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A Jungian Viewpoint of the Lord of the Rings

Carl Jung, a swiss psychiatrist, comes up with a definition to describe how our psyche works. For every
human being, there are 3 seperate sections;Conscious,unconscious and collective unconscious (Schade-Eckert
4). According to Jung, the self is in the conscious part that any human can realize (Schade-Eckert 19). The self
or psyche contains three different prime elements: The ego, the shadow and the anima or animus.If our self is
compared with solar system, the Earth represents the ego. It is so small that the other elements of the self cover
the rest of the solar system. The ego is like our id card. We can find our beliefs, and thoughts, so briefly ego
represents our identity. The shadow is the opposite of the ego or persona. It mainly represents our dark-side,
repressed feelings and bad habits.The anima and animus is the representation of the opposite sex, mainly all
men have their anima and all women have their animus which are hidden in the self. ( Progoff 90)
In the mythic journey, which is described by Joseph Campbell, a hero candidate must follow series of
stages. He begins his journey in an ordinary world, with the help of his mentor,he enters a new realm which
contains supernatural events, monsters , dragons. He encounters lots of incidents during the journey and if he
accomplish to finish the journey, he is counted as a hero (Vogler 9). However, this process is not that easy.
According to Carl Jung (The Undiscovered Self 34), ones goal should be reaching the individuation.
Individiuation is a process that all mankind experiences. Jung defines individuation as the process by which a
person becomes an in-dividual that is, a sperate indivisible unity or whole (Tyas and Min 1). The road to
individuation is hedged with struggle and danger, so some people try to mimic others path. Having mimic their
path, they forfeit the chance which may enable them to reach the individuation. So briefly a person must follow
his own path to mature his personality and gain experience to reach the individuation. As I mentioned before,
ones goal should be reaching the individuation. To reach individuation, a person has to recognize, confront and
balance his self or in other words his ego,shadow an anima/animus.

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The Lord of the Rings which is written by J.R.R Tolkien sets in a new world called Middle-Earth.
Likewise to our world, Middle-Earth contains same basic patterns like good and evil. While writing The Lord of
the Rings, Tolkien originated from the Nordic culture and adds some myths from this culture to his book
(Bower 1). With doing that, he created a book which follows the same pattern that almost all mythic stories
follow that is described by the Joseph Campbell. According to Campbell (), no matter what culture or religion
one looks at, one will find the same essential story being told. So Campbell basically says, The Lord of the
Rings and creation myths are mainly the same story. If they are same stories, since every mythic story harbors a
hero, there should be a hero in the Lord of The Rings. As it mentioned before, one must take the heroic journey
and recognize, confront and assimilate his self. However, unlike the other mythic stories, The Lord of the Rings
didnt harbor an individual hero and this creates a difference between other mythic stories and The Lord of the
Rings.
In the movie The Lord of the Rings, there are three apparent hero candidates: Frodo, Gandalf and
Aragorn. To determine who becomes a hero, all of them should be examine according to Jungian Analysis.
What Jungian Analysis tells us, we should examine the candidates whether they recognize, confront and balance
his psyche or not. If an example shoud be given, Frodo doesnt have any anima representation in his psyche, so
according to Jung and others, he cannot be a total hero or Gandalf who rejects to take the ring obviously
couldnt balance his ego or Aragorn who couldnt face with his shadow when he is looking at palantir in the
movie. However if we examine Frodos , Gandalfs and Aragorns recognition, confronting and assimilating
their ego, shadow and anima individually, and combine them there is a possibility for the trio to make a
complete hero.
Anima or Animus is the part of our psyche and it represents the opposite prepotent behaviours in
consciousness. For example, a man develops his character in a masculine way. In society, he states his feelings
in an appropriate way that suit his masculinity ( Progoff 90). It is totally same for a women. She express her
feelings in a feminine way. However it is only visible part of the iceberg. When men and women develops their
own masculine or feminine psyche, unconscious side of mind must develop the opposite in order to balance

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ones psyche. Briefly, a man must have a feminine side and a woman must have a masculine side of the psyche
so that the self stays in balance. If we back to the rules for one to become a hero, he/she must balance his anima
or animus. However, in the movie The Lord of the Rings, Frodo who destroyed one ring that was never
achieved by anyone before, doesnt have an anima representation (ONeill 65). This is a big problem for one to
be counted as a hero since he couldnt balance his psyche. Some people claim that, since Frodo doesnt have an
anima/animus representation in the film, and Samwase Gamgee on of the best friend and companion of Frodo,
exhibits some feminine features. However, it is not a strong claim to proove that Frodo has the Anima. Unlike
Frodo, other two candidates, Aragorn and Gandalf have their Anima (Skogemann 104). If Aragorn is examined,
it is clear to see that the Anima of the Aragorn is Arwen. Although Arwen doesnt appear in the movie many
times, in the final scene when she gives her ticet to Frodo to go Valinor or also known as the Undying Lands,
she forfeits her immortality to live with Aragorn, it clarifies that Arwen is the anima figure in the movie.
(Skogemann 105). Although Galadriel, the lady of Lothlorien, is married with Lord Celeborn, it is reasonable
claim that Gandalf and Galadriel are each others Anima and Animus. However it is hard to find this in the
movie, it only manifests the other books that Tolkien wrote about the Middle-Earth. The most obvious example
is, Galadriel risks all her army to rescue Gandalf in a dangerous situtation in a war that happens in long before
the time when the fellowship is occured to destroy the one ring. Briefly, Gandalf and Aragorn have their Anima;
on the other hand, Frodo may be the most obvious hero candidate fails in the this part of psyche.
As it mentioned earlier, shadow may be the most important part of psyche should be balanced in order to
reach an individuated self. It can be defiened as a opposite side of the persona/ego where the dark ,unexpressed
and denied things sleep (Vogler 65). Actually, the Shadow archetype cannot be formed spontaneously. When a
person develop his character according to his ego, means that only develop his strong sides and push down the
other weak sides, this unwanted weaker side is sent to unconscious level of the mind. When all these suppressed
feelings are collected in a box, it will fill up and run over from the box. When the process of run over occurs,
the dark side or shadow arise and capture the persona and drag it into a trouble (Progoff 87). This is why Jung
said, one must balance his ego in order to reach deeper level of the conscious. Since it is called primary

