A Jungian Study of Mythical Symbols of Heroines in Anna Gavalda’s Someone I Loved

Anna Gavalda is a contemporary French author whose works have been translated into multiple languages. The protagonists of her novels are mainly women, and the main theme of her works is structured around the events happening within the family and society. The novels enjoy a clear and vivid writing style. Therefore, readers can understand them without any substantial literary knowledge. Chloé who is the protagonist of Someone I Loved (Gavalda, 2008) is an introvert. Gavalda illustrates the status of women in her society through the image and reflection of Chloé. An understating of the goddess archetype of Chloé—as the heroine of the story—could unearth the causes of her behaviors and attempts in life. This study attempts to examine the goddesses ruling Chloé’s psyche and the dominant types and forms in the society enforcing particular roles and behaviors on the women. The other aim of the research is to advance our understating of how some of Chloé’s behaviors are promoted and some other behaviors are repressed, of what effects the social factors have on Chloé’s behaviors, of whether the changes in goddess archetypes and Chloé’s behaviors are influenced by the collective unconscious mind. Jung’s theories and the goddess archetypes and their influences upon the female characters of the story helped us to uncover what made each character react differently under certain conditions of life. This also offered insights as to how the society and culture contributed to forming and shaping the characters’ fate.