A Jungian Reading Of Henri’s Individuation In The Passion

Jeanette Winterson is one of the best and the most controversial novelists in modern Britain. The Passion is her third novel and it won the 1987 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for fiction. The Passion exemplifies a tendency away from the autobiographical, realistically set comedy of her earlier fiction and towards a much more openly fantastic and lyrical kind of fiction. Compared with her first one, this novel attracts less attention but it deserves more research than it appears.Owing to the author’s lesbian identity, Winterson’s novels are often analyzed from the perspective of lesbianism. Due to her fantastic style of writing and playing of the words, her works are often labeled as postmodernist. Some of her major works are associated with the psychological growth and maturation of the protagonist, so some researchers treat these works as initiation novels. However, few critics have studied her works in light of Jung’s theory of individuation theory, the core of Jung’s analytical psychology.Jung thinks of individuation as the central process of human development. Once this process is finished, one can achieve physical as well as mental health and balance and becomes harmonious, mature and responsible. The process of individuation consists of four stages:persona, shadow, anima or animus and the self. These four stages are not exclusively separate from each other but overlap. A person must undergo these four stages successfully to complete his individuation.In The Passion, the protagonist Henry goes through ups and downs from the army to Venice and finally ends up in a madhouse. He first attends the army with great ambition and feverish expectation due to his cult of Napoleon. However, his army life turns out to be disappointed because he is tired of carrying out the meaningless orders from Napoleon. He does not want to become an obedient soldier anymore and he will never be cold-blooded in the face of the so-called enemies. His epiphany comes and he decides to escape which indicates his deserting of his persona.After dealing with the first stage, Henri then needs to come to terms with his shadow which is projected onto the cook. Like the cook, he also wants to enjoy violence in sex, but unlike the cook, his moral standards stop him from doing so. After suppressing his shadow for years, he finally bursts out and kills the cook. Henri thus ends up in a madhouse where he eventually controls his inner violence in sex and enjoys inner peace.Then comes the third stage-confronting his anima. Anima means the feminine characteristics in a man and it can be projected onto a woman whom he loves. Henri’s anima is projected onto Villanelle, an army prostitute whose feminine qualities have attracted and soothed Henri so much that he develops a strong love for and attachment to the woman. Unfortunately, his love is not rewarded with the same kind of feeling. After some time of inner struggle, Henri at last can deal with his love for Villanelle properly, which indicates his success in the third stage of his individuation. After going through the before-mentioned three stages, Henry becomes a harmonious, mature and responsible whole, thus succeeding in the fourth stage. His journey recorded in the novel is both a physical and a mental journey, at the end of which he accomplishes his individuation.A Jungian reading of this text cannot only show readers the whole picture of Henri’s inner spiritual journey as an individual, but also broaden the range of research on Winterson’s novels.