Jung and Alice in Wonderland

[Pages:3]Jung Currents

Jung and Alice in Wonderland

"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir," said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see. --"I don't see," said the Caterpillar. --"I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly," Alice replied very politely, "for I can't understand it myself top begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing." --"It isn't," said the Caterpillar. (from Alice in Wonderland) This evening (Friday, December 3, 2010) the C.G. Jung Society of Northern Alaska will be showing at the Unitarian Fellowship. (If you are not living in Fairbanks, why not? You're missing many archetypal experiences and many good people.)

I would rate Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland as one of the top films of the decade. There were no guns, explosions or car chases. (What a relief.) It did what I prefer films should do -- show a world of fantasy and imagination (like Pan's Labyrinth). When photography was developed, painting changed; up until then depicting reality was kind of magical. I think films need to get more out of depicting external reality and more into depicting internal realities. Inception is another film that portrays the reality of dreams (though in too real a way) -- and it is very encouraging to see how popular it has been. I grew up on Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland (another brilliant film for its time.) It is nice to see a bit of darker and less sugary verrsion of the story; it nice to see the Unconscious more visible. Here are some links and information about Alice in Wonderland:

page 1 / 3

Jung Currents

'Everything is Queer To-day': Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Jungian Looking-Glass," Clifton Snider Jung himself observes: A typical infantile motif is the dream of growing infinitely small or infinitely big, or being transformed from one to the other--as you find it, for instance, in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. But he emphasizes that the motifs he's been discussing "must be considered in the context of the dream itself, not as self-explanatory ciphers" (Man and His Symbols 53). As I have noted in my book, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On, whenever an imbalance in the psyche is struck . . . [an] individual may . . . have archetypal (as opposed to merely personal) dreams and fantasies that are trying to compensate for the imbalance. The same applies to communities (which always have a collective consciousness). If a large group of people have an imbalance in their collective consciousness or their collective unconscious, then archetypal images will appear in myths, in folk tales, and in more formal literature. (3) The questions to ask about Alice in Wonderland, then, are What are the archetypal images it contains? and For what collective imbalance do they compensate? The story about how Alice's Adventures under Ground (as the story was first called) was first spontaneously composed on a boating excursion with the Liddell sisters suggests that the initial version of the story arose directly from unconscious sources (Gardner, Alice's Adventures under Ground v). Later, of course, the story went through several revisions, revisions that added much conscious material and included conscious shaping. The fact that both Alice books became so popular and have remained so suggest, further, that the images in them are indeed archetypal. As I've already conceded, Alice may be an image of the anima for Carroll himself, and perhaps for the Victorian age at a very elemental level--a question I shall return to. More importantly, Alice represents the archetype of the child. (more)

From Hollie Miller: Jung and Film Key theorist Carl Jung formulated ideas which can be applied to key concepts within Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951). Jung highlights the partnership between an act, imagination and the effect. "Active imagination...a technique of concentrating on dream or fantasy images by lowering the level of conscious activity. This allows the images to develop according to their own logic and provides a means of exposing unconscious contents." John Izod (2001) The result of which is an emotional effect upon the person. An active imagination therefore can stir emotions of nostalgia, affecting the perception and thoughts of certain situations. A further `Jungian' related term, which is used in the definition of the subconscious and the imagination, is that of amplification. The basic idea behind this terminology is the analysis and interpretation of dream images becoming

page 2 / 3

Jung Currents

`amplified' and forming archetypes. The archetypes formulated by Jung and analysed by other theorists is the anima and the animus. "A confusing and deceptive presence with the capacity to engender inner transformation." John Beebe (1991: 210) The Anima in Film The anima is seen as the feminine presence within a man and the animus the masculine presence within the female. This idea however is flexible between both characters therefore considered a `deceptive presence' (Beebe: 1992). The anima can be mistakenly defined as the woman in film, however if she possesses certain traits she can be recognised with `the desire to make an emotional connection' (Beebe: 1992). Whether the connection is positive or negative the anima strives to connect with others. The anima is generally a positive being that enjoys life and can see the best in most kinds of situations with a calming and protective effect on someone else. On the other hand the animus has been described by Jung as a `contrasexual stereotype' although often appearing as the female within film it possesses a masculine complexity. The animus' traits are turbulent, angry and to a certain degree dominant. There is a pull between the intuition and imagination of the anima and the rationalization and practicality of the animus. (More)

Good resource for Disney's and Carroll's Version Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit [youtube][/youtube]

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Powered by TCPDF ()

page 3 / 3

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download