I want to comment on the imagery of Mother's big "slippers" in the fairy tale, The Little Match-Girl:
Imaging a slipper, a “light, low-cut shoe” that easily slips “on or off the foot.” Its not much protection in the snowy, cold weather, and then it doesn’t hold fast but slips easily off the foot. Consider also the play on words, what is a “slipper.” An intra-psychic slipper might be an aspect of ourselves that doesn’t hold fast, doesn’t grab hold. It comes into consciousness only to be lost rather quickly as it slips away. Slippers are aspects of ourselves that slip easily away from consciousness, aspects of ourselves without much constancy.
How do we translate this psychologically? We might say that the Match-Girl’s relationship to the ground, the reality principle, is slippery and that somehow it is related to her mother, perhaps part of a mother complex. She hasn’t received shoes that would provide sturdy and constant support for “taking possession of the ground,” in other words, she has not received the proper tools that would allow her to find a proper relationship to the world about her, but instead has received shoes that prove too inconsequential to be of much support in this manner, and shoes that slip off easily—a sort of inconstant (perhaps inconsistent) aid in the Match-Girl’s ability to relate to the ground, i.e. the world about her. Remember, The Match-Girl engages in fantasy to fulfill important needs.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
The Little Match-Girl has no shoes
The Little Match-Girl dies in the story. She dies “frozen to death.” She has used up her allotment of matches to engage in beautiful fantasies. This is how she has chosen to approach her state of need. There is the question of whether she really had a choice—there is the reality of difficult environmental conditions, and the truth that sometimes we are helpless—but we will consider that question later. Let us consider the inner state of helplessness.
We are told that when the Little Match-Girl “had left the house she had certainly had slippers on; but what use were they? They were very big slippers, and her mother had used them till then, so big were they. The little maid lost them as she slipped across the road where two carriages were rattling by, terribly fast. One slipper was not to be found again, and a boy had seized the other, and run away with it. He thought he could use it very well as a cradle, some day when he had children of his own. So now the little girl went with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold.”
The Little Match-Girl is shoeless. What does it mean to be shoeless? It is difficult to move along (and get along) in life without shoes, shoes provide some protection in our contact with the ground. We come into contact with the ground through our feet. They are our anchors in the concrete world. Another way of saying this is that shoes aid our grounding in reality—“to walk shod is to take possession of the ground.” The Little Match-Girl has no shoes. The reality principle is disturbed, and this is in keeping with our overall theme that she engages in fantasy when her needs are unmet.
Symbolically, what do her mother’s “very big slippers” and the boy who steals her slippers suggest might be going on with her relationship to the ground?
We are told that when the Little Match-Girl “had left the house she had certainly had slippers on; but what use were they? They were very big slippers, and her mother had used them till then, so big were they. The little maid lost them as she slipped across the road where two carriages were rattling by, terribly fast. One slipper was not to be found again, and a boy had seized the other, and run away with it. He thought he could use it very well as a cradle, some day when he had children of his own. So now the little girl went with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold.”
The Little Match-Girl is shoeless. What does it mean to be shoeless? It is difficult to move along (and get along) in life without shoes, shoes provide some protection in our contact with the ground. We come into contact with the ground through our feet. They are our anchors in the concrete world. Another way of saying this is that shoes aid our grounding in reality—“to walk shod is to take possession of the ground.” The Little Match-Girl has no shoes. The reality principle is disturbed, and this is in keeping with our overall theme that she engages in fantasy when her needs are unmet.
Symbolically, what do her mother’s “very big slippers” and the boy who steals her slippers suggest might be going on with her relationship to the ground?
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Little Match-Girl, an overview
Watch an animated short of The Little Match-Girl:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ig26YFmgdc
I want to give a broad outline of this fairy tale’s psychological meaning. It depicts a particular psychological state of being, or in the language of Carl Jung, a complex. When one is in this experience, one feels very young—our heroine here is a young girl. The experience is one of feeling young, alone, cold and hungry. When this particular psychological state of being is constellated, we feel the interior coldness of disconnection from ourselves and others. We also experience the hunger of wanting to be fed, a metaphor perhaps of how we feel nourished when we have significant human contact and empty without it.
