to suppress her capacity for pity and sympathy in order to do what she must to get power, which is to become ruthless and ambitious. Since it is impossible to blot out her dominant F function, the only course left open to her is madness.

In Hamlet, chaos reigns. Hamlet’s father has died suddenly (enough of a shock), his mother has remarried (too quickly), and to Hamlet’s uncle (whom he dislikes). Then there’s the ghost.

Tucker points out that although people may try to fortify themselves against misfortune, make sincere promises to others, or claim to have the best of intentions, when under attack, no one really knows, including the self, what one will do. Plans and purposes go awry in Hamlet and Hamlet’s inner division is obvious from the first scene. Other characters are divided as well: Claudius commits one murder for the woman he loves and power, yet suffers guilt; he is no simple villain. The queen is torn between loyalty for her son and for her new husband. Ophelia cannot survive the murder of her father by the man she loves. She degenerates into insanity when Hamlet is banished. With such dysfunctional characters it becomes clear that unity of self is crucial for mental equilibrium. Hamlet struggles for unity in attempting to remain rational and so follows a Stoical path in the midst of marital celebrations at the castle. Stoicism in the Renaissance was uncommon; rather people of Shakespeare’s time valued the ability to remain graceful under pressure. But because Hamlet is a thinking type, he struggles to hold onto his intellect within the chaos.

Coleridge offers insights to Hamlet’s make up:

Shakespeare’s mode of conceiving characters out of his own intellectual and moral facilities (was) by conceiving any one intellectual or moral faculty in morbid excess and then placing himself thus mutilated and diseased, under the circumstances. This we shall have repeated occasion to re-state and enforce. In Hamlet I conceive him to have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance between our attention to outward objects and our meditation upon inward thoughts – a due balance between the real and the imaginary world. In Hamlet, this balance does not exist – his thoughts, images and fancy are far more vivid than his perceptions, and his very perceptions instantly pass through the medium of his contemplations, acquiring as they pass a form and color not naturally their own. (112).

In stressing Hamlet’s tendency towards abstractions, generalizations and principles (thinking function) and his thoughts, images and fancy being more interesting to him than reality which may be the cause of his procrastination (intuition function), we see two interlaced sides of his personality. It is difficult to say which is the dominant function and which is secondary. Both affect his behavior profoundly. On the other hand, we could say his sensing and feeling functions are much less developed. Unlike many young men of his status, Hamlet is not praised for his expertise in hunting or other outdoor activities, although he engages in fencing at the end. He has trouble communicating his feelings for Ophelia and to his mother.

Tucker postulates that the reason Hamlet is unable to execute Claudius sooner is due to an undeveloped S, the action-taking trait. His psyche recoils from acting and hides within his preference for speculation. Ophelia hints at an earlier time when Hamlet was a healthier, unified self. In time of crisis, his F and S begin to assert themselves and Hamlet recreates himself as a Stoic in order to buy time, to cope. But as the play progresses, dark deeds begin to conspire against him; he finds himself trapped in psychic turmoil. Inner conflict affects the outer – he breaks with Ophelia, is at war with his mother, then kills Polonius. All these turns obstruct his ability to do what must be done. His F and S functions create inner chaos as they attempt to overpower his T and N.

Coming upon Ophelia’s funeral, Hamlet’s F leaps to the forefront and begins to galvanize his capacity for S, action. He literally jumps into the grave, willing to fight Laertes to embrace Ophelia. Previously, Hamlet had followed a pattern of brooding, logically analyzing, exploding in wild outbursts, then returning to contemplation. In the last scene, he is able to kill Claudius when it becomes clear through Laertes that the king has arranged for Hamlet to be poisoned and his mother is dying through the king’s folly. Opportunity, God or providence combine to show Hamlet a noble way out of his personal hell and his N-T complex combines with S to allow him to perform conscious action. The throne of Denmark is cleansed.

Many have asked, why must Hamlet die? To pay for mistakenly killing Polonius? To satisfy the Renaissance idea of God’s justice? The more modern secular view is that Hamlet has nothing to live for. His father, mother and Ophelia are dead. Or, in light of Jungian theory, is perhaps Shakespeare suggesting that inner unity is impossible? That our quest for selfhood doomed from the outset? Hell, as Sartre said is other people; for Shakespeare, hell is the self.

Jung holds out hope for individuation, the concept of the self knowing how to guide itself along the path to fulfillment. He believes there can be no higher calling than to seek harmony with natural laws that will reveal the direction leading to the optimum life. His central emblem was the mandala, which for Buddhists represents continuity, and for Jung became synonymous with the psyche’s center which can be approached but never reached. The process of becoming an individual is an ongoing project.

For many modern thinkers, the idea of “finding oneself” is problematic; rather most people see life as a journey, a linear progression. But this implies a journey’s end and completion. In the end, the image of the mandala offers a more uncertain paradigm.

One of Jung’s advocates, Joseph Campbell, takes the Western conception of individuation further when he suggests, “follow your bliss”. This has been seized upon by pop psychology which would have us believe we can have it all, a message we would all like to hear.

Shakespeare is more realistic. Hamlet presents the disarming possibility that conflicting currents in the self cannot be redirected into a smooth river. And worse, our quest will never lead to our dreamed of utopia. Interestingly, Hamlet’s quest for happiness is more in line with Freud than Jung. But we must ask ourselves, why do we need happiness? From birth we seek gratification and pleasure, yet the world acts to thwart our efforts; we die, tragedy strikes, we cannot avoid conflicts with others. Yet we cannot cease from trying to find our paradise and so in the meantime we create strategies for coping and buying some time.

Jung’s view in one aspect may hold true; we may not be able to attain total realization of the self, but we can achieve higher and higher levels of awareness. Hamlet cannot be happy but Shakespeare may be saying death is merciful. He is “adrift with no psychological rudder”. (129). He dies with a loss of personal identity. His psyche has become a vortex of magnetic fields – the four functions out of balance.

Again, as in several of his other works, in Hamlet, Shakespeare offers no pat resolution of the play's deep problems. He seems to be reminding us that, in Denmark as in life, the forces of chaos can apparently thwart logical courses of action and the ultimately unmanageable forces of the human psyche may defeat self-realization. The world of Hamlet is a world where nothing can ever be taken for granted; it is indeed a world of tragedy.

Shakespeare would return to this idea in several other plays, most notably in King Lear, as well as in Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. Evidently it disturbed him as much as it disturbs us still today. --Susan Barber, April 2005