Shadowy Selves, Part 1

by Tricia Dower

How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a Shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole; and inasmuch as I become conscious of my Shadow I also remember that I am a human being like any other. ( Dr. Carl G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul)

I have a tendency to relate everything I learn to writing, so when a friend introduced me to Jung’s concept of the Shadow a few days ago — it’s amazing how little I know about really important things — I wondered if the most powerful writers are the ones most in touch with their Shadows.

Jung used the term "Shadow self" to describe everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied. And not just the usual stuff you may have been programmed to deep-six, like anger or selfishness or sensuality. The Darth Vader side, too, the one that draws you to photos of Abu Graib and mutilated bodies in Sierra Leone. We know the capacity to torture, rape and murder is within us even as we’re repulsed by these acts and may never lift a hand to harm another. Likewise planted in us are seeds of hatred and emotional abuse though we may go out of our way to be loving and just. On the plus side, according to Jung, our Shadow also has a light side in undeveloped, positive potential.

As writers, we need to create Shadow selves for our characters to make them authentic. And that means acknowledging our own Shadows. Whatever we can imagine in our characters is somewhere in us, as well.

I recently read Susan Musgrave’s Cargo of Orchids (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000) which is riddled with images of torture and murder that frightened me at times. The female narrator is on Death Row. She goes into great detail about the different forms of state-ordered murder — hanging, electrocution, firing squad, lethal injection, gas chamber — and what happens when it’s botched. Horrible and fascinating. I could imagine myself watching, maybe even firing the bullet, or dropping the pellet; tried not to imagine myself being zapped. The story also explores kidnapping, drugs and the lives of merciless thugs — female thugs, to boot. It’s brave writing that risks exposure (How do you know all this?), courts disapproval (How could you?) and forces us to face our dark side.

I sometimes worry that if I allow violent images into my mind, I’ll attract violence to myself. Kind of a twist on ‘You are what you eat.’ I don’t know if this is true or not but I can see that shying away from thinking about aspects of life I find distasteful may inhibit my ability to develop characters readers recognize as whole human beings. I’m studying gangsta culture right now for my latest story and trying to get beyond tut-tutting about how awful it is and embrace the life. To feel what it’s like to be ‘jumped into’ a gang and wear its colors, to tattoo your body with its symbols, to pack a roscoe and patrol the ‘hood, with your dark side on display and the light of your Shadow buried, maybe forever.

Next time: one man’s take on his shadow.

Image: Embracing Shadow Self by Rita Loyd