Creolizing Jung: Re-imagined alchemy and individuation in Anton Nimblett’s Sections of an Orange and Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming’s Curry Flavour

Abstract

Whereas psychoanalytic trauma theory has received much critical attention in recent postcolonial studies, this article attempts to shift attention to depth psychology. It blends an exploration of key Jungian concepts, such as alchemy and individuation, with analyses of a short story from Anton Nimblett’s collection Sections of an Orange and a selection of poems from Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming’s Curry Flavour, and an eco-critical Marxist critique. Scrutinizing the complex relationship between an alienated outer world and the characters’ internal psychological space, it proposes that a post-Jungian optic can make a meaningful contribution to the elucidation of the interface of colonial-capitalist exploitation, and to resistance to capitalist domination through the creative unconscious.