The Archetype of the Anima and the Phenomenon of Anima Projection in Wilkie Collins’s Basil

Abstract

First published in 1852, Wilkie Collins’s sensation novel Basil offers a very fascinating portrayal of anima projection through the story of an aristocratic young man against the backdrop of Victorian England. The protagonist of the novel falls head over heels in love with a mysterious dark lady called Margaret after a chance encounter on an omnibus. Following a hasty marriage with strange conditions, he spends a whole year in her company – neglecting his own family – until he discovers that he was deceived by Margaret who had been having an affair with her father’s clerk Mannion. This article argues that the intensity of the connection Basil feels for Margaret can be attributed to what the Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung called anima projection. Jung defined the archetype of the anima as the feminine element in a man and suggested that it was knowable only through projections that contained our own psychic contents. When we project our anima or animus on to a person, our perception of that person is fundamentally altered. As Basil’s case aptly illustrates, when the anima is projected, it is almost impossible to recognize it in us since it appears outside of us, embodied in another human being. Drawing on insights from Jungian psychoanalysis, this article will examine the archetype of the anima and the phenomenon of anima projection in Wilkie Collins’s Basil.