Master’s Thesis

A Jungian Reading of The Midnight Library:

Individuation Theory and Literary Criticism

Author: Hana Mikaeili

Supervisor: Per Sivefors
Examiner: Niklas Salmose
Date: 2023- 01-08
Subject: English Literature
Level: Advanced Level, 30 credit
Abstract
The essay is a Jungian reading of the novel The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig, using Jung’s

individuation theory. The author attends to the psychological journey of Nora, the protagonist

on a quest of finding her identity. She struggles with anxiety and depression and commits

suicide. In a state between life and death, she finds herself inside a library where she gets the

chance to redeem her regrets and find true happiness by choosing between many different

lives. Additionally, the Jungian concepts of active imagination, complexes, shadow, mother

archetype, and animus are applied in different stages of her individuation. In the end, her

mental state improves as she finally accepts her true self and her perspective of life changes

dramatically. The essay introduces the novel to new readers who are interested in

psychological narratives, and through the psychoanalysis approach, raises awareness of mental

health. This essay might appeal to students who are interested in Jungian literary criticism and

its approach to literature, as well as Jungian analysts.

Key Words
Jung, Matt Haig, Jungian literary criticism, individuation, mother archetype, animus, complex,
shadow, library, mental health
Acknowledgment

I would like to express my gratitude to Per Sivefors for his patience and dedication as my

supervisor. His continuous encouragement and guidance were a great motivation while

working on this essay.

Table of Contents
1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1
2 Theory and Method .............................................................................................................................. 5
2.1 Jungian Literary Criticism ................................................................................................................................. 5
2.2 Individuation .......................................................................................................................................................... 7
2.3 Archetypes ........................................................................................................................................................... 12
2.3.1 The Mother Archetype ............................................................................................................................ 14
2.3.2 Anima and Animus ................................................................................................................................... 15
2.4 Complex and Shadow....................................................................................................................................... 15
2.4.1 The Mother Complex ............................................................................................................................... 17
2.4.2 Shadow .......................................................................................................................................................... 18
2.5 Active Imagination ............................................................................................................................................ 19
3 Analysis ............................................................................................................................................. 21
3.1 Nora’s Active Imagination ............................................................................................................................. 21
3.2 The Library and Mrs. Elm: The Mother Archetype .............................................................................. 23
3.3 Nora’s Complex and Shadow ........................................................................................................................ 26
3.3.1 How the Complex and Shadow were shaped. ............................................................................... 26
3.3.2 The Behavioral Patterns ........................................................................................................................ 30
3.3.3 New Perspective........................................................................................................................................ 37
3.4 Hugo the animus ................................................................................................................................................ 39
3.5 Nora’s Mother Complex .................................................................................................................................. 41
3.6 Nora’s individuation......................................................................................................................................... 46
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 50
Works Cited .......................................................................................................................................... 52
 Mikaeili 1

1 Introduction
“The librarian had a penetrating gaze: Who is Nora Seed? And what does she want?” (Haig

156)

In the novel, The Midnight Library by the British author Matt Haig published in

2020, Nora, a thirty-five-year-old woman, tired of a hopeless life and dead potentials of what-

ifs, struggles with a mental breakdown and does the relentless act of suicide. After the suicide

attempt, while she is physically unconscious in her apartment, she finds herself in a library,

where she can choose her ideal life by midnight. The best-selling novelist Matt Haig is no

stranger to mental health struggles himself. In an interview, he spoke about his anxiety and

depression. He had a mental breakdown at the age of twenty-four while he was severely

depressed. For many years books and readings created a safe haven for him and stories

became his antidepressants (Duerden, “Independent”). Perhaps one can see how his struggles

with mental issues and his love for books are reflected in the novel. Nora, struggling with

mental health, has to choose from different books; each one takes her to a new life with

different outcomes. With each choice, a new universe is there for her to explore and they all

exist simultaneously. Matt Haig explores the psychological impact each life has on her by

confronting her depression and anxiety (Pulley, “The Guardian”).

Since The Midnight Library deals with aspects of identity and psychology,

psychoanalytical approaches seem to be particularly appropriate to apply to this novel. When

talking about psychoanalysis in literature, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Jungian literary

criticism present themselves. Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung both contributed greatly

to exploring the unconscious. However, there are fundamental differences between Jung’s

and Freud's theories, and Jung’s view seems to be more applicable to the narrative of Nora’s

psychological journey. Psychic energy, with the Jungian term of libido, is the life force that
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drives psychic activities. Jung perceives libido as a general form of psychic energy that also

can take sexual forms but is not merely limited to that. Jungian libido is the desire and

passion for living and the lack of it causes depression. Freud defined libido as only the energy

rooted in sexual urges (Rowland 14). Nora suffers from a lack of psychic energy, but not

because she suppresses her sexual urges. Haig does not portray her as a woman that bases her

decisions, thoughts, or suffering on engaging in sexual activities. Her lack of libido is caused

by the different emotional events and patterns of behavior that affected her throughout her

life and resulted in her depression. In addition, Freud mainly focuses attention on past

experiences, especially childhood as the ultimate fact that shapes someone's behavior.

However, although Jung highlights the significant effect of childhood experiences, he does

not accept the past as the only factor in shaping personality. He believes that we are always

moving toward a higher level of self-realization through a process he called individuation

(Schultz and Schultz 93). From the time of his break from Freud, individuation has always

been a present motif in all of Jung’s works and possibly is the backbone of his psychological

ideas (Papadopoulos 196).

Jungian literary criticism as a criticism of literary studies based on Jung’s theories

includes a wide range of contents. In her book, Jungian Literary Criticism: The Essential

Guide Rowland discusses the different scales of Jungian literary criticism based on Jung’s

contributions to literature. Jungian literary criticism varies from following the psychic

creativity in contemporary matters of ecocriticism and climate change to analyzing texts

based on different Jungian concepts such as shadow, archetypes, individuation, active

imagination, anima, animus, self, and many more. In his book C. G. Jung and The Future of

Literary Criticism, Fike takes this one step further and goes beyond archetypal criticism to

reach postmodern theoretical approaches. He introduces a new school of Jungian literary

criticism that explores the collective unconscious as a means of a unitary world. Based on
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Jung’s embracement of both science and metaphysics Fike finds Jungian psychological

criticism an appropriate tool to provide a foundation between science and metaphysics. His

writings go beyond traditional archetypal criticism and belong to post-Jungian literary

studies. He introduces One Mind by accentuating the archetype self beyond Jung’s traditional

definition of the individual unification of conscious and unconscious and explores it as an

extensive unity of persons, places, and events of physical or nonphysical matters in the past

or present (2).

This essay has a more traditional archetypal approach to Jungian literary criticism

using Jung’s original concepts of individuation, self, complex, shadow, and animus, rather

than post-Jungian psychological criticism. After Nora’s suicide attempt, as a reader, it is

possible to read the rest of the novel both as a part of Nora’s imagination and as a

metaphysical experience. In this essay, however, what happens to Nora after she passes out

when she tries to take her own life, until the time she wakes up again, is considered her inner

conflict inside her mind, an imagination that is possible because of the limitless creativity of

her psyche, rather than an outside metaphysical phenomenon. What she sees after becoming

unconscious in her apartment is considered her active imagination as a tool for helping her in

the individuation journey to find the self. In addition, the self is emerging by peeling her

unconscious of layers of mental barriers and bringing them into awareness, which is close to

the original definition of the Jungian self, rather than a post-Jungian unity of self as a global

mind. Therefore, in analyzing this novel a traditional approach of Jungian concepts is

addressed.

Individuation is a psychological journey, in which the unconscious contents are

brought into consciousness, and we become aware of them. When these contents become

conscious, we have a chance to correct them and defuse their negative effects on our lives. By
 Mikaeili 4

doing so eventually the real self and the true identity emanates. It is a process to fulfill one’s

capacities and become the unique self (Schultz and Schultz 95). Nora does not know who she

is and what she wants until she begins her quest on finding her real identity buried under

lifetime expectations and regrets. The psychological journey she goes through in the library

starts by challenging her previous life perspectives and mental blocks and end in giving her a

sense of acceptance of her true self. This process of Nora’s self-exploration is very similar to

Jung’s individuation theory because individuation is a process to encounter the unconscious

and find the true self and identity.

Thus, this essay is a Jungian literary criticism of the novel The Midnight Library,

using Jung’s individuation theory. I aim to apply the theory of individuation to the

protagonist's psychological journey. In addition, other Jungian concepts such as the mother

archetype, shadow, complexes, animus, and active imagination are discussed throughout the

novel. An active imagination is a technique developed by Jung that can be of help to the

individuation process. As mentioned, this technique is applied to the period that Nora spends

in the library and between her lives. Mother archetype, shadow, complex, and animus are

concepts of the unconscious that come to the surface during individuation, and each has a role

in it. These concepts are thoroughly explained in the theory section. By applying Jung’s

theories to this book, Jungian literary criticism as another means of understanding literature is

applied. Therefore this essay can be significant to students who are interested in psychology,

literature and Jungian ideas. This essay might also appeal to Jungian analysts. The Midnight

Library was named a best seller in 2020. It has a fascinating storyline with a brush of

struggles that many readers might identify with. However, since this novel is published quite

recently, there has not been much work done on it. Hopefully, it is a step in introducing this

engaging novel to more readers. In addition, this essay can help in understanding

individuation as a process to find the true self not just as a theoretical term, but also as a
 Mikaeili 5

process that is essential in life and can help many in today's society, who similar to Nora, are

struggling with finding their true identity while suffocating themselves with self-imposed

expectations after comparing their lives to the glamorous, colorful, and perfect pictures

displayed on social media.