The story involves how the little girl goes about handling her psychological experience of cold and hunger, in other words her feelings of being loveless and devoid of human warmth. When one is “in a complex” one handles the feeling aspect of the complex in particular ways. How one handles the feeling, or the behavior itself, characterizes the complex. For some people, feeling devoid of human contact and warmth might manifest in a state of denial—“I don’t need anyone”—for example. The Match-Girl handles her feeling state by engaging in fantasy.
The Little Match-Girl strikes the matches and each time she does so, a fantasy image emerges. The matches themselves are metaphors for our libido, or in other words, how we expend our energy. We all have a limited amount of energy/libido and we make choices as to how we use it. Our libido is directed in particular directions. The little Match-Girl uses hers fantasizing about those things that she hopes to experience in her life, ultimately fantasizing about embracing the “only person who had loved her,” her now deceased grandmother.
She uses all of her matches (all of her energy) at this point to maintain the fantasy of her grandmother’s embrace and in the end, makes a wish that her grandmother take her with her when the matches burn out. The grandmother “took the little girl in her arms, and both flew in brightness and joy above the earth, very, very high, and up there was neither cold, nor hunger, nor care—they were with God!”
The story ends as we are told that the Little Match-Girl is found “frozen to death on the last evening of the Old Year. The New Year’s sun rose upon the little corpse!” We are told that the people who found her believed “She wanted to warm herself…” and that “no one imagined what a beautiful thing she had seen.”
As the readers of this story we are privy to the two perspectives, we know what the Little Match-Girl imagined, but was also know that she was not ultimately warmed (objectively) by the fantasy of her grandmother’s embrace, and that she died “frozen to death.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ig26YFmgdc
I want to give a broad outline of this fairy tale’s psychological meaning. It depicts a particular psychological state of being, or in the language of Carl Jung, a complex. When one is in this experience, one feels very young—our heroine here is a young girl. The experience is one of feeling young, alone, cold and hungry. When this particular psychological state of being is constellated, we feel the interior coldness of disconnection from ourselves and others. We also experience the hunger of wanting to be fed, a metaphor perhaps of how we feel nourished when we have significant human contact and empty without it.
The story involves how the little girl goes about handling her psychological experience of cold and hunger, in other words her feelings of being loveless and devoid of human warmth. When one is “in a complex” one handles the feeling aspect of the complex in particular ways. How one handles the feeling, or the behavior itself, characterizes the complex. For some people, feeling devoid of human contact and warmth might manifest in a state of denial—“I don’t need anyone”—for example. The Match-Girl handles her feeling state by engaging in fantasy.
The Little Match-Girl strikes the matches and each time she does so, a fantasy image emerges. The matches themselves are metaphors for our libido, or in other words, how we expend our energy. We all have a limited amount of energy/libido and we make choices as to how we use it. Our libido is directed in particular directions. The little Match-Girl uses hers fantasizing about those things that she hopes to experience in her life, ultimately fantasizing about embracing the “only person who had loved her,” her now deceased grandmother.
She uses all of her matches (all of her energy) at this point to maintain the fantasy of her grandmother’s embrace and in the end, makes a wish that her grandmother take her with her when the matches burn out. The grandmother “took the little girl in her arms, and both flew in brightness and joy above the earth, very, very high, and up there was neither cold, nor hunger, nor care—they were with God!”
The story ends as we are told that the Little Match-Girl is found “frozen to death on the last evening of the Old Year. The New Year’s sun rose upon the little corpse!” We are told that the people who found her believed “She wanted to warm herself…” and that “no one imagined what a beautiful thing she had seen.”
As the readers of this story we are privy to the two perspectives, we know what the Little Match-Girl imagined, but was also know that she was not ultimately warmed (objectively) by the fantasy of her grandmother’s embrace, and that she died “frozen to death.”