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archetypes and The Lord of The Rings is a mythic film, it obviously occurs in the film and all the hero
candidates in the movie are trying to cope with it. Gollum obviously represents the Frodos fear so that it can be
said that Gollum is Frodos shadow. When Frodo first saw Gollum, he said that Gollum should be killed. It is
the first time that Frodo couldnt confront his shadow, since he doesnt want to face with Gollum. Thus, at the
beginning of the story his psyche is unbalanced. As the story progress, Frodo is trying to reach Mordor in the
presence of Gollum in other words; Gollum guides Frodo to reach him to Mordor. Thus, it can be said that
Frodo now knows his shadow and he begins to face with inner shadow and accepts it. At the end of the scene
when Frodo tries to drop the ring and gives up and Gollum steals the ring from him, it is the moment when
Frodo assimilates his shadow and he tries to push Gollum in to the Mount-Doom. Having achieved this, we can
conclude that Frodo balanced his shadow. If we examine Aragorns shadow, it is not easily recognizable as
Frodos shadow, but the most probable one is Sauoron itself (ONeill 131). During the scene when Aragorn is
looking the palantir, he is trying to face with his shadow or wants to assimilate it. However, Sauron the
shadow of Aragorn shows an image of Arwens dead body. At that moment, Aragorn drops the palantir and the
image of Arwen disappears. Since we define the Shadow as a suppressed feelings and Aragorn couldnt face
with the Arwens death and drops the palantir, it can be said that Aragorn couldnt balance his shadow so he
fails to balance his psyche. Gandalf; on the other hand, with being a strong wizard and knowledgeable about his
enemies, could manage the balance his shadow (Skogemann 153). There are not many scenes about this
archetype for Gandalf in the movie because of his features, but only example could be the scene when he
sacrifices himself to provide the others escape during his battle with shadow-monster Balrog. As a result both
Frodo and Gandalf successfully balance their shadow but, Aragorn couldnt manage to assimilate his shadow.
Center of the self or The Ego is as Jung described covers a small portion of the self (Iaccino 13). Thus, it
may be seen as a part of the self that is not important as others. However; as it is discussed earlier, shadow is the
opposite aspect of the ego or more precisely persona so the Ego is one of the most important part of our psyche.
As I said, shadow is the opposite side of the persona, but persona and the Ego doesnt represent the same thing.
Persona can be defined as a form or mask that we all wear in a daily life in order to adapt the daily life. These

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all masks combine and compose the Ego part of the self (Progoff 84). In all mythic stories, it is essential to
balance the Ego to reach the individuation. It is interesting to see that a wise, wizard Gandalf may not balance
his ego. At the very beginning of the movie when Frodo tries to give the ring to Gandalf, Gandalf rejects Frodo
sharply. So he simply is scared to take the ring. Aragorn is the like Gandalf. He also rejects to take the ring at
the meeting in the Rivendell. However, Frodo who has weaker features in terms of knowledge and experience
carries the ring under a big pressure but, he succeeds to destroy the ring at the end of the film. The reason
behind this behavior is both Gandalf and Aragorn is scared from the ring since they think that the ring is so
strong, so that it captures their entire mind. Therefore, they will transform an evil people like in the past. Isildur,
who took the ring, couldnt manage to use it and the ring brings death. Sauron, who was a maia (god like
creature) in the past, turns into a shadow who tries to rule all the middle-earth. So both Aragorn and Gandalf
know this, so they have already confronted their ego but they are scared to assimilate their ego since they may
transform to an evil.

It can be seen that in the movie The Lord of the Rings, there isnt a single hero since Jung said, one must
recognize, confront and assimilate his self in order to reach the individuation. All the candidates fail to balance
some part of the self. However if Frodos Gandalfs and Aragorns self are combined, there is a strong
possibility for common self to reach the individuation. So The Lord of the Rings is a film that, peoples
individual self is not individuated but, the peoples, who dedicate themselves to destroy the ring, common self
reaches the individuation.

Works Cited
-Bower, Jody. "The Lord of the Rings - An Archetypal Hero's Journey." Print.
-Jung, Carl. The Undiscovered Self. 2006. 128. Print.
-Eckert, Lisa. How Does It Mean ? Heinmann, 2006. Print.
-Iaccino, James. Jungian Reflections within the Cinema. 1998. Print.

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-ONeill, Timothy.1979.The Individuated Hobbit.Boston
-Progoff, Ira. Jung's Psychology and Its Social Meaning. 2nd ed. 1953. Print.
-Skogemann, Pia. Where The Shadows Lie. Chiron Publications, 2009. Print.
-Tyas, Howard, and D. Min. "Individuation: The Process of a Lifetime." Print.
-Vogler, Christopher. The Writer's Journey. 3rd ed. 2007. 300. Print.