2 Theory and Method

I map out the novel based on several Jungian concepts such as the mother archetype,

complex, shadow, and animus, to show the steps of the protagonist in the process of

individuation. In the theory section, first there is an overview of Jungian literary criticism.

Furthermore Jung’s individuation theory as well as the other Jungian concepts that are

applied in analyzing the novel are discussed.

2.1 Jungian Literary Criticism

One of the practical books in helping literary students who are fascinated by Jung’s

psychology and its trace in literature is Rowland’s Jungian Literary Criticism. In this book,

Rowland discusses how Jung’s psychology and literature have a fundamental core value that

might be treated as peripheral and insignificant by epistemological and economic hierarchy

(ix). That value is creativity. By understanding literature in connection with the human

psyche and its unlimited creativity, Jungian psychology as a tool for literary criticism

explores literature from a more creative perspective. On the other hand, it also helps Jungian

scholars and clinicians to investigate literature as a process and technique for expanding their

practice (1).

A question might arise: Why Jung? Jung is important because one of his main ideas

is psychic creativity. To him, this creativity is one of the fundamental influences in our lives.

We have the capacity to create new things and there is no limitation on that. Psychic

creativity is the foundation of our identity because it affects who we are and what we think
 Mikaeili 6

regarding the world. This creativity is coming from the boundless imagination of our psyche

specifically the unconscious. One of the reasons why Jung broke away from his mentor

Sigmund Freud was that Jung believed that nothing should restrict the unlimited possibilities

of unconscious creativity within humans. As a therapist, he also used creativity in his

practices. Jung inspired many artists, writers, philosophers, and therapists including ones who

use art as a tool for therapy (Rowland 2).

Jung is indeed a critical thinker with a conspicuous emphasis on creativity in his

works and theories and so a capable resource of analyzing writings of any kind. As a pioneer

in working with the unconscious, Jung is critically significant in the twenty and twenty-first

century as his works emphasize freeing from limitation, allowing the psyche to advance in

new ways. Jung also critically influenced the works of several authors, philosophers, artists,

and filmmakers. His theories are supported and recognized in the works of many artists and

philosophers, such as Gilles Deleuze, Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann, D. H. Lawrence, James

Joyce, Walter Benjamin, John Fowles, Ted Hughes, Doris Lessing, Jackson Pollock, Anselm

Kiefer, George Lucas, John Boorman, and Derek Jarman. Additionally, Jung’s works and

theories present a framework to analyze creativity. In a sense, he offers a meaningful

criticism and interpretation of arts and humanities including history, religion, literary studies,

and philosophy. Thus, we see that Jung is a critical scholar. In addition to his textual works

on non-literary texts, many writings can be read personally, socially, and psychologically

based on his concepts which makes him also a textual critic. As is evident creativity is the

essence of Jung’s works, which is also fathomable in his own writings and the possibilities of

imagination are inexhaustible. Therefore, his theories offer a liberation of creativity and

imagination to literary studies (Rowland 3).

His studies on the human psyche have had three consequences for literary scholarship:

The individual being, the role of relationships and interrelation, and the culture. Rowland
 Mikaeili 7

further draws attention to the point that Jung, could be considered an academic figure in

human studies because of his distinct focus on the meaning of being human individually,

socially, and culturally. Since no psyche is fully knowable and psychic creativity is limitless

and open, no person, society, or culture is fully complete or perfect and there is always room

for growth and change. Jung believes in both reconnecting with the psychic contents

allocated in the past as well as the potential of a yet different future. In the ways explained

Jungian psychology has the potential to join the literature as a formidable part of the cultural

body (3).

2.2 Individuation
Before all else, we need to understand that from a Jungian perspective, individuation happens

in the individual’s psyche. For Jung psyche is as real as the physical body and acknowledging

it is the first step in understanding the individuation process. Jung is certain that the psyche

exists in every human being. However, we might know very little about its structure, even

though it is a very significant part of us. The complexity of the psyche’s nature is because of

its unlimited and indefinite nature and diverse limitless manifestations (Jung, CW1 8

par2.194). It is a reflection of both the world and the person, with immense intensity and

intricacy (Jung, CW 8 par. 283). Since the psyche is not as accessible as the body, it can be a

mystery to us. Jung used the German word Seele for it, which according to the online

Langenscheidt dictionary can be translated as soul or mind in English. The English word

psyche has been used as the equivalent in translated works of Jung. Jung defines the psyche

as the “totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious” (Jung, CW 6 par.

797). Rowland explains that the psyche is an assemblage of known and unknown experiences

1
All the books with the title The collected works of Carl Jung are shortened into CW
2
Since the Collected Works of CG Jung books do not have page numbers, instead, the paragraph number is
written.
 Mikaeili 8

of existing as well as encounters with the world. It is the psychological processes, functions,

and potentials collectively (Rowland, Criticism 4-13).

The complexity of the psyche’s nature is because of its unlimited and indefinite nature

alongside diverse limitless manifestations; therefore the psyche has unlimited creativity and

power (Jung, CW 8 par. 194). Its enigmatic nature comes from different parts that shape it. It

consists of two incongruous halves, the conscious and the unconscious which together form a

whole (Jung, CW 9i3 par. 504). One part of the psyche is shaped based on what we

consciously understand from the environment and our conscious interaction as human beings

with others and our surroundings. This part is called consciousness. Jung defines

consciousness as “the function or activity which maintains the relation contents to the ego”

(Jung, CW 6 par. 700). This means that the ego leads consciousness as a central part of it.

The ego, simply described, is the responsible part of our psyche for normal (conscious) daily

activities, such as thinking and understanding (Schultz and Schultz 87), and is the center of

consciousness associated with personal identity and its conservation (Rowland 13).

nevertheless, the totality of the psyche is not only covered by consciousness. The

unconscious is the other part of the psyche that is in constant interaction with the conscious

part. The unconscious is autonomous from the conscious side, it is the source of feelings and

values that are partly influenced by the individual's life experience and the environment and

is superior to the consciousness in potential (Rowland 13). Normally, in an attempt to restore

the balance between the two parts, the unconscious collaborates with the conscious thoughts

without the individual knowing. This collaboration is intelligent, even when it opposes

consciousness (Jung, CW 9i par. 505). The attention wanders between the conscious and the

unconscious, for example when the conscious’s activity is to read a page, the unconscious

3
The ninth volume is divided into two books, the first one is cited as CW 9i and the second one as CW 9ii.
 Mikaeili 9

might send pictures of a forgotten experience and distract the attention (Schultz and Schultz

89).

Jung’s vision of the ultimate goal in life is to go through a process of individuation.

Jung believed that the human psyche is able to align itself toward its own healing through this

process (Rowland 62). This process happens in our psyche and helps in psychologically

forming and differentiating a person from others (Jung, CW 6 par. 757). This is a process in

which one can develop themselves by fulfilling their capacities to become an individual.

Jungians are of the opinion that everyone goes through Individuation. It is an inevitable

process in life, however, the environment can either help or cripple it. Educational and

economic opportunities for instance can have a say in how someone approaches the

challenges of the individuation process. The parent-child relationship can also affect the

progress in this process. Suppose the child does not have enough mental space to explore

their inner quests, due to abuse or mental pressures of expecting to be a certain way. In that

case, the individuation might take a different level of advance (Schultz and Schultz 94-95).

The level of individuation depicts the conscious and unconscious attitudes of the person. How

someone perceives themselves, their self-esteem, their relationship quality, their relationship

with the world, and their mental energy level, all of these can change in different levels of

individuations (Papadopoulos 198).

In individuation, the unconscious is confronted by the conscious mind. Typically, the

unconscious can potentially take control over the conscious behaviors. That’s because the

unconscious is not directly detectable by the conscious mind and has its own settings.

Sometimes what is derived from the unconscious is very different from what the person is

consciously saying or doing and their actions or behaviors that are driven unconsciously

might even surprise or confuse them (Jung, CW 9i par. 493). Consciously we might think that
 Mikaeili 10

we have a certain characteristic, yet involuntarily display a flood of emotions, reactions, or

outbursts that shows the opposite of that characteristic (Jung, CW 9i par. 497). The conscious

mind simply caves into unconscious influences. Those unconscious thoughts, therefore, are

often more compelling than the conscious ones and can repeatedly nullify them.

Consequently, it is not surprising to see how the individual's life can be largely affected and

dependent on unconscious factors (Jung, CW 9i par. 504). Ideally, these two parts need to

have equal grounds as both are aspects of an individual's life. As much as consciousness

should retain its logic and reason, so should the unconscious’ chaotic life. Somehow this

could be an open conflict between them at once (Jung, CW 9i par. 522). By this conflict, Jung

meant the individuation process, “a process or course of development arising out of the

conflict between the two fundamental psychic facts” which are the conscious and the

unconscious (Jung, CW 9i par. 523). Through healthy psychological interactions and

developments, the pair form a relationship that could lead to individuation. And so the

intention in individuation is for the Jungian pair, the conscious and the unconscious, to break

down and remake themselves again (Rowland 13).