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The Little Match-Girl
A fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ig26YFmgdc
This fairy tale is set in winter. We are told, "It was terribly cold, it snowed and was already almost dark, and evening came on, the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking throught the streets."
The setting of the tale depicts not just the outer atmosphere, but the inner atmosphere, that is the psychological state of being. The weather is cold, this corresponds to a place of solitude, perhaps a loveless state of being--devoid of the warmth of real human contact.
This particular cold atmosphere is one which is not sought after by our little heroine but one imposed on her. She does not go to it willingly but instead she seeks warmth. We know this because of her fantasies--fantasies that emerge when she strikes the matches she has with her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ig26YFmgdc
This fairy tale is set in winter. We are told, "It was terribly cold, it snowed and was already almost dark, and evening came on, the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking throught the streets."
The setting of the tale depicts not just the outer atmosphere, but the inner atmosphere, that is the psychological state of being. The weather is cold, this corresponds to a place of solitude, perhaps a loveless state of being--devoid of the warmth of real human contact.
This particular cold atmosphere is one which is not sought after by our little heroine but one imposed on her. She does not go to it willingly but instead she seeks warmth. We know this because of her fantasies--fantasies that emerge when she strikes the matches she has with her.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Stripped and Naked
In his "Psychology of the Transference," Jung uses a set of alchemical pictures to describe the transference relationship between doctor and patient. In these pictures from the Rosarium Philosophorum, there is an alchemical image that Jung titles "The Naked Truth." This image represents the archetypal theme of "getting naked." It is the archetypal theme in the individuation drama involving the stripping away of the false self and encountering onself as he or she really is. This kind of stripping also occurs in the myth of Innana's descent. Innana is a Summerian goddesss of sexual love, fertility and warfare. The story of Innana includes her well known descent into the underworld. "Innana's reason for visiting the underworld is unclear. The reason she gives to the gatekeeper of the underworld is that she wants to attend her brother-in-law's funeral rites. However, this may be a ruse; Innana may have been intending to conquer the underworld. Erishkigal, queen of the underworld and Innana's sister, may have suspected this, which could explain her treatment of Innana.
Innana dresses elaborately for the visit, with a turban, a wig, a lapis lazulli necklace, beads upon her breast, the 'pala dress' (the ladyship garmet), mascara, pectoral, a golden ring on her hand, and she held a lapis lazuli measuring rod. Perhaps Innana's garments, unsuitable for a funeral, along with Innana's haughty behavior make Erishkigal suspicious. Following Erishkigal's instructions, the gatekeeper tells Innana she may enter the first gate of the underworld, but she must hand over her lapis lazuli measuring rod. She asks why and is told 'It is just the ways of the Underworld.' She obliges and passes through.
Innana passes through a total of seven gates, each removing a piece of clothing or jewelry she had been wearing at the start of her journey. When she arrives in front of her sister she is naked. After she had crouched down and had her clothes removed, they were carried away. Then she made her sister Erec-ki-gala rise from her throne, and instead she sat on her throne. The Anna, the seven judges, rendered their decision against her. They looked at her--it was the look of death. They spoke to her--it was the speech of anger. They shouted at her--it was the shout of heavy guilt. The afflicted woman was turned into a corpse. And the corpse was hung on a hook."
Here is an image of this archetypal theme of nakedness in an Alanis Morrisette video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp_wtj879ak
Innana dresses elaborately for the visit, with a turban, a wig, a lapis lazulli necklace, beads upon her breast, the 'pala dress' (the ladyship garmet), mascara, pectoral, a golden ring on her hand, and she held a lapis lazuli measuring rod. Perhaps Innana's garments, unsuitable for a funeral, along with Innana's haughty behavior make Erishkigal suspicious. Following Erishkigal's instructions, the gatekeeper tells Innana she may enter the first gate of the underworld, but she must hand over her lapis lazuli measuring rod. She asks why and is told 'It is just the ways of the Underworld.' She obliges and passes through.
