Psychoanalytic Conceptualization of Archetypes

A Jungian Reading of Kit Anderson’s Five Sisters: A Modern Novel of Kurdish Women

Abstract

This study proposes a psychoanalytic reading of Kit Anderson’s Five Sisters: A Modern Novel of Kurdish Women based on Carl Gustav Jung’s (1875-1961) major theories of archetypes which are the persona, the shadow, and the self discussed in Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. While hospitality, honor killings, political persecution and resistance are displayed in the novel as general archetypal images that are used to label Kurds with, Anderson’s primary purpose in crafting characters, themes, and settings is the universal nature of suffering. The five sisters are engulfed by horrendous conditions, which produce a wide range of causes that push the novelist to exhibit various forms of the persona, the realization of the shadow, and the (dis)integration of the self. In order to create a world where  the self prevails, the novel proposes two prospects: the dismantlement of tribal mentality and the liberation of women through education. The implication is that although Anderson presents a village in which clan mentality rules, the novel altogether is a plane that needs a pilot and runaway lights on either side to work through and to land.