Jung believed that striving for the wholeness of the self in individuation is the

ultimate goal in the psychological aspect of life (Schultz and Schultz 93). Just as the ego is

the center of consciousness, the self is the center of the totality between conscious and

unconscious parts (Jung, CW 12 par. 44). Consequently, the concept of self is defined as a

person's “whole range of psychic phenomena” (Jung, CW 6 par. 789). However, reaching the

wholeness of the self is just an ideal goal. Since a part of personality consists of unconscious

components and cannot be reached entirely by the conscious mind, the concept of the self as

a whole is merely a working hypothesis (Jung, CW 6 par. 789). Therefore, even though Jung

describes the ultimate goal of individuation as “the synthesis of the self” (Jung, CW 9i par.
 Mikaeili 11

278), this is a conceptual goal that not everyone can achieve. What is essential is the process

of individuation and its effect on personal growth (Jung, CW 16 par. 400).

Part of the individuation process excludes the self from the false identification with

persona as well as the domination of primordial images4 (Jung, CW 7 par. 269). Persona

comes from the Latin word that was used for the mask that actors put on their faces to portray

the role of the person that the mask was representing (Hopcke 88). The persona is a social

mask that comes into existence for “adaptation or personal convenience” in different social

situations (Jung, CW 6 par. 801). The persona is not the whole real identity but a mask

“which oneself, as well as others, think one is” (Jung, CW 9i par. 221).This socially adapted

mechanism can be in the form of a devoted spouse, a famous artist, a rebellious activist, or

any social mask that is there to give a sense of self to others (Hopcke 88). Having a persona

for social interactions is a normal way to adapt, however, the problem arises when the

individual cannot separate the true self from the persona. In this case, the person is having

illusions about themselves as if they are playing a role before themselves. Individuation will

not happen if one plays roles to oneself. Tearing off these masks is a very painful process,

however, it is very necessary as a step in the right psychological development. The veils must

come off layer by layer to reach the core of the real self (Jung, Visions 821). Persona is an

adjustment between the individual and the society, therefore to analyze and process

individuation the persona must come off to access the real self underneath (Jung CW 7 par.

245).

Nonetheless, individuation is not to isolate the person, nor is it to become perfect.

Humans are not separate beings. We constantly have collective relationships. Individuation

with the goal of emerging the real self leads to broader collective relationships rather than

4
Primordial images are archetypes, which will be exclusively explained in the next section.
 Mikaeili 12

isolation (Jung, CW 6 par. 758). Therefore, individuation is not the same as individualism.

Individualism avoids collective norms. Individuation keeps its contact with society and leads

to understanding the self with genuine respect for collective norms (Jung, CW 6 par. 761). In

individuation two aspects are happening, an internal process that is subjective and an equally

important process of objective relationships. They both need to exist together, however at

times, one might dominate the other (Jung, CW 16 par. 448). Jung explains that

“individuation does not shut one from the world but gathers the world to itself” because

comprehending our inner world can help us have better relationships in the outside world

(Jung, CW 8 par. 432).

2.3 Archetypes
The unconscious has different parts. One of the major divisions of it is the personal

unconscious and the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is a part of the

unconscious that only comes from that specific individual’s previous experiences. Similar to

a filing cabinet all our experiences and memories are stored in the personal unconscious. In

fact, the personal unconscious used to be a part of the conscious mind formerly but over time

it was either repressed or forgotten because it was disturbing or painful and eventually

crossed over to the unconscious (Schultz and Schultz 89). On the other hand, the other part of

the unconscious is the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is “contents and

modes of behaviour that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals” and is

identical and present in all human beings (Jung, Four Archetypes 2). This part of the

unconscious mind is the human quality that is inherited by all human newborns and does not

suddenly come into being by birth. We see a similarity in the newborns of animals that are

not taught certain actions specific to their species and yet they manage to perform them. A

similar discussion has been going on regarding the heredity of talents, sicknesses, or

characteristics from the previous generations in humans (Jung, Four Archetypes 10-11).
 Mikaeili 13

These universal human experiences have been imprinted on us for generations and influence

how we perceive things. Some examples are the imprinting of the concepts of god, mother,

and evil (Schultz and Schultz 90).

The understanding of the collective unconscious comes in handy for this thesis,

because an important concept is derived from it that has a key role in the novel. Part of the

child’s behavior that is influenced by the collective unconscious is assumed to result from

patterns of images and concepts. Jung called them “primordial”. They are distinctive to the

whole species and assumingly accompany the psyche from the beginning (Jung, Four

Archetypes 11). For years Jung collected and analyzed these unconscious images from his

own dreams and visions as well as his patients. Alongside recognizing these images he had

decades of case studies and research on religion, myth, and alchemy. He came to the

conclusion that three things they had in common were their numinosity, as they mostly had

mythical or religious qualities, unconsciousness as they were not created by conscious, and

autonomy, as they were independent of the personal unconscious (Samuels et al. 26).

These collective images and concepts are called archetypes. They are only determined

by the content when it is filled with conscious experiences. In other words, an archetype is an

empty inherited vessel deep in our unconscious, however, their representations and

manifestations are the results of conscious encounters. These conscious encounters are not

inherited and are personal (Jung, Four Archetypes 12-13 ). For example, the concept of evil

is imprinted in the human collective consciousness. How our psyche sees this evil as an

image can be different for each one of us based on our personal encounters in life. The same

can be said about mother or god.

Archetypes are represented in our dreams and imagination. They can form images of

cultural or mythical figures or beings, fairy tales, religious figures, or symbols. Some of them
 Mikaeili 14

might have magic-like characteristics. Sometimes it could be difficult to separate archetypes

from each other, however, it is possible for them to form one meaningful unit that can be

comprehended intuitively (Fordham 4). There can be as many archetypes as there are

common human experiences (Schultz and Schultz 91). These common experiences that

formed some recognizable archetypes can be around basic life experiences like birth,

marriage, motherhood, or death or they can reveal themselves through different inner figures

such as anima, animus, and shadow, along with others. Further down there will be more

explanations for them.

Theoretically, there could be any number of them with different variations (Samuels et al. 26-

27).

2.3.1 The Mother Archetype

One of the significant archetypes is the mother archetype. This archetype can have both

positive and negative aspects. Jung collected the images and forms that the mother archetype

had in his and his patients' dreams for years and wrote them in his book as follows. The

mother archetype can be in the image of women figures that are present in a person’s life

such as the mother, grandmother, stepmother, a female teacher, or a caretaker. It can also be a

figurative representation of mothers such as the goddess, the Mother of God, the Madonna,

and others. It can also manifest itself in the image of a place, representing itself in the longing

for redemption such as paradise, or a sense of devotion such as the city, church, or the

university. The uterus, the moon, the sea, earth, country, heaven, and some animals such as

hares and cows can also be images of the mother archetype. In her positive form, the mother

archetype demonstrates motherly love, guidance, nurture, warmth, care, support, maternal

solicitude, authority, sympathy, spirituality, wisdom, helpful instincts, cherishing, and

growth. In the negative form, this archetype is manifested in the images of a witch, a demon
 Mikaeili 15

(Lilith), death, serpents, and others combined with negative qualities as a dark, secretive,

hidden, terrifying, poisonous, seductive force (Jung, Four Archetypes 14-15).

2.3.2 Anima and Animus

Two other archetypes of the unconscious are called the anima and animus. Anima is the

unconscious feminine side of a man. Anima as the feminine soul appears in a man’s visions,

fantasies, or dreams embodying all the female characteristics. Anima is not a product of the

conscious mind but a spontaneous creature of the unconscious (Jung, CW 9ii par. 26). Similar

to anima, a woman has a masculine imprint in her unconscious that Jung called animus (Jung,

CW 9ii par. 28). Animus is a collection of all woman’s ancestral experiences of man and can

bring out certain proactive creativity and adventure (Jung, CW 7 par. 336). Animus can offer

religious or philosophical ideas and is a mediator between the conscious and the unconscious

mind (Jung, CW 9ii par. 33). Anima and animus can become guides of the soul and they can

help with creative possibilities and instruments of individuation (Samuel et al. 23).

2.4 Complex and Shadow

A complex is the image of a certain psychic situation with a strong emotional load (Jung, CW

8 par. 201). The origin of its creation is usually a trauma or an emotional shock, which cracks

a bit of the psyche. Thus Jung called complexes splinter psyches. They are in hidden parts of

the unconscious and the conscious mind might not even know about their split (Jung, CW 8

par. 204).

Some complexes arise when a person is facing painful or distressing emotional

experiences which cause a mental wound or an emotionally distressing experience that can
 Mikaeili 16

disturb personal values (Jung, CW 8 par. 594). When a complex is excited by such external

stimulus it gets activated and can cause confusion, emotional reactions, anxiety, depression,

violence, and others (Jung, CW 8 par. 593). They create patterns of emotions and attitudes.

They can control how we see the world, how we act and react in different situations, and how

we think and behave (Schultz and Schultz 90). Because of their control over one’s actions

like independent beings in the unconscious, Jung called them “little people” (Jung, CW 8 par.

209). After all, everyone has complexes but more importantly, complexes can have us. To

sum up, complexes act like independent beings and influence conscious performances and

disturb intentions and will ( Jung, CW 8 par. 200, 253).

Complexes block the psyche’s energy and temporarily dominate the consciousness (

Jung, CW 8 par. 200-253). In Jungian psychology psychic energy is called libido. Jung

specifically distanced his concept of libido from that of Freud, for whom it had a

predominantly sexual meaning. Jung considered all psychological phenomena manifestations

of energy (Jung, CW 4 par. 567). Libido is an appetite or a desire to live. Bodily needs like

hunger, thirst, sleep, sex, and emotional states constitute the libido's essence (Jung, CW 5 par.