Innana passes through a total of seven gates, each removing a piece of clothing or jewelry she had been wearing at the start of her journey. When she arrives in front of her sister she is naked. After she had crouched down and had her clothes removed, they were carried away. Then she made her sister Erec-ki-gala rise from her throne, and instead she sat on her throne. The Anna, the seven judges, rendered their decision against her. They looked at her--it was the look of death. They spoke to her--it was the speech of anger. They shouted at her--it was the shout of heavy guilt. The afflicted woman was turned into a corpse. And the corpse was hung on a hook."
Here is an image of this archetypal theme of nakedness in an Alanis Morrisette video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp_wtj879ak
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The Devil Made Me Do It, An Intro To Jung's Theory of Complexes
I am posting today my notes for the October 13, 2008 lecture of this class. I realize that some of you could not make it in today because of a time conflict and thank you in advance for your flexibility in getting through the interruption due to Hurricane Ike.
REVIEW: Last week we explored the concept of “Identity.” We said that a state of identity with a complex was a “lack of differentiation.” When there is a state of identity there is no “I-thou” relationship between ego-complex and what Whitmont described as “driving elements,” i.e. our complexes. The ego is our Archimedean point, the subject of consciousness, our I-complex with which we identify, and when we speak of identity with a complex, we are describing a situation when the ego is “identical with a drive” and unaware of what is driving it.
We looked at a passage from Jung’s autobiography where he says that the “essential thing (in working with your complexes) is to differentiate oneself from unconscious contents by personifying them, and at the same time bringing them into relationship with consciousness.” (MDR, page 187) We confront the complex as a “thou” as something “not I.” Only then can an inner dialogue begin.
TODAY we explore the mechanism of projection. The basic definition of projection: “An automatic process whereby contents of one’s own unconscious are perceived to be in others.” (Sharp, page 104) We meet our complexes through projection, as though they came from the other person.
Let me offer an example of this mechanism from a popular movie: AMERICAN BEAUTY.
American Beauty won five Academy awards in 1999 including best picture. One of the characters in that movie is a Colonel Fitz, a military man who has just moved into the neighborhood with his wife and son. There are several instances in the movie in which we witness the Colonel’s reaction to his gay neighbors. In one instance after he sees his neighbors out jogging in the street, he says sardonically, “What is this, the gay pride parade?”
He is expressing a strong feeling, disgust, revulsion perhaps, hatred. It is not a neutral dispassionate statement about the presence of gay neighbors in his neighborhood. This strong emotional response is telling. Something is up with Colonel Fitz and his relationship to homosexuality.
Later in the film, Colonel Fitz sees his son interacting with a neighbor he suspects of homosexual relationships. When his son returns home, his father, the Colonel is waiting for him in his room. The son has been dealing drugs and the father sees the boy come in with money. Instead of suspecting that his son has been dealing drugs as would have been a good assumption due to his past behavior, he accuses his son of selling his body for money. The father says, “I saw you with him. I won’t watch my son become a cocksucker. I’d rather you be dead than be a fucking faggot.” The son at first denies it but in an act of defiance tells his father that he is selling his body out for money. The Colonel strikes his son, knocking him to the ground. What is interesting here is that although the Colonel was keeping tabs on his son for drug use, instead of reaching the right conclusion that this son was selling drugs, he jumps to a different conclusion, that his son was engaged in homosexual relations with the neighbor. He was seeing through the lens of his complex and came to the wrong conclusion. His strong emotional reaction is another clue that his complex around homosexuality is constellated.
And then we have the about face…Towards the end of the movie, we see the Colonel coming out of the rain outside his neighbor’s garage where Lester Burham, his neighbor, is working out. He approaches Lester, and at one point kisses him. It is at this point that one understands the meaning of his hatred earlier in the movie. It was a reaction to his own inner desires, it was a hatred towards his own homosexual desires that he is now giving room to…and anticipating class comments, his earlier hatred was an expression of shadow material—repressed and hated aspects of oneself.
