Persona And Shadow

Philip Roth is a prominent American Jewish writer in American literary circle, whois called “Living Literary Legend”. As one of the American Trilogy,The Human Staindiscloses humanity and moral phenomena of American society,which is enlightening tothe readers.Jung is one of the greatest psychologists in the twentieth century,whose theory iscalled analytical psychology, among which collective unconscious and archetypes takeup important positions. Among numerous archetypes, persona and shadow are twoimportant archetypes. The significance of persona and shadow lies in that they helppeople to analyze humanity and interpret the social moral phenomena.When The Human Stain is combined with persona and shadow theory, it is nothard to find their meeting points. Therefore, the thesis attempts to analyze thecharacters’ destiny as well as moral phenomena of American society in The HumanStain by persona and shadow theory.This thesis consists of Five chapters, including an introduction, the body and aconclusion. The body is divided into three chapters. The introduction part gives a briefintroduction to Philip Roth’s life, his literature achievements, the previous academicresearch on Philip Roth both at home and abroad, and the feasibility and significance ofthe study.Chapter two firstly introduces briefly Jungian collective unconscious andarchetype theory,the social background of archetype theory as well as the evolution ofarchetype theory. Then it emphasizes two important archetypes: persona and shadow.On the basis of persona and shadow theory, morality can be classified into wholepersonality and one-sided personality.Chapter three applies theory of persona and shadow to analyze the characters inThe Human Stain and the factors that affect their destiny.Chapter Four discloses two types of one-sided morality in The Human Stain on the basis of moral classification by persona and shadow.political correctness and persecuting spirit. Both of them overstate the effect of persona and neglect the integration of shadow, which result in individuals’hypocrisy and persecution between people.In the conclusion, the thesis affirms the reality significance of Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. Only by dealing with the relationship between persona and shadow correctly, can we achieve total personality.