194). Basically, the libido is the natural urge to live (Jung, CW 7 par. 488). Therefore, a lack

of libido may cause depression. This psychic energy is held fast in a complex and will not be

released as long as the complex stays in the unconscious. In this case, this energy will not

flow to new contents and will cause unbalance in the psyche (Jacobi 12).

Complexes can be painful, however, pain is not an indication of an illness. They

become pathological only if we are not conscious of them. In these cases, the reaction and

behavior of the person can be dictated by the complex (Jung, CW 16 par. 179). Jung

indicates that as long as they are hidden in the unconscious, they can broaden and not be

corrected and their harmful actions will continue. As long as a complex remains unconscious,
 Mikaeili 17

our consciousness ignores it even if there are symptoms of what it causes. Then its

uncontrollable, autonomous, and compulsive nature dominates our actions and impairs the

unity of the psyche. Therefore, we must make it conscious in a way that actually reduces their

harmful influences. Once we become conscious of a complex, we better understand and

correct it (Jacobi 10-11).

2.4.1 The Mother Complex

A disturbing emotional experience in the relationship with the mother archetype can cause a

mother complex. The mother figure has a main active role in shaping the complex. In cases of

disturbance of the child by the mother, the child’s psyche might produce frightening fantasies

of the mother in the form of a terrifying witch or animal. Jung recognized different types of

mother complexes. The two central division he made is the mother complex in the son and

the mother complex in the daughter. An example of its effect on male children is called Don

Juanism. In this case, he searches for his mother in every woman he meets. As a result of the

differentiation in gender, the mother complex in the son does not appear clearly. Apart from

the mother-child relationship, the mother is supposedly the first female character that appears

in a man’s life, and therefore their relationship can bear other unconscious concepts as well.

On the other hand, the mother complex for the daughter is clear and uncomplicated (Jung,

Four Archetypes 19-20).

Since this thesis analyzes the psychological journey of Nora, the female protagonist,

this part is more focused on a type of mother complex in a daughter that is more aligned with

her. This type of mother complex for the daughter is the resistance to the mother. In this type

of negative mother complex, the daughter greatly resists maternal supremacy. The daughter

usually knows what they do not want but can be lost about what she would choose as her own

fate. The motto is anything as long as it is not like her mother because she does not want to
 Mikaeili 18

turn into her own mother. She uses her feminine instincts to resist her mother rather than

build her own life. She might get married just so that she can flee her mother, however, she

might end up with a man that has similar traits to her mother. Sexuality, unwanted children,

failure of pregnancy, and maternal duties are some processes in her life that can seem

unbearable. The stubborn resistance against the mother might also result in a growth of

intellect in the daughter to create a realm of her interests where the mother cannot interfere.

The real goal is to have superior power over the mother through knowledge and intellectual

criticism (Jung, Four Archetypes 26-27).

2.4.2 Shadow

Shadow is that hidden, repressed for the most part, inferior and guilt-laden personality (Jung,

CW 9ii par. 422). Shadow is a complex. Complexes are splits of the psyche and sometimes

this split happens while confronting a moral conflict that hinders a person from accepting all

of their nature as one (Jung, CW 8 par. 204). In other words, the shadow is a part of our

personality that has never been acknowledged by our ego or is suppressed by it. It can be

desires, thoughts, ideas, qualities, and weaknesses that have been repressed because they

were not in line with the dominant values and morals. One other definition of Jung for

shadow is “the thing a person has no wish to be” (Jung, CW 16 par. 470). The shadow can

also be childish or primitive qualities that are suppressed in the unconscious (Jung, CW 11

par. 134). Apart from morally blamable tendencies, the shadow can also have good qualities

such as instincts, realistic insights, creative impulses, appropriate reactions, and so forth,

which have been suppressed (Jung, CW 9ii par. 423).

The shadow is embodied in deep layers of the unconscious. When the shadow is

brought into the conscious mind and made seen, the individual has the chance to correct

them. If they are less accessible by the conscious mind, then it gets more repressed and
 Mikaeili 19

isolated. We might not even be aware of their existence and will not be able to correct them.

In this case, they might arise suddenly in a moment of unawareness and affect our most well-

meant intentions (Jung, CW 11 par. 131). A considerable effort is required to get conscious of

the shadow. To face the shadow and make it conscious, we need to acknowledge and

recognize the hidden side of the personality as a real and present matter (Jung, CW 9ii par.

14). Certain shadows that stubbornly resist the conscious influence are usually portrayed on

projections on others. And therefore recognizing them as a part of us instead of the other

person is an extraordinary achievement (Jung, CW 9ii par. 16). This confrontation, as time-

consuming and difficult as it can be, is very constructive for growth because it shows a

denied part of us that we never admitted to having (Jung, CW 14 par. 706). Confronting the

shadow, therefore, is beneficial for self-growth. When the consciousness confronts the

shadow, it can be a very hard conflict and can take a long time. When the shadow is buried

into the unconscious, it expresses itself indirectly and the more it is pushed back into the

unconscious, the harder the union of it with the ego is. The outcome of this struggle is a

change in both parties (Jung, CW 14 par. 514).

2.5 Active Imagination

Most people do not realize the importance of the messages our unconscious is trying to

communicate. The conscious mind is exposed to external distractions and can easily get

manipulated into matters that are not suitable for one's individuality. Only through

understanding the unconscious a mental balance can be shaped. The unconscious

communicates with us through dreams and imagination by producing contents of

complimentary or compensatory nature (Jung, CW 18 par. 471). After understanding the

Jungian definitions of different unconscious concepts which come up in the individuation

process, we look at active imagination, a technique Jung developed to interact with the

unconscious. Active imagination is a method that is useful in the process of individuation

 Mikaeili 20

because it helps the conscious to encounter the unconscious. Concepts such as shadow, the

self, anima, animus, and the like are inner appearances of our psyche that can become

conscious through active imagination.

An active imagination is like dreaming consciously, thus to understand this method

we take a look at dreams first. The unconscious as the matrix of dreams has an independent

function in creating them (Jung, CW 8 par. 545). Dreams are independent natural phenomena

of the unconscious. Dreams do not lie, deceive, or disguise. They are trying to express the

messages of the unconscious that the ego does not see and understand (Jung, CW 17 par.

189). Dreams are like theatre in which all the essential factors are actually the dreamer, or as

Jung described “the dreamer is himself the scene, the player, the prompter, the producer, the

author, the public, and the critic” (Jung, CW 8 par. 509). Dreams are not the conscious

tendencies of the mind but a way for the unconscious to communicate through images and

forms.

Jung considers dreams as a way that our unconscious communicates indirectly with

us. Another way of reaching unconscious content is active imagination which is like

dreaming with open eyes. In this method, you can choose a dream or a fantasy, or even a bad

mood, concentrate on it, and let it speak to you. Usually concentrating on that image will give

it a chance to express itself, it will alter or animate (Jung, CW 14 par. 706). For example, if

we keep on seeing an image in our dream and wonder what it means, we can choose that

image. Then in our mind, we stay with it for as long as it takes for the image to become alive.

The image might move, expand, or even speak. This method can also be used for emotions.

When we are full of a certain emotion, we can find an image that incarnates with that emotion

and concentrate on it. The same process repeats, and the image will come alive (Rowland 38).

These changes should be carefully noted as they reflect the background unconscious process
 Mikaeili 21

that appears in the shape of images including conscious memory materials. By doing so

conscious and unconscious are united (Jung, CW 14 par. 706). As acting figures, we need to

recognize our involvement in that fantasy and participate by asking the right questions, just as

if we are one of those fantasy figures and this is a scene of a drama (Jung, CW 14 par. 753).

In this way, the unconscious gets the chance to directly express the root of the psychic

problem. Forms of archetypes, complexes, shadows, anima and animus, and other inner

figures will get a chance to come to the surface of this imagination while we actively become

conscious of them.

3 Analysis
3.1 Nora’s Active Imagination
Active imagination is a technic that Jung developed to access the unconscious contents of the

psyche in the individuation process. Being consciously active during the time the

visualization takes over is a unique quality that is compatible with Nora’s narrative. The

theory that is given in the novel about how Nora is moving between lives is that parallel lives

are happening at the same time. From several hints in the novel we do know that the library

and Mrs. Elm are not physical beings: “It was interesting to know that she could exhale in the

library. That she felt entirely in her body. That it felt normal. Because this place was

definitely not normal” (84)5. Mrs. Elm also confirms this idea that she is in Nora’s

imagination, “you say that I am just a perception. Then why did you perceive me? Why am I

– Mrs Elm – the person you see?” (219).

5
Since most of the quotes in this section are from The Midnight Library, to avoid repetition the author’s name is

not written before the page number unless they are from a different book.
 Mikaeili 22

Nevertheless, there is not a very in-depth and clear explanation of how Nora is

moving between a mental realm in her head to the physical realms of the lives. Therefore, as

a reader, it can be assumed that everything, even the lives, is just happening inside her head.

