The
Influence of C. G. Jung on
Joseph Campbell’s Theory of Myth
The hero symbolizes a man's unconscious self, and this manifests itself empirically as the sum total of all archetypes and therefore includes the archetype of the father and of the wise old man. To that extent the hero is his own father and his own begetter.
– C. G. Jung. “The Dual Mother.” Collected Works, Vol. 5, par. 516
You may already be familiar with the work of Jung, one of the fathers, along with Sigmund Freud, of psychoanalysis. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist; early in his career he was Freud’s student, but later broke with his teacher over Freud’s overemphasis on sexuality. Jung believed that a process he termed individuation was necessary to the development of a healthy, balanced personality. Jung is well known for his work on personality types and polarities – introvert/extrovert, feeling/thinking, and sensation/intuition – and for his theory of the collective unconscious and archetypes.
Jung described the human unconscious as having two layers: a personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. It is in the collective unconscious that archetypes reside. Archetypes are symbolic figures meaningful to all people of all cultures; they appear in dreams, in works of art, and in myths. Joseph Campbell’s theories of myth are very much grounded in Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious and the transcendent universality of archetypes. Campbell’s monomyth is the outline of a story held in the collective unconscious and peopled with archetypal figures.
Some archetypes prominent in the myths presented in The Hero’s Journey are the Shadow, the Anima/Animus, the Divine Child, the Great Mother, the Father, the Hero, the Maiden (Kore), the Trickster, and the Wise Old Man.
The Shadow is our dark, or at least murky side; it represents what we deny and what we don’t wish to admit about ourselves. The Anima is a man’s feminine aspect, the Animus a woman’s masculine aspect.