The Dark Night of the Soul: the Archetype and Its Occurrence in Modern Fiction.

Abstract

One of the earliest expressions of the archetype of the Dark Night of the Soul is the epic convention of the "descent into hell."Generally speaking, this early meta phorical expression involves the hero's journey into a netherworld where he meets the inhabitants of the place of darkness who provide him with a series of awakenings to the reality of human existence.Often, the truths he learns take the form of ethical advice concerning his conduct in the world of the living.The pagans, who dealt almost ex clusively with externalities or objective reality, presented this archetypal experience as a journey into a dark land of even darker spirits.However, in the introspective, psy chologically-oriented twentieth century, the metaphorical journey must be inward, a journey into the darkness at the heart of the individual psyche.For this reason, more recent expressions of the archetype of the Dark Night of the Soul resemble the treatment of darkness expounded by Saint John of the Cross in his treatises. .In his' Ascent of Mount Car mel and The-Dark Night of the Soul, Saint John examines in great detail the psychological effects which characterize the archetypal experience: a discovery of the true dark nature of human existence, a loss of ability to perceive ex ternal reality through the senses, a tendency to lose direct v vi contact with the world of objective fact, a sense of aliena tion from everything except the self, and a close examina tion of the inner self which leads to an intense boredom and, eventually, the inertia of accidie.The many recurrent expressions of these ideas through out literature indicate the archetypal nature of the experi ences which Saint John describes as the Dark Night of the Soul.C. G. Jung, in devising his theory of personality, particularly his ideas concerning the "Shadow" archetype, re cords these same types of experiences.In addition, many modern writers have shown a similar interest in these same psychological experiences and have, consequently, employed symbols, images, and ideas which are directly related to the archetype of the Dark Night of the Soul.Friedrich Nietzsche employs the archetype to formulate his aesthetic theories about the Dionysian and Apollonian impulses in the artist and, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he indicates an interest in the knowledge to be gained from this archetypal experience-More over, many modern authors utilize the archetype to present their particular moral vision of the world.Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Julien Green's The Dark Journey, and Charles Williams' Descent into Hell all involve a use of the archetype as a means of expressing the author's particular moral vision.Yet other modern writers utilize the arche typal experience to present their ontological visions.Louis-Ferdinand Celine's Journey to the End of the Night and Samuel Beckett's Moiioy employ the archetypal mode to explain ontology.CHAPTER I the artist can be a strong guiding light in helping the more ordinary individual to cope with "every peril and to outlive the longest night."In relation to the specific archetype of the Dark Night of the Soul, the artist, it seems, has al ready come to terms with the darker aspects of his existence and can be an actual and experiential aid to the man who is just beginning his journey into night.Jung is specific in stating that it is not only through the knowledge of dark ness and the consequent artistic expression of that knowl edge that the artist communicates to us.In addition, the artist "speaks in primordial images . . .with a thousand voices"-images which are part of man's psyche at birth and which manifest themselves in a multitude of ways.The art ist, as Jung sees him, helps to bind each man to every other man through a brotherhood of unconsciousness.He construes a "collective unconscious" which is "the deep, dark centre of our unconscious, which can never be made wholly conscious, which bursts forth with elemental force like foreign bodies, eternally incomprehensible and never wholly assimilable by the ego" (p.33).The unconscious "bursts forth" by means of archetypal images.The artist, as it were, penetrates the "deep, dark centre" of his own psyche in order to gain a more accurate and more thorough knowledge of his own being.And by recording the images he finds in that center, he com municates his knowledge to us by appealing to an actual pre knowledge of those things which already exist in our uncon scious or our portion of the "collective unconscious."archetype is the very first stage in the individuation pro cess.The first fruit of this encounter is a realization of the "split-off portion of Oman's] being which nevertheless remains attached to him 'like his shadow1" (p.109).The "split-off portion" is symbolized by the "other side" of our being, the dark, unknown brother.And Jung believes that the knowledge of this dark brother is completely necessary in order to cope with the total reality of existence.Tliis "Shadow"-primarily because of its archetypal nature-has ap peared in artistic works many times; but the most consistent literary appearance of the theme is to be found in the doppelganger motif.For Jung, a listing of some of the promi nent instances where this version of the archetype has oc curred in literature would include "Shakespeare's Caliban, Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein, Oscar Wilde's The Fisherman and His Soul, Stevenson's Mr. Hyde, Chamisso's' Peter S'chTemihl, Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, Aldous Huxley's Grey Eminence, not to mention Mephisto, Faust's dark tempter" (p.110).According to Jung's interpretation, the "Shadow" is "the inborn collective predisposition which we reject for ethical, aesthetic, or other reasons, and repress because it is in opposition to our conscious principles" (p.110).In other words, the "Shadow" contains all of those aspects of our being which are dark, primitive, obscure, and often frightening primarily because they are antithetical to ac cepted limitations imposed by ethics, religion, or social consciousness.Civilization has deemed that the "Shadow" re tioij in the union with God, he must undergo the same type of trial.Venard M. Poslusney indicates how profoundly Saint John felt that man must experience suffering "as something desirable, yet desired not for itself, but for what is accom plished through it, likeness to Christ, the highest expres-4 sion of love for God."And Kurt F. Reinhardt adds that, ul timately, Saint John would have us see that "this way of the Cross is the true way of life, because for those whose love follows their Master into the darkest night of total abandon ment, suffering turns into bliss, death into life, night into light.1,5To help humanity understand the true nature of the archetypal experience of the Dark Night of the Soul, Saint John wrote first the poem, "Dark Night," and then a series of prose works specifically aimed at explicating what he had said in the poem.The remainder of his writings, the Spiri tual Canticles and the Living Flame, are expressions of what he considered to be the last two occurrences which take place during the mystical experience.Because these works were written at different times, some commentators feel that % they are not really fully related.But E. Allison Peers, Saint John's most accomplished translator and commentator, 4 Venard Maria Poslusney, "'Imitating Christ,1 Ac cording to Saint John of the Cross," Cross and Crown, XII (June, 1960), 22. 5 Saint John of the Cross,' The Dark Night of the Soul, translated by Kurt F. Reinhardt (New York, 1957), p. xxi^.References to Saint John's writings which come from this text will be indicated by the translator's last name and the page number.4 This inward light, A safer guide than noonday's brightness, Showed me the place where He awaited me -My soul's Beloved-A place of solitude.5 Oh, night that guided me!Oh, night more lovely than the rosy dawn!Oh, night whose darkness guided me To that sweet union, In which the lover and Beloved are made one.6 Upon the flower of my breast.Kept undefiled for Him alone, He fell asleep, While I was waking, Caressing Him with gentle cedars' breeze.7 And when Aurora's breath Began to spread His curled hair, His gentle hand He placed upon my neck, And all my senses were in bliss suspended.8 Forgetful of myself.My head reclined on my Beloved, The world was gone And all my cares at rest, _ Forgotten all my grief among the lilies.Actually, as E. Allison Peers points out, Saint John did no more than explain the first two stanzas of this poem in the g two prose treatises.Saint John concentrated on explaining the nature of the purgation of the soul which experiences the 7 This version of the poem is taken from Reinhardt's edition of the Saint's writing, pp.1-3.