For analyzing this novel based on Jung’s theory of individuation, from the moment that Nora

is unconscious after her suicide attempt until she gets conscious again and wakes up in her

apartment will be considered active imagination. This means that from the moment that she

finds herself in front of the library, she is a figure in an active imagination scenario built by

her psyche. This is in line with the unlimited creativity of psyche discussed in the Jungian

literary criticism. In an attempt to recover, Nora’s psyche creates the library and the lives she

chooses in her imagination, as a method of saving her life by combating what caused her

suicide in the first place. The library, Mrs. Elm, all the books in the library, the different lives

she experiences, and the characters in them are all part of her imagination and her interactions

with them, dialogue, and thoughts are actively conscious.

Active imagination and individuation aim to bring the unconscious contents hindering

us from growing into consciousness. Thus active imagination is a great tool to help Nora go

through her individuation. It is an excellent method to investigate the root of her depression,

anxiety, and mental barriers. The analysis section is written to examine the theory of

individuation in the novel and considering the library and everything that happens from then

on Nora’s active imagination agrees with it.

In active imagination, we choose one image or a figure of the unconscious and focus

on it. It can be something from a memory, an image that we keep on seeing flashbacks of, or

a figure that had a significant role in our life (Jung, CW 14 par.706). It can be anything. When

we focus on that image for some time, the imagination becomes activated and the image

starts expressing itself. From then on what we see in such fantasy is very much influenced by
 Mikaeili 23

our unconscious contents, yet we can actively dialogue with them. Since Nora's

psychological journey starts from the library she sees after her suicide attempt, then we can

assume the focusing image in her active imagination is the library and from then on the

imagination grows. The library is a projection of her feeling of security while she was

sheltering in the high school library. Everything in that library is about Nora, she can choose

between many different books to live a different life, Mrs. Elm explains how the library

works, “the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could

have lived. To see how things would be different if you had made other choices” (29). The

unconscious contents she faces are her memories, people she knows, her perspective on

different aspects of life, as well as different archetypes such as the mother archetype, the

animus, complexes, and shadow. She actively interacts with them and consciously makes

choices by living each life.

3.2 The Library and Mrs. Elm: The Mother Archetype

In the novel right after Nora commits suicide, she finds herself in a mysterious library with a

librarian called Mrs. Elm. Further, it is discussed why both the library and the librarian can be

the mother archetypes created in Nora’s active imagination as means of guidance and safety

in the individuation process.

It is explained in the theory section that archetypes are patterns of primordial images

in a human’s collective unconscious. Each of these archetypes can appear in different forms

in a person’s fantasy, dream, or active imagination. The form they take can be human form,

animal, or even a place and it is influenced by what that person experiences in life. It can

appear as a mother figure with a significant connection to the individual, for example, a

female teacher who had a remarkable influence on that person. In this case, if that person

sees a mother archetype in their fantasy, dream, or active imagination, it might appear in the
 Mikaeili 24

shape of the same teacher. In this novel, Nora has interactions with two Mrs. Elm characters.

The real Mrs. Elm was the closest female figure to a mother in Nora’s life. When teenage

Nora and Mrs. Elm are playing chess in the school's library while discussing Nora’s future

career options, Nora unconsciously compares her with her mother, “It was hard not to

compare Mrs Elm to her mother, who treated Nora like a mistake in need of correction” (1).

Nora’s mother is introduced as someone that cares more about her daughter’s appearance

than her inner conflict of choosing a future path. Mrs. Elm on the other hand is a kind female

character. She is the person “most on Nora’s wavelength in the entire school, and even on

days when it wasn’t raining she would spend her afternoon break in the small library.”(1) She

is also attentive and helps her discover her potential, discussing her different interests, and

what the future can look like for her with each choice. She is the one encouraging Nora in

exploring her options, “You could be anything you want to be, Nora. Think of all that

possibility” (1). Furthermore, she is the emotional support when Nora hears about her father’s

death. She comforts Nora as a mother comforts her baby, “Mrs Elm had held her, stroking

and smoothing the back of her head like a baby, not offering platitudes or false comforts or

anything other than concern” (27-28). This is another unconscious hint that Nora sees her as

the closest thing to a mother figure. Therefore, based on Jung's theory, when a mother

archetype appears in Nora’s imagination it is very possible for her to see it in the image of

Mrs. Elm.

After her suicide, the librarian she meets is an uncanny copy of Nora’s high school

librarian, Mrs. Elm. Nora understands that this is not the real Mrs. Elm, “Though she looked

identical to the Mrs Elm Nora had always known, her manner was definitely a little more

brusque. It was Mrs Elm but also somehow not Mrs Elm. It was quite confusing” (38). In one

of Nora’s lives, she discovers that the real Mrs Elm is dead, “You’re not Mrs Elm. Mrs Elm

is dead” (262). Also at the end of the novel, when Nora is back to her root life, she finds the
 Mikaeili 25

real Mrs Elm. in a caring home, where she starts spending time with her (287). Irrelevant to

the fact that the real Mrs. Elm in different lives is either dead or alive, Mrs. Elm in the library

always exists and waits for Nora to go back there. She looks exactly how Nora remembered

her from their meetings in the library nineteen years ago, “that version was always the exact

version she had been at school, preserved in Nora’s memory like a mosquito in amber” (205),

which presses the idea that she is only an image of Mrs. Elm. Later in the novel, Hugo,

someone else that is similar to Nora in between life and death, explains that Mrs. Elm in the

library is something her mind is creating. He explains to her that Mrs. Elm is not a spirit or an

angel, she is an “interpretation” of her mind (145) and for Nora, this interpretation of a

guide is a mother archetype appearing in the image of Mrs. Elm. She has a key role in Nora’s

individuation. She is there to comfort, care, and help Nora to heal. She is the caring, kind but

also stern, trustworthy female figure that is going to be by her side, similar to a mother,

through a difficult journey.

However, the mother archetype is only partly in the shape of Mrs. Elm. After Nora

tries to take her life, she is mentally transferred into this place that is in the shape of a big

library: “Between life and death there is a library” (29). Mrs. Elm and the library are not

separate from each other. One does not exist without the other. And they also do not exist

without Nora. Mrs. Elm clarifies this to Nora: “I can’t leave the library…I am part of the

library. But this whole library is part of you…You don’t exist because of the library; this

library exists because of you”(265). As mentioned in theory, a mother archetype can also be a

place. In its positive form, it can be manifested in an image of a place that provides a space to

love, help, nurture and support growth. The library has the same effect on Nora. At the

beginning of the novel, Nora is sitting in the school library with Mrs. Elm. The school library

is introduced as a safe haven for Nora, “Since her brother had left, she’d felt a bit unguarded

out there. The library was a little shelter of civilization” (2). The sense of safety that she felt
 Mikaeili 26

in the school library, is projected on this new place in the shape of a bigger library. This is

still a safe space for her to face all the regrets she had in life. Thus Mrs Elm and the library,

together are the mother archetype, one is guiding her, and the other is a safe place in which

she can go through individuation.

When she is on the last life and goes through all her mental barriers the purpose of the

library is completed. That is when the library is disappearing. But it is not simply doing so.

The library is crumbling, burning in flames and this gives Nora a sense of emergency that she

needs to wake up in her root life before she is buried in the flaming shelves. If we consider

the library a mother archetype this could be its last push as an act of helping Nora. If the

library was just simply disappearing, perhaps Nora would not feel the urgency to get out of

the library, “You came back here this time not because you wanted to die, but because you

want to live. This library isn’t falling down because it wants to kill you. It’s falling down

because it is giving you a chance to return. Something decisive has finally happened. You

have decided you want to be alive. Now go on, live, while you still have the chance.” (266)

So the mother archetype in her psyche creates a sense of danger so that the only way out

would be for her to wake up in real life. And this shock is exactly what she needs to wake up

in her root life and ask for help.

3.3 Nora’s Complex and Shadow

3.3.1 How the Complex and Shadow were shaped.

By living each life, with help from Mrs. Elms' guidance Nora takes one step at a time in the

individuation process. However, interpreting each of these lives through Jungian views and

counting all the steps she takes in unravelling her psychological knots is beyond the scope of

this essay. Therefore, instead of dealing with all the impacts that each life has on Nora, the

most important changes that have tremendous effects on her future life are being investigated.
 Mikaeili 27

Each psychological block that she has and how it is resolved during the individuation is

explored based on Jungian concepts of complexes and shadow. Their order in this essay

follows the narrative of the book.

As was previously mentioned, a complex appears when someone goes through trauma

or emotional distress. Therefore, the first step for analyzing Nora’s complexes is to see where

they are rooted and how they were created in the first place. To understand what happened

and what complexes have been created a review of some points in the novel is necessary.

Furthermore, one of the main incidents that had a considerable emotional load on Nora is

discussed.

