Collective Unconscious

Collective Unconscious

Author Name : Mrs. Seeta Jaiswar, Dr. Garima Chhabra

ABSTRACT

The Psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, defined the concept collective unconscious. Sometimes referred to as the "objective psyche," it refers to the idea that a segment of the deepest unconscious mind is genetically inherited and is not shaped by personal experience. According to Jung's teachings, the collective unconscious is common to all human beings and is responsible for a number of deep-seated beliefs and instincts, such as spirituality, sexual behaviour and life and death instincts. Jung also believed that the collective unconscious is expressed through universal concepts called archetypes. Girish Karnad is neither a psychiatrist nor an anthropologist but a playwright. But his plays depict a profound interest in the phenomenon of unconscious and the relationship between unconscious mind and dreams. He has also recognized and analysed the significance of the collective myths of different societies. The integral relationship between dreams, myths and the unconscious has been the pervasive theme in the plays of Girish Karnad and he employs them to portray masterpieces by combining extraordinarily forceful theatre with strange psychological insights. Girish Karnad‟s works can be studied with the intervention of the psychological variables and psychoanalysis of his characters in his plays. His plays deal with the themes of Indian myths, history, traditions, folklores and are a vehicle for communicating man‟s desires, jealousies, madness, quest for perfection, recognition and completeness, eternal conflict of passions and are successful in giving a local habitation and a name to man‟s aspirations and desires. This paper is an attempt to study his plays in the light of Carl Jung‟s psychological concepts of Collective Unconscious and archetypes.