Wavering Shadows: A New Jungian Perspective in Steinbeck's The Pearl

Abstract

Johnson's study, however, is his refusal to relegate only an individual's negative characteristics to his shadow/id world or to place only positive traits into realm of acceptable cultural behaviors. Rather, Johnson notes that what is culturally acceptable in one society may be quite reprehensible in another. Citing such practices as hand holding, wearing shoes, and burping, Johnson reminds his readers of very sharp contrasts between what is frowned upon in Western culture and what is encouraged in Eastern philosophy. Johnson even claims that the shadow world of one culture is a tinderbox of trouble for another.1 One of Johnson's most surprising assertions is his contention that an individual's shadow world also includes some very positive personality traits that have been repressed or not fully developed. He states, Some of pure gold of our personality is relegated to shadow because it can find no place in great leveling process that is culture. Further explaining this controversial stance, Johnson notes that ironically most people resist noble aspects of their shadow world even more strenuously than they hide their dark side and consequently ignore gold until they suffer a severe shock or illness that enables them to let gold out.2 Although Johnson's book bears a 1991 copyright, its delineation and interpretation of principles Jung set down in early 1930s offers helpful insights on fictional world of John Steinbeck, whose characters were