Nora was born into an already unhappy marriage. Her parents transmitted their

dissatisfaction to their children, they “let their resentments fester inside, projecting them onto

their children, and Nora in particular” (98). Her parents were drowned in their own misery

and their relationship with her was never of a warm and loving type: “The first problem had

been that Nora had dared, somehow, to arrive into existence at a time when her parents’

marriage was relatively fragile. Her mother fell into depression and her father turned to

tumblers of single malt” (98). Her parent's neglect intensified her wish of having their love

and attention. When Nora was in high school she was training with her dad to become an

Olympic swimmer. She really enjoyed swimming and was very good at it, but turning that

hobby into a profession was what her dad wanted and one way of getting his approval was to

do what he wanted, “She had associated swimming with her father’s approval and enjoyed

the wordlessness of being in the water because it was the opposite of her parents screaming at

each other” (85). She was trying to gain his approval by following his dream, “swimming had

been her only ticket to approval” (98) and had her father’s happiness as long as she was going

along with his dream, “It was one of the few things that had made him happy” (85). Training
 Mikaeili 28

with her father every day was getting very intense and she was under a lot of pressure. When

the pressure got immense she quit, which resulted in a huge argument with her dad. Nora

stopped following her father’s dream causing his colossal disappointment and hard rejection

and their relationship got worse, “From that moment in that car park6, she had felt she was

really just an extension of the pain in his left knee. A walking wound” (87). The time she

spent swimming was the only time she had a semi-bond with her father. She did not really

have much father-daughter time after that. And when she stopped swimming that little bond

broke, “the bond you’d developed with your dad frayed and almost snapped completely”

(86). From then on her father withheld his time and validation from her. This situation

created an emotional conflict. For a teenager seeking parental love and trying to get it through

doing what her father wants, the situation can become quite emotionally distressful when

even that little conditional attention is gone just because she disagreed with doing something

she did not want to. Based on Jung’s complex theory emotional distress can be a source of a

complex (Jung, CW 8 par. 204). This experience, therefore, originated a complex in her. A

complex in her unconscious was shaped with a clear message that if she wants to be loved

and validated, she needs to do what others want from her. Otherwise, she is going to lose

them. She needs this outside validation to feel valuable enough to be loved.

What she wanted was never really valued by her father, but neglected or criticized, he

was “highly critical of everything Nora did, and everything Nora wanted and everything Nora

believed, unless it was related to swimming, Nora had also felt that simply to be in his

presence was to commit some kind of invisible crime” (87). Her parents never really made

room for her to explore what she was interested in. Her dad’s attitude was implying my way

or highway behavior, giving away a message to Nora that following any other path except

6
When she told him she wants to quit swimming
 Mikaeili 29

swimming in her life is just pointless, “ Dad thinks I’ve thrown everything away. Now I’ve

stopped swimming” (2). At this point, a part of her identity that should have been based on

understanding and respecting what she wanted was mostly suppressed, “As if there was a

very thin path to a happy life and it was the path he had decided for her. As if her own agency

in her own life was automatically wrong” (86).

Suppressing what she wants, therefore, becomes a shadow. A shadow is a complex

that happens when a part of the personality is not acknowledged and instead is suppressed

(Jung, CW 16 par. 470). A part of growing the identity in anyone is acknowledging what that

person wants. Based on this theory if they neglect that part or criticize it consistently, it will

eventually hide from the conscious mind. This means suppressing the wishes is eventually

internalized and therefore the individual learns to always neglect what they want. That part of

the personality has not grown and is hidden as a shadow. A shadow is hidden in deep layers

of the unconscious and can affect our behaviors and decisions. As long as this shadow is

overruling, the individual is confused about what they truly want. She unconsciously

invalidated what she wanted in life just as her father did, and blamed herself for every

decision she ever made in her life just like how her father implied to her that her life

decisions were just wrong. Another reaction that this shadow causes in Nora is the guilt and

regret that she deeply feels whenever she refuses to adhere to something that is wanted from

her. Saying no is something that makes her feel extremely guilty and the regret of not

complying with someone else’s wish follows. Simply because when she said no and refused

to do what her father wanted, he made her feel guilty for that. The message that was

internalized in Nora’s psyche from her dad’s reaction to her stopping what he wanted her to

do, was that she is going to regret to say no to what he thinks is the best for her, and from

now on if nothing works in your life, it is because you stopped doing what I wanted you to

do. From then on feeling guilty for saying no, became an extension of the shadow of
 Mikaeili 30

suppressing what she wants, “But maybe he (dad) had known what would happen. Maybe he

could foresee the way one regret would lead to another until suddenly that was all she was. A

whole book of regrets” (87).

In summary, due to her parents’ constant criticism of her and her father’s rejection, a

complex was built in her psyche. Whenever activated, this complex makes her feel like she

needs to gain validation and love from people by following their desires. In addition, her

shadow of supressing what she wants which is hidden in deeper layers of her unconscious,

confuses her in finding her true desire in life. She feels guilty whenever she refuses to do

something she does not want to, which is another unconscious effect of this shadow.

3.3.2 The Behavioral Patterns

The theory of complexes reminds us that complexes are a part of our unconscious that can

have an influential role in our behavior and actions especially when they are triggered by

emotional stimuli. And eventually, these behaviors are repeated and create a pattern in life.

Nora’s complex in the case above has a message for her: if you want the love and validation

of people you care about, do what they want. When this complex is activated it influences her

behavior and actions in a way that she follows other people's wishes compliantly. This pattern

of her behavior is frequent in her different relationships with people she cares about. by step

by living different lives in the library she becomes aware of these patterns, and that is how

she grows in her journey of individuation. First, in her relationship with her brother Joe. He

was encouraged by his parents to learn to play musical instruments. To impress him Nora

taught herself how to play the piano, Mrs. Elm the mother archetype reminds her, “You spent

your pocket money on piano-teaching guides and Mozart for Beginners and The Beatles for

Piano. Because you liked it. But also because you wanted to impress your older brother”

(193). Eventually, Joe and his friend Ravi formed a band called the Labyrinth. Nora joined
 Mikaeili 31

them, played the piano, wrote songs, and sang in the band. Nora was fond of music but being

in the band was not really her dream. She followed her brother's dream, “And The

Labyrinths, well, that had always been her brother’s dream” (193). The activated complex is

evident here, to get her brother's attention, validation, and love she joins the band.

Another similar behavior influenced by this activated complex, is visible in her

relationship with Dan, her ex-fiance. When they were dating, Nora was still in the band. Dan

was not too keen on Nora staying in the band, because he did not like her going on tours. He

was one of the reasons that Nora quit the band, right before they were getting big gigs. Dan’s

dream was to get married, move to the countryside, and open a bar there. Nora decided to go

with his plan, so they got engaged and were ready to follow up on Dan’s dream, “The

married life in the pub had been Dan’s dream” (193). Similar pattern of behavior is in her

relationship with her best friend Izzy. Izzy’s dream was to go to Australia, and she wanted

Nora to go with her. After Nora’s break up with Dan, she decided to follow her best friend to

Australia. In both Dan’s and Izzy’s cases Nora has a relationship with someone she cares

about. This is the emotional stimuli that trigger the complex, and the behavior pattern is that

she agrees to follow what they want of her, to gain their validation.

In all these relationships she follows someone else's dream, however, she never

completely went through with their requests. She quitted the band which causes her brother

and Ravi to not have a good relationship with her. She blamed and punished herself for

breaking up with Dan, for saying no to what she did not want. After that she stayed in

Bedford, even though she knew it was the worst option: “she didn’t deserve to be happy. That

she had hurt Dan and that a life of drizzle and depression in her hometown was her

punishment” (51). After Izzy and Nora prepared to move to Australia, all of a sudden she

decides to not go causing their relationship to fade over time. In all of these cases each time
 Mikaeili 32

she said no and did not go through with what these people wanted of her, she felt immense

guilt and shame for disappointing them. Because of the shadow, she never learned to

understand what she wanted and she was constantly regretting every choice she ever made,

“That was how she had felt most of her life. Caught in the middle. Struggling, flailing, just

trying to survive while not knowing which way to go. Which path to commit to without

regret” (190). This constant feeling of guilt and regret is a big source of her unhappiness,

“The weight of guilt and remorse and sorrow too strong” (37). Holding on to guilt and regret

leads to her depression and anxiety which eventually causes her to attempt suicide.

As mentioned to get free from the hold of complexes and shadows, one must see

them with their conscious mind. When we are aware of the complex or the shadow that

controls us, we become conscious of our actions and behaviors that are affected by them.

When discussing the active imagination in the previous pages, it is pointed out that her

transferring to the library and all the lives she lives there are all happening in her head. This

is a way for her psyche to create a space using the method of active imagination so that she

can get in touch with her unconscious. Basically this is a way for her to become aware of her

complexes and shadows and her behaviors and patterns influenced by them. Nora has the

chance to become aware of them when she goes through her different lives in the library and

reduces their negative effect on her life and frees herself of their holds. If we assume that

Mrs. Elm, the library, and everything happening there are products of her active imagination,

then so is each life she goes through. In each life, she consciously chooses a book from the

library, and when living the life inside that book a part of her unconscious contents, like

complexes, shadows, memories, and experiences appear in that life. That is how she sees

them, and takes a step further in the process of individuation.

 Mikaeili 33

In the library, there is one book, the book of regrets, that has all the regrets of her life

written in it, “This book is the source of all your problems, and the answer to them too” (33).

The regrets that are manufactured by her complex of seeking validation from others and the

shadow of suppressing her own wants are among the first pages:

There were continual, background regrets, which repeated on multiple pages: I regret

not staying in The Labyrinths because I let down my brother…I regret not going to

Australia with Izzy. I regret all those arguments with Dad. I regret feeling so much

guilt. I regret not getting married. I regret not being a better sister. I regret

disappointing my father. I regret not living in the countryside. (35)

To undo the regrets she starts by choosing a life in which she did not say no to marrying

Dan. This was basically Dan’s dream. In her root life first, she started following his dream,

and they got engaged. But when it was getting closer to the marriage date, she broke up the

engagement. Now she has a chance to live a life in which she stayed with Dan. In this life

they are married, living in the countryside, and have opened a bar together. At first, she

thinks that this must be where she is happy, however, things are not the way she expects. The

bar is going great but Dan is an alcoholic, “She wondered if the dream of owning a pub had

really been a dream of drinking an endless supply of alcohol” (48). And he also has cheated

on her several times. This is where she sees her first behavioral pattern of following someone

else’s dream and ignoring hers, after finding out how unhappy this life is she tells Dan: “This

is the life you dreamed of. You wanted me and you wanted this and yet you’ve been

unfaithful and you drink like a fish and…What about my dreams?” (58). They are both

miserable in this life, and she realizes the regret she had for not living this life was pointless,

“This was the life she had beaten herself up for not living. This was the timeline she thought
 Mikaeili 34

she had regretted not existing in” (56). By understanding this the weight of the guilt she felt

for so long is lifted and she is free of this regret.

