Oedipus' Complexity

Jungian Analysis of Oedipus


Oedipus raised by king of Corinth (self -- guides Oedipus from likely death at abandonment to adulthood)

Oedipus meets the drunk (shadow -- drunk is of low station but has knowledge, while Oedipus is royal but ignorant)

Oedipus goes to the Oracle (shadow -- the Oracle has knowledge and wisdom, while Oedipus is ignorant and has the hubris to resist the fate that Olympus has assigned him)

Oedipus meets his father Laius on the road  (self --  Laius and Oedipus are the same: strong, proud kings who reign over prosperity until done in by their own pride and ignorance. Laius and Oedipus are both ignorant of the full realities of this situation, both have had the hubris to resist the word of the Gods, and in fighting Oedipus, Laius tests the strength that Oedipus will need to rule Thebes.)

Oedipus meets the Sphinx (positive anima -- the Sphinx, like Laius, shows Oedipus his true strength and puts him on the path to assuming his rightful throne)

Oedipus marries Jocasta (destructive anima -- Jocasta's resistance to the original prophecy put Oedipus on his path to eventual ruin, and now...I mean, dude, she married her son.  Destructive anima.)

Oedipus meets Teirsias (self -- Teirsias puts together all the pieces of Oedipus' life and reconciles them with the prophecy that Oedipus has always feared and denied.  In one way, each has been blind.  Once Oedipus knows the truth, he blinds himself, and he and Teirsias are now the same.)

The Hunt for Red Psychoanalysis

Jungian Analysis of Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood is on the way to see Grandma (self--grandmother is same sex and a guiding figure)

Little Red Riding Hood meets the Big Bad Wolf [destructive animus--represents male desire to fight, kill, eat (and according to some interpretations, rape)]

Little Red Riding Hood meets the Big Bad Wolf disguised as Grandma (I'm going to take the sex change cue and call this the shadow--represents male-like violent and sexual hungers in a female form)

Little Red Riding Hood rescued by a hunter (positive animus)


Little Red Riding Hood, from the point of view of the Wolf

Wolf meets LRRH (positive animus -- guides him to Grandma's house)

Wolf done in by Hunter (shadow -- the hunter is the wolf's foil)

Campbell and Mwindo

Am I the only one who keeps wanting to call Joseph Campbell "Jason Campbell?"

I am?  Okay then.


Call to Adventure/Crossing the Threshold:  Mwindo floats down the river in the drum, singing "fairwell to Shemwindo."

Refusal of the Call:  Mwindo seems uniquely born to the station of mythic hero, even when compared to other "chosen from birth" heroes.  He never denies the status, but immediately embraces it.  He does refuse death when he is buried in a shallow grave, and death is one part of the hero's journey, so that's probably as close as he gets.

Supernatural Aid:  Mwindo's scepter.  Mwindo is born with this supernatural aid, further supporting my theory that Mwindo is "chosen from birth" to an unusual degree even in a genre overflowing with "chosen ones".

Belly of the Whale:  Mwindo's acceptance of the journey and his unsual status is almost immediate.  He officially accepts his identity as a hero in the song he sings at the beginning of his journey, when he gives himself the name "Little One Just Born He Walked".

Road of Trials:  Most of the story could be described as a "road of trials".  However, Muisa's tests of Mwindo in the Underworld more specifically fit this archetype.  Mwindo passes three tests:  the riddles upon entrance, the cultivation of bananas, and the gathering of honey.  Mwindo almost-kinda fails in gathering the honey, and has to be bailed out by his scepter.

Meeting with the Goddess:  This step occurs out of order.  Mwindo's bond with his aunt is immediate, fulfilling, unbreakable, and a guiding principal in Mwindo's journey, qualifying it as the Meeting with the Goddess.

Woman as the Temptress:  Mwindo is instantly attracted to Kahindo, and is later offered her hand in marriage.  Mwindo declines, hardly seeming to be tempted at all, as he is needed on earth as a chief.  This archetype is barely present in the story.

Atonement with the Father:  This step is out of order, coming near the end of the epic.  It also comes very literally:  Mwindo and his father cease hostilities.

Apothesis:  Mwindo is resurrected from death by his scepter.

The Ultimate Boon:  in this story is difficult to place.  On the one hand, the object Mwindo has been seeking on his quest is his father.  On the other hand, the father doesn't seem like much of a boon:  he doesn't do a lot in the story besides tick Mwindo off and then make up with him.  The scepter is definitely a boon, in that it enriches and brings life to Mwindo's people, but Mwindo has had that from birth.  Maybe the boon is the wisdom to use the scepter properly.

The Refusal of Return:  does not happen in this story.  Muisa asks him to stay in the underworld and marry his hot daughter, but Mwindo isn't having it.  Mwindo is a little too perfect to be an interesting protagonist, IMO.

Magic Flight:  Mwindo uses magical objects, like the scepter and the plates, to travel.  However, his return from his journey is easy.

