1st Edition
Anima and Africa Jungian Essays on Psyche, Land, and Literature
Introduction 1. Ernest Hemingway’s Francis Macomber in "God’s country" 2. The anima’s many faces in Henry Rider Haggard’s She 3. The anima and psychic fragmentation in Olive Scheiner’s The Story of an African Farm 4. "The reality of the singular": Anima and unus mundus in Laurens van der Post’s A Story Like the Wind and A Far-Off Place 5. "We are all sailors": C. G. Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections and Doris Lessing’s Briefing for a Descent into Hell 6. "Not a bad man but not good either": The anima and individuation in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace 7. "The eyes in the trees are watching": The anima and feminine agency in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible 8. Mother is not supreme: The anima and (post)colonial strife in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People 9. The anima and shadow dynamics in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko 263
Biography
Matthew A. Fike, Ph.D., is a Professor of English at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where he teaches courses in critical thinking, Shakespeare, and Renaissance literature. He is the author of The One Mind: C. G. Jung and the Future of Literary Criticism (Routledge 2014).
‘Anima and Africa is exciting and important for Jungian studies, literary criticism and postcolonialism. It mines the neglected ore of Jung’s fascination with Africa and his recognition of its power within western literature. Covering key authors such as Aphra Behn, Hemingway, Coetzee, and Kingsolver, Fike illuminates the feminine constellated in imagining Africa, as well as Africa’s cultural being in Jung’s writing.’ – Susan Rowland, Chair MA Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life, Pacifica Graduate Institute, USA
‘This illuminating study shows how wide-ranging and useful a Jungian approach to literature can be, and explores the very different ways in which a man's problem with his anima lies at the heart of a selection of some of the finest novels about Africa. Strongly recommended.’ – Terence Dawson, co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Jung