The next life is the life in which she did not say no to going to Australia with Izzy.

when she opens this book she finds herself in a swimming pool in Australia. She is living in a

small room with a roommate that is not Izzy. She finds out later that Izzy has passed away in

this life. She had a car crash when she was driving to Nora’s birthday party. Disappointed she

is shifted back to the library. Understanding that her going with Izzy to Australia might

actually have a drastic result of losing Izzy, eliminates this regret which Mrs. Elm points out:

“And nor do you regret not going to Australia with Izzy” (85). Mrs. Elm, which is basically a

part of her as the mother archetype explains that choosing a certain path does not guarantee

the desired outcome, “Well, that you can choose choices but not outcomes” (83).

In one life, she chooses to stay in the band with her brother. In that life she is a pop

star and their band, The Labyrinth has become really famous. She has a very luxurious life,

but she cannot find her brother. She later realizes that her brother has passed away because of

overdose. The pain of knowing her brother is dead is so immense that she immediately shifts

back to the library. Undoing this regret, as painful as it might have seemed, makes her feel

less guilty and miserable about not staying in the band for the sake of her brother. Living this

life as a step further in the individuation process gives her a new perspective on life, “It

seems impossible to live without hurting people” (185).

At some point, she decides to go back to the origin of this complex and the shadow. It

all begin when she said no to her dad, quitting training for Olympic swimming. So she

chooses a life in which, she continued training. She is now a successful Olympic medalist and

a TED talk motivator. Her brother is alive, he is her manager and works with her. She also

realizes that in this successful life which seems perfect, she is still not happy and in the past,
 Mikaeili 35

she had tried to end her life. In her root life, a while after she stopped swimming, her father

had a heart attack and passed away. But in the life where she is a swimmer, her father is alive.

He has been around athletes and so he starts to care about his own health. However, the

downside of this life, is that Nora’s mom passed away way sooner than she did in the root

life. Her father had an affair with a swimmer’s mother which caused Nora’s mom to become

more depressed and drown her sorrows in alcohol. She becomes very sick and passes away,

“She thought of those years her dad had gained and her mother had lost, and as she thought

she became angrier and angrier at her father” (98). This storyline is important to mention

because this is how Nora understands that making one happy might cause someone else’s

misery and so she cannot always satisfy everyone. She understands even when she did what

her father wanted, to make him happy, he still does not care about her happiness:

Here, in this life she was in now, she had pursued a career to keep him happy, while

sacrificing her own relationships, her own love of music, her own dreams beyond

anything that didn’t involve a medal, her own life. And her father had paid this back

by having an affair with this Nadia person and leaving her mother and he still got

terse with her. After all that. (98)

The same goes for her brother. In her root life, after she quit the band, their relationship

became worse. One reason for her quitting the band was Dan, but another reason was her own

panic attacks and social anxiety. Something that Joe, her brother never really understood, and

blamed her for it. In this life, he is on good terms with her, but only because she is doing

what he wants. When she has to go do a TED talk, the same anxiety and panic attacks come

back. She tells her brother, but he brushes it off again as if it is nothing, implying that her

mental health is not important, we can see that in a conversation between Nora and her

brother: “I don’t think I can do this…I think I’m having a panic attack…You’ll be
 Mikaeili 36

fine…You’re overthinking it. I have anxiety…Come on. Don’t let us down. Don’t let us

down” (109). She realizes that even though she is doing something for him, to gain his

happiness and love, he is still not really different from how he was in the root life, “I got on

with my brother because I had never let him down, but he was still the same brother, really,

and he was only really okay with me in that life because I was helping him make money”

(114).

Living this life, she finally sees the root of why she always looks for outside

validation and why she always followed people’s dreams to gain love and assurance. She

understands now it was because of that emotional turmoil that her parents' criticism from the

very beginning caused in her and especially her father’s rejection when she quit swimming.

She now understands that it was the conditional love that was given to her that made her

always craving for more outside validation and love, “she realised it wasn’t her fault that her

parents had never been able to love her the way parents were meant to: without condition”

(98). In the library when she is back from a life, Mrs. Elm reminds her of this behavior: “You

might need to stop worrying about other people’s approval, Nora” (193).

To sum up, Nora’s complex causes her to seek validation and love from the people in

her life, by following their dreams. In her relationships with her father, her brother, her ex-

fiancé, and her best friend, she tries to follow their dreams. However, in her root life at some

point, she abandons following their dreams which makes her feel incredibly guilty. The guilt

and the remorse are an effect of her shadow of repressing her own desires. In the library, she

chooses different lives based on those regrets: a life in which she follows her dad’s dream of

becoming an Olympic swimmer, a life of staying in the band with her brother, a life in which

she marries her ex-fiancé and together they open a bar, and a life in which she follows her

best friend’s dream of moving to Australia. By living each of these lives, she takes one step
 Mikaeili 37

further in her individuation process, and by doing so she becomes aware of her rituals of the

repeated behaviors. She now realizes that she has a problem understanding her own desires

and always follows what everyone else wants from her. She also understands that the idea of

contributing to everyone’s satisfaction contemporaneously by following their wishes is

absurd. That is a great improvement in bringing these unconscious complexes and shadow

into her consciousness.

3.3.3 New Perspective

Understanding the complex and shadow helps seeing where specific behaviors and actions

affected by them originated from. This is the mean of bringing them into conscious mind and

awareness which is a big stride in the individuation. This way the behavioral patterns and the

perspective created by such behaviors can change. By living those lives she clearly sees a

pattern, she is following what others want:

Every life she had tried so far since entering the library had really been someone

else’s dream. The married life in the pub had been Dan’s dream. The trip to Australia

had been Izzy’s dream, and her regret about not going had been a guilt for her best

friend more than a sorrow for herself. The dream of her becoming a swimming

champion belonged to her father.…And The Labyrinths, well, that had always been

her brother’s dream. (193)

In individuation after becoming aware of the old patterns, there is a chance to replace

them with new belief systems and views that improve life qualities in the future. When Nora

is back to the library after a life she chose based on one of the regrets in the previous pages,

Mrs. Elm tells her “Sometimes regrets aren’t based on fact at all. Sometimes regrets are

just…A load of bullshit…sometimes the only way to learn is to live” (67). She also realizes
 Mikaeili 38

that it is impossible to make everyone happy at all times, whatever she chooses in life there

would be benefits as well as consequences. The source of much of her sorrow and depression

was these regrets. Now she frees herself from the power of the complex and the shadow. At

the end of the book, Nora is having a completely new perspective on life: “It is the regret

itself. It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s

worst enemy” (278). Her perspective on herself has also changed. For so long influenced by

the complex of following what others want to seek validation, she never truly validated

herself. She always felt remorse for whatever it was that was her decision, always feeling like

she is missing on many things and always blamed herself for that. Now she finally gets a

chance to truly and unconditionally validate herself, she imagined “what it would be like to

accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every

dream she hadn’t reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed”

(143). When she wakes up in her apartment and gets a chance to be back to her root life, her

perspective changes because the domination of the complex and the shadow are no longer

lingering over her conscious mind. For so long she thought that playing a role for others

would be the source of her happiness. In different lives, she played different personas, a

successful daughter, a pop star, an Olympic swimmer, a wife, a TED talk speaker, and so on.

She now realizes she does not need to fulfill these social roles to feel validated:

She no longer felt she was there simply to serve the dreams of other people. She no

longer felt like she had to find sole fulfilment as some imaginary perfect daughter or

sister or partner or wife or mother or employee or anything other than a human

being, orbiting her own purpose, and answerable to herself. (284)

Becoming conscious of her behavioral patterns influenced by her complex and shadow,

helps her gain new views on life. Understanding how these regrets were the source of her
 Mikaeili 39

depression, her self-acceptance with all her flaws, and releasing herself from the burden of

fulfilling certain social roles give her a new life perspective.

3.4 Hugo the animus

Based on the previous discussion in the theory section, animus is the masculine side of a

woman's psyche that appears in the shape of a man archetype. Animus exposes the side of a

woman with an adventurous spirit. The masculine side of the psyche in a woman can also

highlight creativity. He can also offer clarity and guidance on different philosophical or

religious ideas (Jung, CW 9ii par. 33); therefore animus can be a great tool for individuation,

pushing the unconscious to be more exposed to the conscious mind. In the novel, Nora’s

animus appears in a shape of a man called Hugo. Nora does not meet Hugo, right away from

the very first life. In her active imagination the moment she needs a little push from a more

adventurous and creative perspective, the masculine spirit with an adventures, carefree and

knowledgeable attitude is manifested in the form of a man, “with short hair and stubble two

days away from a full beard” (121). Hugo inspires her to become more courageous and

creative in choosing lives. That means that in the individuation process from then on she can

explore other sides of her personality to peel the unconscious layers and reach the self.

