Unravelling individuation of the self-through the story of Black Swan

Pages: 1495-1496
Pratibha S. Dhundia (Department of Psychology DAV College, Sector -10, Chandigarh)
Nayanika Singh (Department of Psychology PGGCG, Sector-42, Chandigarh)

“Individuation is a process by which a person becomes “a psychological in-dividual, that is separate, indivisible unity or whole and for this psychological in-dividual, it is a matter of survival to be distinct and unique (Jung, 1959). According to Jung however, in order to attain individuation archetypes such as Persona, Anima, Animus, and Shadow play a pivotal role (Jung, 1969). Against this backdrop, the aim of the present paper is to highlight and discuss the role of these archetypes in attaining individuation in light of the 21st century story “Black Swan”. The film based on this story emphasizes as to how the protagonist Nina Sayers in her quest of attaining individuation goes through a series of the above mentioned archetypal stages but, still in the end is unable to attain complete individuation due to the predominance of shadow or the dark side of her personality.