The Collective Unconscious and Awe

The Theory

After our class discussion on Monday, I began thinking about how people who hope to create awe in others might be able to do so through an appeal to Jungian archetypes and the collective unconscious.

Jung defines the unconscious as

"everything of which I know, but of which I am not at the moment thinking; everything of which I was once conscious but have now forgotten; everything perceived by my senses, but not noted by my conscious mind; everything which, involuntarily and without paying attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the future things that are taking shape in me and will sometime come to consciousness: all this is the content of the unconscious" (The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, CW 8, p. 185).

He states that there is a personal unconscious, but also a deeper collective unconscious:

"In this 'deeper' stratum we also find the . . . archetypes . . . The instincts and archetypes together form the 'collective unconscious.' I call it 'collective' because, unlike the personal unconscious, it is not made up of individual and more or less unique contents but of those which are universal and of regular occurrence" (p. 133).

Those archetypes that he mentions are culturally inherited images, associations, and motifs that we often see in literature and myths (self, shadow, scapegoat, eternal child, shapeshifter, wise old man/woman, double, etc.) They are also, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory, ways of thinking and acting that we've inherited from our distant ancestors.

One of the problems that producers, writers, and artists run into when trying to create and inspire awe in others is the point of a diverse audience. We have already discovered in our own class that the things that inspire some people are only mildly interesting to others. So, from the perspective of a producer or writer, the Jungian notion that there is a collective unconscious that connects people and puts them in a position to be emotionally affected by certain archetypes or narratives is worth examining.

In Practice

This theory works especially well within +Carly Brown's project about awe in musicals and my own project about awe in advertising. Both venues rely heavily on theatricality, narratives, and techniques intended to elicit emotional responses from an audience. Songwriters, writers, directors, and producers can play off of archetypes as common ground within an audience.

Let's take, for example the musical Les Misérables. In this musical we see examples of the double archetype in Jean Valjean and Javert. We see the archetype of the Imago Dei in Jean Valjean's conversion and need for a spiritual center in his life. Jean Valjean also fills the role of the scapegoat and of the hero. The musical was based on the book by Victor Hugo, but the fact that these archetypes were first developed in the book doesn't diminish their power on stage.

When archetypes are used on stage, audiences are able to relax their guard because they are able to relate to these themes and motifs. The audience can feel that they are part of the community created by the theater experience rather than outsiders and spectators looking in (which, in actuality, they are). When the audience is guarded and uneasy, it is more difficult for other theatrical elements such as music, lighting, and staging to inspire that feeling of awe. They aren't "taken in" by the experience.

The Problems

The collective unconscious and its archetypes certainly help in making a more universal appeal to audiences and in creating a setting in which audience can experience awe. However, sometimes even these appeals to the most universal of archetypes, like the mother in P&G's recent "Thank you, mom" commercials, can be seen to some as controversial and exclusive. No amount of music and cinematography can make up for feelings of exclusion that put the viewer on guard.

I haven't found a theory yet that completely explains how awe is created and maintained, but Jung's theory of the collective unconscious and its archetypes seems to be a good start in the direction of how audiences can be targeted.

Works Cited

McDermott, Dana Sue. "Creativity in the Theater: Robert Edmund Jones and C. G. Jung." The Margins of Performance. 36:2 (1984).

The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (C. G. Jung).