Rescue from Without:  Mwindo is aided by his aunt, but more on the journey out than on the return.  Mwindo thinks of his aunt on his way back home, thus tagging this archetype on the way to the next.

Crossing of the Return Threshold/Master of Two Worlds/Freedom to Live:  These archetypes are all rolled into one by Mwindo's orgy of resurrection on his return journey.

Journey of the Sidekick

I refuse to fully cast myself as a hero.  I find heroes sort of boring -- all that tall, slender, pristine, high-born, marked-from-childhood stuff doesn't interest me.  When those types succeed, it's almost anticlimactic, because it's expected.  The only interesting thing you can do with a prophecy is avert it.  I prefer sidekicks, nobodies from nowhere who do the dirty work so the hero can get his name in the paper.  I think Campbell's journey could be applied to my life, but I don't regard it as a journey of the hero when I take it, because I've got a beard and a bad body and I'm 5'8".  Plus, it isn't going to end with me being the king of anyplace.  So when I start on Campbell's journey, I call it the Journey of the Sidekick.

I have completed the Departure phase of Campbell's journey.  I first heard the Call to Adventure when I graduated high school.  I did not take it immediately.  I liked where I was, and I didn't particularly care about where I was going.  I went to college for a year after graduating, but spent more time partying, playing football, and pursuing women than actually going to class.  I dropped out after a year.  Thus, I refused the call.  I spent a few years, bouncing around, doing this and that, none of which was interesting.  I ended up in the belly of the whale, unemployed and broke (and indifferent to these facts), before I crossed the threshold and began studying seriously.  I discovered that I wanted to do something more than just work I didn't care about for money I don't care about.

I would say that right now, I'm somewhere on the Road of Trials.  I must complete a series of tasks and then return to the regular world of career people.  I would say that I have definitely not taken these steps in the order that Campbell presents them.  For instance, I'm still not sure if my supernatural aid is gonna get here.  I have met many temtpresses, and other sorts of temptation as well (hello, Netflix!) while I'm still passing my Trials, and I haven't had any encounter with Campbell's version of the Goddess yet.  So it will be interesting to see where this ends.

Inhereted Mythology

My family doesn't really have a single coherent mythology.  We're utter mutts, though the family tree is punctuated with mythic figures.  Or, as I once told a friend of questionable values in a state of questionable sobriety, "my family's all pirates, rebels, injuns and n*****s."

The pirate captain Henry Morgan, the namesake of Captain Morgan rum, is an uncle of mine, on my father's side, a few dozen generations ago.  I've told the story of his conquest of Jamaica at more than a few gatherings, with more than a little Captain in me.  If I were a direct descendent, I'd actually be a Fitzmorgan, as I am also related to one of his slaves.

On my mother's side, I'm descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence, James Smith of Pennsylvania.  As Irish blood probably constitutes the greatest single percentage of my descent, through my Grandfather, and because my mother's side of the family have lived in Pennsylvania for as long as they care to recount, this portion of my origin story is extremely important to my grandparents and their antecedents, more important than it is to my parents or to me.  It is likely a more important part of my brother's mythic origin than mine, as well.  He was born on the 4th of July, and for a long time he surrounded himself with anything he could that was Revolutionary or Red White & Blue.

Perhaps the strongest mythic roots I have were pushed aside and buried by many previous generations in my family.  I have Lenape Indian blood.  According to the story (as my mother and uncle tell it), I am descended from a clan chief.  For hundreds of years before I was born, this story was suppressed, because it was shameful for a white woman to have married a Native American man.  However, my NA descent is probably the most important part of my family history to one of my uncles.

More recent mythic figures and stories include my great-grandpa Davis, a half-indian farmer married to a temperance union woman, who kept moonshine whiskey in his barn with his mules and grew marijuana in his back field, and my grandpa Bell, who was a radio man in a B-52 that made the Burma run from India.  He once saved his entire crew by refueling the plane, on his own and against orders, before a short base-to-base hop that turned into a debacle when the Japanese attacked and the pilot got lost.

Reverse Myth Sighting

I'm frequently traffic, and rarely terrific, so it was an odd change when today, I was mythic.  I gave a beautiful young maiden the gift of sight.

Okay, not exactly.  What actually happened was that as I was walking back from Mythology class, I saw a young lady on a bike drop her glasses in the crosswalk and a car start to creep toward them.  I couldn't get to the crosswalk in time to stop the car, so I reached under it as it crept forward, retrieved the glasses, and ran across the street to return them to the young woman.  Since there are many myths about the loss and return of sight, about giving gifts to pretty girls, and about undertaking personal risk for the sake of each, I thought that this was sufficiently symbolic and mythic to record here.

Gilgamesh and Han Solo

I see a little bit of Gilgamesh in Han Solo.  For instance, each of their stories begin in the middle:  at the beginning of (some translations of some versions of) the Epic of Gilgamesh, we are told that Gilgamesh is already famous for his deeds as the king of Uruk.  When we first meet Solo in Star Wars, we learn that he is already an accomplished smuggler with some reputation.

