The Process of Individuation in ‘Welcome to Hades’ by Belgheys Soleimani

Unlike Freud who was totally preoccupied with ‘causality’, Jung focused on‘eventuality’ as an important principle in the development of human psyche. In other words, besides the past and the present, he considered future as an influential factor in the growth and development of human mind and personality. While not losing sight of personal conscious and unconscious, Jung paid special attention to collective unconscious and archetyps. In the backdrop of such an enlightened attitude didhe introduce individuation as one of the pivotal issues in psychology. He regarded the coordination between conscious and unconscious and inclination of the conscious ‘ego’ towards constructive interaction with the unconscious elements of the psyche, i.e. the Anima, the Animus, the shadow, the persona, the old wise man and the self as a pre-condition for the fundamental unity. Psychological analysis of the novel involves the interplay between psychology and literature and the analysis of a story from such a perspective provides the opportunity to observe the invisible aspects of the story from a wider perspective. Since ‘Welcome to Hades’ has the potentials for such an analysis, the present author has examined the process of individuation in its most prominent characters using a descriptive-analytical approach. The results of the study revealed that the simultaneity of the prevalence of certain beliefs with wartime situations along with the internal and external invasions created conditions which prevented the process of individuation for some people (Rudabeh, the main character of the story) from bearing fruits. Some other people like Ehsan experiencedregeneracy by going to war and reacheing perfection and integrity in a different way which was compatible with the critical wartime conditions.