An important POINT: The “emotional coloring” in the Colonel, the strong emotional reaction to his gay neighbors is the essential piece in recognizing a complex. We cannot get away from our subjectivity and in one sense everything we experience in the world of objects has an element of our subjectivity. We speak of the mechanism of projection, however, when there is a strong emotional coloring. When we can’t just take it or leave it but find what we are experiencing somewhat compelling and sometimes when we are compulsively drawn to it. With the Colonel, we can see his strong emotional reaction, as well as his fascination with his neighbors including Lester Burham who he suspects, despite being married of engaging in sexual relations with other men.
PROJECTIONS CAN BE POSITIVE: Whitmont makes a point in your reading for this class that “complexes are not necessarily only negative; they cause attraction as well as repulsion. We are involved in a positive projection when what gets under our skin attracts us, fascinates us, arouses our admiration—when we ‘fall in love’ with a person or idea.” (page 61).
I have used scenes from American Beauty once again to demonstrate the concept of projection. I have provided two links to the scenes I am showing in class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RilaxU045Nw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okaWTEnU4j0
In these scenes, Lester Burnham initially doesn’t want to go to his daughters cheerleading debut, he says “I’m missing the James Bond marathon on TNT, we can leave right after this right.” He isn’t showing much interest…but then he sees Angela, the cheerleader. His face changes, something has been constellated in him, he is taken into an inner experience, we can’t say that the things he is seeing are really happening in the exterior. He is projecting something into this young woman and he has fallen in love
The point here is that Lester doesn’t really know the young woman. She hasn’t done anything to him or for him at this point, they haven’t even met, yet he is obviously affected. Something is causing his attraction, what might that be?
A clue perhaps that his own psychological renewal begins with this experience in the movie. In the dream sequence in which the young woman is bathed in red rose petals, he says “I feel like I’ve been in a coma for 20 years, and I’m just waking up.” In keeping with our focus on the mechanism of projection, what aspect of himself is he projecting?
REVIEW: Last week we explored the concept of “Identity.” We said that a state of identity with a complex was a “lack of differentiation.” When there is a state of identity there is no “I-thou” relationship between ego-complex and what Whitmont described as “driving elements,” i.e. our complexes. The ego is our Archimedean point, the subject of consciousness, our I-complex with which we identify, and when we speak of identity with a complex, we are describing a situation when the ego is “identical with a drive” and unaware of what is driving it.
We looked at a passage from Jung’s autobiography where he says that the “essential thing (in working with your complexes) is to differentiate oneself from unconscious contents by personifying them, and at the same time bringing them into relationship with consciousness.” (MDR, page 187) We confront the complex as a “thou” as something “not I.” Only then can an inner dialogue begin.
TODAY we explore the mechanism of projection. The basic definition of projection: “An automatic process whereby contents of one’s own unconscious are perceived to be in others.” (Sharp, page 104) We meet our complexes through projection, as though they came from the other person.
Let me offer an example of this mechanism from a popular movie: AMERICAN BEAUTY.
American Beauty won five Academy awards in 1999 including best picture. One of the characters in that movie is a Colonel Fitz, a military man who has just moved into the neighborhood with his wife and son. There are several instances in the movie in which we witness the Colonel’s reaction to his gay neighbors. In one instance after he sees his neighbors out jogging in the street, he says sardonically, “What is this, the gay pride parade?”
He is expressing a strong feeling, disgust, revulsion perhaps, hatred. It is not a neutral dispassionate statement about the presence of gay neighbors in his neighborhood. This strong emotional response is telling. Something is up with Colonel Fitz and his relationship to homosexuality.
Later in the film, Colonel Fitz sees his son interacting with a neighbor he suspects of homosexual relationships. When his son returns home, his father, the Colonel is waiting for him in his room. The son has been dealing drugs and the father sees the boy come in with money. Instead of suspecting that his son has been dealing drugs as would have been a good assumption due to his past behavior, he accuses his son of selling his body for money. The father says, “I saw you with him. I won’t watch my son become a cocksucker. I’d rather you be dead than be a fucking faggot.” The son at first denies it but in an act of defiance tells his father that he is selling his body out for money. The Colonel strikes his son, knocking him to the ground. What is interesting here is that although the Colonel was keeping tabs on his son for drug use, instead of reaching the right conclusion that this son was selling drugs, he jumps to a different conclusion, that his son was engaged in homosexual relations with the neighbor. He was seeing through the lens of his complex and came to the wrong conclusion. His strong emotional reaction is another clue that his complex around homosexuality is constellated.
