Analysis of the individuation of Norouz in the verse of “Gol and Norouz” according to the Jung individuation theory

The process of individuation from the perspective of Jung is a kind of sophistication and mental development of man which the center of personality is transferred from “ego” to “self” and since literary works, due to the inherent richness and rooted in the collective unconscious include symbols and metaphors, conscious and unconscious structures and involve the reader and require a literary text archetypal analysis. This poem written by Khajuei Kermani was analyzed by descriptive and analytical method based on Jung Individuation Theory. His journey to Rome is in fact a symbol of his quest for the process of psychic individuation begins by the first impulses of love that makes the foundation of the poem and the protagonist is a young and inexperienced princess in the beginning and begins individuation the activation of anima and recalling continuity and unity to the realm of the conscious mind of the hero and by guidance of old wise man and solving problems and eliminating inner shadows and flexibility of persona, he achieves coordination between his consciousness and unconsciousness and finally, the individuation process and self-knowledge is ended successfully.  

The collective unconscious manifestation centered on the myths, stories and literary creations led to a branch of criticism which is one of the most important and most used methods of contemporary literary criticism that examines the nature and characteristics of the archetypes and their role in literature. From the perspective of the archetypical criticism, myths are basically the structure of literature that make possible the verbal communication of narration and meaning.The concept of collectivist sub- consciousness and its two related concepts, archetype and individuation are important Jung psychology. One is important in terms of its role in the development of personality and the other in terms of reversing its themes in artistic creation and dreams ( Yavari, 2009:102-104). Thus, the recognition of this layer from the unconscious in the process of self-knowledge and individuation, which is one of the fundamental concepts in Jung’s psychology, is of particular importance. Jung believes that there is a close relationship among the art, literature, dreams and myths and art and literature as dreams are the place of manifestation of imaginations and the emergence of a collective subconscious. He believes that great poets like Ferdowsi, Hafez, Molana and Hedayat are eternal since their works reflect the collective subconscious manifestations and the common mythological insights (Shayeganfar, 2012: 251). Consequently, literary works, due to the inherent richness and rooted in the collective unconscious include symbols and metaphors, conscious and unconscious structures and involve the reader and require a literary text archetypal analysis. Given the importance and application of the individuation process in explaining the epic stories and especially the protagonists of the story, the present research tries to investigate 1- the roles and effects of each archetype in the process of individuation effective in the identity of “Nowruz” and 2-according to this fact that the protagonist of this story is compatible with Jung Individuation Theory, it is necessary to adapt this theory in order to investigate this personality from a new perspective in the scope of the mentioned theory.

The present study was conducted based on descriptive analytical method. For this purpose, firstly, theoretical fundamentals of research with relying on library resources and Jung’s opinions about the process of individuality were categorized and then with an analytical approach, the symbolic journey of the hero of the story to achieve self-awareness and during the process of individuality have been addressed.

One of the most basic theories of Jung is that the trend and direction of growth in personality is towards unity and stability and to achieve this goal, all psychological systems must separate and evolve into their components; in other words, all the different systems of character like the Anima (Anima), Shadow, Persona and etc. allow the occurrence, division and evolution of the balance between the consciousness and the subconscious mind and the person achieves psychological development (Shamlu, 2016:59). The process of individuation in his opinion is a kind of mental growth that the center of personality “ego” (self-awareness) moves toward “self” (inner un-consciousness layer) and this transfer is indeed movement from ego to self and different layers of personality come to recognize and adapt to each other and self-awareness and unconsciousness are coordinated( Jung, 2013:359).The process of individuation in fact is compromise of the consciousness with inner center that begins usually with the plundering of personality and suffering. Many myths and fairy tales have expressed the initial stage of the process of individuation with the patient or aging of the king or they are the theme of another old story, for example, the king and his wife did not have children or the monsters of women and children and horses destroy the wealth of the kingdom or a giant, without a hurricane, and a tail of sea and land on the king’s army or darkness, drought, flood and cold throughout the country make trouble (Jung, 2013:253).The story of “Gol and Nowruz” begins with the wish of the king of Khorasan to have a son and the God gives him a son as the result of his prayers and he calls him Nowruz. Since the requirement of process of individuation is a journey to the inner world and the unconscious in order to obtain identity and to reach self-knowledge, Nowruz, the main protagonist begins journey to Rome for self-knowledge and identity that reflects a deep desire for inner change and a new experience. This symbolic journey or the process of individuation, which is the same as the transfer of the center of gravity from I to ego is done with the help of a series of ceremonies such as Anima, Shadow, Persona and old wise man. So that Nowruz, with the first spark of anima achieves psychological balance between self-awareness and the unconscious from the subconscious and with the absorption and analysis of the shadow in self-consciousness and flexibility to coordinate and make compatible the persona in different situations with timely guidance of old wise man.

Independence, self-knowledge and identity and non-attachment on the parents are the main theme of the story that is the process of individuation. Nowruz individuation begins with the plundering of his personality and suffering from pain and he goes to the desert with a group of companions and reaches the caravan in the desert. The owner is a man named Kashmir and he is talking to him. After the description of the events of his life speaks about the Roman Caesar and his daughter and exaggerates in the expression of beauty. So with the resurrection of the love in Nowruz soul by the words of Kashmir about “Gol” (flower). The process of achieving perfection and spiritual integration is flourished, because love is the primary motive of this poem and from the archetypal perspective leads to the inner coherence of existence and the body and mind, self-awareness and coordinates the unconscious as it is necessary during the process of fostering identity and existence of Nowruz symbolically to reach self, self-knowledge, travel to inner world and the unconsciousness that begins to journey to Rome for reaching inner anima and through the shadow and flexibility of the mask by guidance of old wise man begin to create a psychological balance between self-consciousness and unconsciousness. After overcoming the forces arising from the collective subconscious and attracting them into self-consciousness, the protagonist expands the domain of self-consciousness and transfer the psychological center from “ego” to “self” and finally by unification of the two opposite sides of the psychic they are merged into the higher proposition and reborn and evolved psychologically.