Explorting Masculine And Feminie Roles Essays - Free Essays

Explorting Masculine And Feminie Roles Essays - Free Essays Explorting Masculine And Feminie Roles EXPLORING THE MASCULINE AND FEMININE IN ISABEL ALLENDE'S THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS By Jodi Denny Old Dominion University Copyright (c) 1997 Jodi Denny This document may not be reprinted without the permission of the author. For permission, contact: [emailprotected] Isabel Allende's novel The House of the Spirits is woven with dichotomy. Opposing forces are juxtaposed: rich and poor, good and evil, political left and right, birth and death, and the forces that will be explored in this paper, the masculine and feminine. The masculine and feminine are equal in importance to the world of the novel, indeed, the existence of one depends on the existence of the other. The danger lies in the fact that the masculine overshadows the feminine so much that the existence of the feminine is threatened. If women are a nation's primary, fundamental root from which all else grows and blossoms (Ba 61), this threat to the feminine is a threat to the world of the novel itself. The novel illustrates the dangers of an imbalance of the masculine and feminine within the individual, the family, and nation. This paper will explore the concepts of the masculine and the feminine within the novel in the context of Carl Jung's theory of the anima and animus. Jung recognized distinctive features in the psyche of men and women. He analyzed these differences in his study of the anima and animus. The anima is the personification of the feminine nature of man's unconscious; the animus the masculine nature of a woman's unconscious. In her book Women in Twentieth Century Literature: A Jungian View, Bettina L. Knapp explains that Jung believes the woman's psyche to be the adverse and reverse of the man's complementary to his. He has remarked time and time again that Eros, or the principle of relatedness and feeling, is dominant in the female; that Logos, the analytical way, the power to discriminate and judge is supreme in the male (6). Jung's theory says that logic and objectivity are usually the predominate features of a man's outer attitude, or at least regarded as ideals, and in a woman it is feeling (Walz). Marian L. Pauson elaborates on Jung's concept of the anima and animus in Jung the Philosopher: Essays in Jungian Thought. She asserts that the animus pole is often projected in different media as directed, didactic, forceful, functional, rational, and serious while the anima pole is projected as fanciful, imaginative, colorful, lyrical, light, intuitive, decorative, and amusing (97). On a deeper level, she discusses the emotional tension of the polarities within the masculine and feminine, their shadow and transcendence. The shadow of the anima is manifested as irrationality and chaos; the transcendence as inspiration and intuitive vision. The shadow of the animus is manifested as cruelness, cunning and brute force, the transcendence as practical wisdom (98). Jung asserts that these opposing natures can come together in an individual's search for selfhood, which represents a balance between the opposing forces within the personality. This results in what Jung calls androgyny: individuals who have fully developed both the masculine and feminine aspects of their personality. The manner by which these opposite natures can be reconciled into wholeness is called paradoxical unity (Walz). Jung claims that life is founded on the harmonious interplay of masculine and feminine forces, within the individual human as well as without (Bennet 128). Jung seems to suggest that a reconciliation of these opposites within the self, and within the larger realm of society, is necessary in order to obtain peace and enlightenment within both, is necessary as a foundation for life itself. Whether Jung's cited differences in the male and female psyche are psychologically innate or whether they have been inscribed on the collective conscious by patriarchal dominance is debatable. It would be sexist, indeed, to define certain traits as purely masculine or feminine. Obviously men don't have the exclusive right to logic and thought nor women to emotion and intuition. Many feminists have criticized Jung's definitions of the masculine and feminine. In Jung and Feminism Demaris S. Wehr says that Jung defined the feminine largely in terms of receptivity and remarks that some people reject Jung's notion of the feminine and its corresponding receptivity. They argue that Jung is stereotyping women once again, depriving them of being agents in their own right (6). Others believe the opposite, that feminine receptivity is a quality much needed in