One of the greatest contributions to the understanding of the phenomenon of evil, a phenomenon that
has plagues humanity since its beginnings and intrigued the minds of the greatest thinkers in history,
has been provided by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. In his theory of the collective
unconscious, where the archetypes reside, Jung devoted particular attention to the archetype of the
Shadow, one that actualizes the issue of evil more than any other archetype. All archetypes (and other
concepts in Jung’s theory in general) undeniably operate on a continuum of polarities, ranging from
saintly good to pure devilish, yet the Shadow is most readily recognized as the one most directly
associated with evil. This paper is going to present, first, a historical overview of the development of
the idea of the origin of evil, followed by a definition of the Shadow archetype as well as the
psychological mechanisms that contribute to the formation of the personal and collective Shadow in
order to aid the understanding of both the psychological creation of our notions of evil and the most
acceptable ways of understanding and dealing with it. Finally, we are going to present the most famous
actualizations of the Shadow archetype in English literature.
KECHAN, A.,
&
ISMAIL, S.,
(2022). THE SHADOW ARCHETYPE: CASTING LIGHT ON EVIL. International Journal of Education and Philology, 3(2), 19-25. Arrival Date Posted By:https://ijep.ibupress.com/articles/the-shadow-archetype:-casting-light-on-evil
