Citation

Falsafi P, khorashad S, Abedin A. Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 2011; 30: 999-1002.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.10.194

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In this study, the movie "Who Is Afraid of Virginia Wolf" directed by Michael Nickels was analyzed with the analytical-descriptive methods of Jungian study of archetypes. The aim of the analysis was to specifically analyze the movie characters' personality aspects in their middle-ages. This film was excerpted from a play with the very name written by Edward Albi. In this film a young couple was invited to the home of a middle-aged couple where the whole party befell in a night which is a symbol of unconsciousness. The young guests are the symbolic images of the main hosts. Such symbolization indicates the process of moving through the middle-age crisis. Jung's archetypes of Persona, Shadow, Anima, Animus, and symbolic signs in the images demonstrate the solitude theme in the contemporary human. On one hand, by the use of metaphors, irony, and sarcasm, the internal and external devastating forces establish the language of the film; on the other hand, they shake up the very cohesion of the "Self". Agitation, emotions, excitement, love and affinity, violence and fear, all lead to interpersonal conflicts between the characters. Their defense mechanisms are not effective any longer in the middle-age phase. Characters inevitably struggle between the factual and the fictional worlds; seeking a way to unify the aspects of their personality, they intend to reach transcendence through the unconscious. The approach of absurd with hopes and understanding in its background is expressed to flee from solitude. In an interdisciplinary approach of psychological study of artistic work, this project illustrates the process of moving through the middle-age crisis to reach psychological transcendence and ultimately attainment of a cohesiveness "self" in the modern world.