Both Gilgamesh and Han Solo are jerks and reluctant heroes before meeting younger, friendlier companions:  Enkidu and Luke Skywalker, respectively.  A new companion is the stimulus each of these characters needs to hear the summons to go out and be epic.

Gilgamesh and Han Solo both remove great evils and dangers from the world over the course of their journeys.  However, neither has motives as "pure" as those we typically expect from superheroes.  Gilgamesh hunts down Humbaba so that he may become more famous, and kills the Bull of Heaven for the sake of self-presevation.  Solo only rescues Princess Leia because Luke tells him there's money in it, and one could argue that after meeting her, he sticks around looking to get laid.

Gilgamesh and Han Solo both fight and destroy two different monsters.  Gilgamesh tangles with Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven.  Han Solo aids in the destruction of two different death stars.  Each has one of his epic battles in the forest, but not two:  Gilgamesh kills Humbaba in the forest, and Solo disables the Death Star's shields in the forests on Endor.

Both Han Solo and Gilgamesh attain, and lose, an artificial state of immortality.  Gilgamesh is given a plant that will make him immortal, which is stolen from him.  Han Solo is encased in carbonite, where he could remain alive indefinitely.  Leia eventually unfreezes him.

Both of these epic characters achieve immortality through the record of their stories.  For many casual (or even serious) fans, Star Wars defines the entire genre of science fiction film, and the Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest story still being re-told today.





(Technically, if you break down their respective tropes, Han Solo is the sidekick, not the hero.  So what?  I like sidekicks.)

How Does My Myth Work?

Dr. John Watson is sidekick to the great and famous Sherlock Holmes, as well as his biographer, in the well-known short stories and novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  As such, he must improve and employ his powers of observation and deduction, though obviously never to the degree that Holmes does.  Watson is not, as often portrayed in the movies, a bumbler or an oaf.  He is a reasonably intelligent man in the company of the genius Holmes.

This story parallels my time in the university, where I will reason my way through various texts in the company of my professors and the brilliant classmates toward whom I gravitate.  I will, inevitably, write a lot as well.  Knowing the stories written by Doyle, I realize that this means I can still have a successful university career without achieving the heights of knowledge reached by my professors or more-intelligent classmates.  It also gives me a glimpse into how genius works when I encounter it.  Finally, it provides me with the scientific and investigative worldview that I find most comforting:  with enough data, and enough power to process it, a person can discover the cause of any past event and predict any event in the future.

Exploring My Mythic Identity

I would say that if I identify with any mythic figure, it would be Sherlock Holmes' best friend, John Watson.  John Watson likes to surround himself with brilliant people, especially Sherlock Holmes and his brother Mycroft, but also in the medical community.  I have attempted to do the same on this campus.  Watson and I share a fascination with the world of crime, without the often-attendant desire to become practicing criminals.  We both apprentice ourselves to brilliant detectives -- he to Sherlock Holmes in life, I to Holmes and his spiritual descendents in literature.  This allows us to experience adventure and intrigue while also remaining morally on the side of right.  Holmes, though reticent socially, makes a better friend than an enemy.  Eventually, I hope that the brilliance of my colleagues and the observational powers of the mythic detectives will rub off on me, as it did on Watson, who went on to solve a number of cases himself.

I see shades of Watson in my past.  Both Watson and I were once physical, athletic young men.  We shared a similar squat build and surprising quickness.  These traits served me well in football and track, while Watson was a rugger.  Much to both our inconvenience, a leg injury robbed each of us of our former quickness.  Watson took a jezail bullet in the leg, and I tore the patellar tendon in my knee.  Following the injuries, Watson and I both suffered significant weight loss, and as their results, both of us walk with a slight limp.  Thus far, the limp has effected neither my writing nor Dr. Watson's, preserving at least one of our shared hobbies.

I would venture to guess that the professors for whom I have written papers on Sherlock Holmes know that I identify with Dr. Watson.  I doubt anybody else is aware.

I have an affinity for epic sidekicks.  I wouldn't mind meeting Enkidu or trading places with Ron Weasley.  I also wouldn't mind trading places with Richard Cypher, the world's only fantasy-novel detective (as far as I am aware) and epic hero of the Sword of Truth series.

I was, at one point, something of a mythic figure.  I used to play a text-based online game, and was well-enough known by other players that I was referred to only by the initials of the alias I used on the game.  Some people were intimidated by me.  Others built themselves up by exaggerating or fabricating stories of my exploits and placing themselves in them.  I would make up new words to describe in-game actors or actions, to see if other people began using them as well.  They did.  I still get the occasional email asking me to come back or begging to know my secrets.  I answer only when it suits me, mostly because I'm not exactly that proud of having spent so much time playing an online game.