And then we have the about face…Towards the end of the movie, we see the Colonel coming out of the rain outside his neighbor’s garage where Lester Burham, his neighbor, is working out. He approaches Lester, and at one point kisses him. It is at this point that one understands the meaning of his hatred earlier in the movie. It was a reaction to his own inner desires, it was a hatred towards his own homosexual desires that he is now giving room to…and anticipating class comments, his earlier hatred was an expression of shadow material—repressed and hated aspects of oneself.
An important POINT: The “emotional coloring” in the Colonel, the strong emotional reaction to his gay neighbors is the essential piece in recognizing a complex. We cannot get away from our subjectivity and in one sense everything we experience in the world of objects has an element of our subjectivity. We speak of the mechanism of projection, however, when there is a strong emotional coloring. When we can’t just take it or leave it but find what we are experiencing somewhat compelling and sometimes when we are compulsively drawn to it. With the Colonel, we can see his strong emotional reaction, as well as his fascination with his neighbors including Lester Burham who he suspects, despite being married of engaging in sexual relations with other men.
PROJECTIONS CAN BE POSITIVE: Whitmont makes a point in your reading for this class that “complexes are not necessarily only negative; they cause attraction as well as repulsion. We are involved in a positive projection when what gets under our skin attracts us, fascinates us, arouses our admiration—when we ‘fall in love’ with a person or idea.” (page 61).
I have used scenes from American Beauty once again to demonstrate the concept of projection. I have provided two links to the scenes I am showing in class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RilaxU045Nw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okaWTEnU4j0
In these scenes, Lester Burnham initially doesn’t want to go to his daughters cheerleading debut, he says “I’m missing the James Bond marathon on TNT, we can leave right after this right.” He isn’t showing much interest…but then he sees Angela, the cheerleader. His face changes, something has been constellated in him, he is taken into an inner experience, we can’t say that the things he is seeing are really happening in the exterior. He is projecting something into this young woman and he has fallen in love
The point here is that Lester doesn’t really know the young woman. She hasn’t done anything to him or for him at this point, they haven’t even met, yet he is obviously affected. Something is causing his attraction, what might that be?
A clue perhaps that his own psychological renewal begins with this experience in the movie. In the dream sequence in which the young woman is bathed in red rose petals, he says “I feel like I’ve been in a coma for 20 years, and I’m just waking up.” In keeping with our focus on the mechanism of projection, what aspect of himself is he projecting?
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Twenty Mattresses and Twenty Eider-down Beds
This drawing was rendered by a young and promising artist entering the High School for the Performing Arts this coming fall semester, and is an image of the princess of the Princess and Pea story as she lays unknowingly atop a pea placed among the many mattresses and eider down bedding by the old queen:
The old queen upon the arrival of princess, “went into the bed-chamber, took all the bedding off, and put a pea on the flooring of the bedstead; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them upon the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds upon the mattress.”
Continuing with the interpretation of Andersen’s Princess and the Pea, what happens when we find ourselves laying on “twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds?” Usually, we fall asleep. There are two things at work in this aspect of the fairy tale, the height of the mattresses on which the princess is placed, and also the comfort of the eider-down: the height shows the distancing from the little irritant, and the eider down, the soporific state of regressed comfort.
The many layered bedding, and the soft sleep-inducing comfort of the eider down, is an image of a powerful psychological defense. Sleep, don’t notice those things that bother you, place them as far away from consciousness as possible, stay high above it, or sleep through it, ignore…this is the image of the bedding defense…and is the reason why such a delicate princess is needed: only a true princess will notice and be effected by the seemingly insignificant irritants that might prove themselves not so insignificant.
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