Archetypal Activation and The Transcendent Function in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Richard Wright’s Native Son

Abstract

This dissertation discusses the psychological instability caused by Gender and Race in selected works of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s the Scarlet Letter and Richard Wright’s Native Son. The aim is to examine the psychological situation of both the white women and the blacks in America in the light of Carl Gustav Jung’s conception of the archetypes, the collective unconscious and the transcendent function. It has also been referred to bell hooks’ theory of ‘Racism and Feminism’ that explains the cultural practice of gender and race that denigrate the position of both the white women and the blacks. To fulfill this study, I have divided it into two sections. The first one emphasizes the issue of gender and racism in America in the 19th and 20th centuries. It attempts to highlight the context of the American culture which is mainly built on the perception of the ‘other’. The second section will explore the impact of gender and racism on the white women and on the blacks’ psyche by examining the archetypal figures which flow out from the collective unconscious of the Americans. Finally, the study provides solution to the psychic instability through the transcendent function’s mechanism that has provoked individuation in some situations.