THE REPRESENTATION OF THE SHADOW AS AN ARCHETYPAL IMAGE IN ROMANIAN FOLK FANTASY
THE REPRESENTATION OF THE SHADOW AS AN ARCHETYPAL IMAGE IN ROMANIAN FOLK FANTASY

Summary/Abstract: Starting from the idea that the shadow represents not only an image of the repressed unconscious, of the obscure area of being, but also a mediator between the conscious and the transcendent, between the real and the mythical world of popular fantasy, the study aims to investigate the complex meanings of the shadow as a symbol and archetype in the traditional Romanian imaginary, emphasizing the way in which it manifests itself in the structure and semantics of the folk fairy tale. The myth-critical and psychoanalytic analysis of a corpus of Romanian fairy tales aims to highlight the ways in which the figure of the shadow is integrated into the narrative and symbolic structure of the texts. Motifs such as the hero's double, the confrontation with the forces of darkness, metamorphosis, symbolic death or the return to the light are interpreted as stages of a process of mythical individuation in which the hero confronts his own unconscious. Thus, by confronting his own shadow, the fairy tale hero achieves his symbolic fullness and the fairy tale itself proves to be a space for connecting reality with popular fantasy, integrating opposites and balancing the collective consciousness.

• Details
• Contents