English Language and Literature ETDs

Publication Date

5-1-1974

Abstract

James's early, middle, and late works demonstrate the author's continuing interest in what have become specific Jungian archetypes. This interest, which centers upon the consciousness-expanding potential of the archetype, is most completely expressed in James's "major phase" novels. Here the anima, the shadow, and the mask, as well as other Jungian archetypes, take the form of specific images and personfications, both helpful and harmful. And, when The Awkward Age, the last long novel of James's middle period, is read with the "major phase" novels, the total effect, without destroying the completeness of any single novel, mythopoetically suggests the history of an ego slowly expanding in the psyches of James's major characters. Conveyed through James's images, the mythos begins with the stage at which the ego is embedded in the earliest layers of consciousness (The Awkward Age), moves through the puberty of ego consciousness (The Ambassadors), and into the adult ego's search for a means of survival in a corrupt and destructive world (The Wings of the Dove). After The Awkward Age, assistance from the unconscious marks major passages from one stage of consciousness to the next and significantly contributes to the ego's final and somewhat successful defense of its position in The Golden Bowl.

Degree Name

English

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

English

First Committee Member (Chair)

George Warren Arms

Second Committee Member

David Marcus Johnson

Third Committee Member

Frederick Bolton Warner

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

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