In one life, she chooses to be a glaciologist. Becoming a glaciologist was originally

one of the human Mrs. Elm’s advice when they were discussing Nora's options for her future

in the school library. So in this life she is a scientist that is working with a group of other

scientists on a boat, in Svalbard. Up to this point she has only chosen lives circumscribed by

her roots life’s regrets, which has caused a lot of remorse and pain. It is time for her to shake

up her choices a bit more and to be guided toward more possibilities. Hugo is there to give

her an insight into Nora’s situation, “Listen, Hugo mumbled, conspiratorially, if you want to

know more, meet me in the communal kitchen in five minutes” (121). According to Jungian
 Mikaeili 40

animus, part of what he does is to give ideas and knowledge on different categories. Hugo

wants to shed some light on what is happening. Similar to Nora Hugo is also stuck between

lives, “I have been in the in-between state for a long time…We are sliders” (145). He is also

there to tell Nora that she is in reality in an unconscious state in her apartment, “We have a

root life in which we are lying somewhere, unconscious, suspended between life and death,

and then we arrive in a place….the “grey zone” between life and death” (145-147). When

Nora asks him if Mrs. Elm and the library are real, he answers no, they are just interpretations

of their minds (145).

In addition to delivering perception and information, Hugo is also helping Nora to

understand that she can be more risky and enterprising in choosing lives. Contrary to Nora’s

cautious nature, he is adventurous and has experienced “Too many. Nearing three hundred”

lives (150). He points out that there are always different options to explore, “You see, I have

been in the in-between state for a long time…And there is always an infinite range of

choices” (145). The adventurous nature of the animus is evident in Hugo, “I have been so

many things. On every continent on Earth…I am resigned to being this way forever…I get

too curious. I get too much of a yearning to live another way” (150).

He reminds her that she can have bottomless amounts of lives based on unlimited

choices, “You do realise there are infinite possibilities here? I mean, the multiverse isn’t

about just some universes…It’s about an infinite number of universes…You could be you in

any version of the world” (151). He also urges her to be more creative in this process, “You

are only limited by your imagination. You can be very creative with the regrets you want to

undo” (151). Encountering the animus awakens a more reckless and adventurous spirit in her.

She realizes that she can have limitless possibilities to explore more lives and choose with

more creativity. She uses this side of her spirit for choosing her future lives, “she felt inside
 Mikaeili 41

her a craving for other things, other lives, other possibilities. She felt like she was still in the

air, not ready to land. Maybe she was more like Hugo Lefèvre than she had realised” (210).

From then on she becomes bolder in choosing lives, she lives a life of “a rock star, an

Olympian, a music teacher, a primary school teacher, a professor, a CEO, a PA, a chef, a

glaciologist, a climatologist, an acrobat, a tree-planter, an audit manager, a hair-dresser, a

professional dog walker” ,and many more (214). And so her quest of finding who she is and

what she wants in the process of individuation keeps on going, “she felt inside her a craving

for other things, other lives, other possibilities. She felt like she was still in the air, not ready

to land.” (210)

If the whole process of her going through lives is considered steps of individuation,

then Hugo as the animus is a mediator for Nora to go through more lives, use her limitless

imagination and be more reckless in what she desires, which means that he inspires her to

move forward in the process. This is in line with the Jungian theory of animus which is one

of the instruments that helps with individuation.

3.5 Nora’s Mother Complex

She keeps on exploring all the possibilities that she could imagine until she feels like she no

longer wants to be in the air. Now she knows what she does not want, so it is time for her to

find the one life she chooses as a permanent one. With too many possibilities she feels lost.

Mrs. Elm reminds her of her root life, to search for an act of kindness there, “Kindness is a

strong force…You might be looking in the wrong places” (219). She chooses a life in which

she goes out with Ash, a guy who showed her kindness on the day before her suicide. This

life is the last life she chooses, in which she needs to face one of the biggest challenges, the

mother complex.
 Mikaeili 42

Similar to other complexes, the mother complex originated from an unsettling

emotional experience between the child and the mother. Nora’s mother was emotionally

distant from her. She was mostly critical of Nora:

It was hard not to compare Mrs Elm to her mother, who treated Nora like a mistake

in need of correction. For instance, when she was a baby her mother had been so

worried Nora’s left ear stuck out more than her right that she’d used sticky tape to

address the situation, then disguised it beneath a woollen bonnet. (1)

The mother archetype that was supposed to be the mother figure in Nora’s life, was never her

mother. Instead in her mind, this role is replaced by Mrs. Elm, who is warm and kind. After

her father passed away, it was only Mrs. Elm who comforted her like a mother. On the other

hand, her mother was emotionally unavailable, “It was over an hour before Nora’s mother

came to pick her up…Nora had sat in the front next to her mute, trembling mother, saying

that she loved her, but hearing nothing back” (27). Thus In Nora’s life, the mother-daughter

relationship is a disturbing one, and it caused a mother complex.

Nora’s mother grew up in a house with her parents' continued arguments, which

probably caused her own complexes that resulted in a specific mindset about marriage, she

“grew up with her parents arguing almost continually and had consequently believed

marriage was something that was not only inevitable but also inevitably miserable” (136).

She eventually experienced the same outcome after marrying Nora’s father, “her parents’

marriage was relatively fragile. Her mother fell into depression” (98). The daughter resists

anything that might turn her into her mother. She does not like to follow in her mother’s

footsteps, this way she is resisting her mother. This can be seen in Nora, even though

consciously she wanted to be married as she was about to be married to Dan in her root life,

unconsciously she did not really want it, “She got engaged. But suddenly she had realised she
 Mikaeili 43

didn’t want to marry him. Deep down, she was scared of becoming her mother. She didn’t

want to replicate her parents’ marriage” (36). The mother complex influences the behaviors

and perspectives of the daughter. This type of mother complex also creates challenges for the

daughter with becoming a mother herself. Nora has always had a fear of becoming a mother,

“She’d been petrified of motherhood. The fear of a deeper depression. She couldn’t look after

herself, let alone anyone else” (16). The picture that Nora had of her mother was of an

unhappy wife and a distant mother, and the way for Nora to resist becoming her was to avoid

marriage and motherhood.

The fear of marriage and motherhood is therefore challenged in the last part of

Nora’s journey of individuation. To this point, she has been through many different lives. She

has already faced her most influential complex and shadow so now she is not suppressing her

wishes to get validation and love from others. The way she was looking at life has changed,

and she no longer wishes to die. But there is still one complex that has been affecting her life

and that is the mother complex. In her root life she was sad that she was not able to have a

family of her own, “Every move had been a mistake …every day a retreat from who she’d

imagined she’d be…Spouse…Happy. Loved. Nothing” (21). But at the same time, the mother

complex affected her in a way that she was afraid of marriage and building a family. This last

challenge is explored in the last life she chooses from the library. It should not be forgotten

that each life is assumed to be made by her active imagination as a place for her unconscious

contents to become alive so she can face them. By this assumption, the last life is also made

by her psyche to give her what she needs to face the effects of the mother complex. And

apparently what she needs is to be thrown in the middle of a happy life with a loving husband

and a cute little daughter.

 Mikaeili 44

To understand how her perspective on marriage and motherhood changed, we take a

look at her last life before she is back to her root life. In this life, she is married to Ash. In her

root life, Ash is a surgeon whom Nora met on several visits to the hospital when her mother

was going through cancer. Ash was a nice guy that was easy to communicate with. He asked

Nora out for a coffee but she refused since she was with Dan at that point. The night before

Nora tried to kill herself, Ash found her dead cat beside the road and informed her about it.

Even though he did not know Nora that well, he showed sympathy and kindness to her and

stayed by her side while she was mourning the loss of her only companion, “sobbing

drunkenly with grief wasn’t the most archetypally romantic thing in the world. But it

certainly qualified as kind” (220). She decides to choose a life in which she has said yes to

Ash’s coffee date years ago, and so years later they are married and have a four-year-old

daughter. In the life with Dan, Nora experienced a glimpse of married life, but they were not

happy. In the last stage of her active imagination to defuse Nora’s fear of a bad marriage, her

psyche chooses a kind and caring person as her husband to show her that life as a married

woman was not as disappointing as her mother’s life was, “she felt very grateful to be with

Ash. Or rather, and more precisely: she imagined she was grateful, because he was lovely,

and there were so many moments of joy and laughter and love” (239). Fear of a miserable

marriage is replaced by a beautiful image of a loving one.

She is now as well faced with what truly has terrified her for years, being a mother,

“how could she just join in to a life that she was years late for?…The other lives in which

she’d had children had only lasted a couple of minutes...This one was already leading into

unknown territory” (222). In her first encounter with her daughter Molly, she is confronted by

mixed emotions about her supposed child, “it was then that Nora looked at her…Nora felt a

swell of something…powerful and worrying. The girl was staring at her in a way no one had

stared at her before. It was scary, the emotion” (224). She feels a love that she has never
 Mikaeili 45

experienced before, “She was beautiful and she was hers …and she felt a swell of irrational

love, a surge of it” (224). She stayed in this life more than any other lives, and her love for

Molly grew even more, “Nora felt something inside her all at once. A kind of fear…A fear of

what she was feeling. Love” (248). Her psyche created a child that was sweet and lovable,

and so it made it easier for Nora to be a parent, “Yes, being a parent was exhausting, but

Molly was easy to love” (240). And when she is about to leave this life, she confesses to

molly and more importantly to herself that she loves her, “I love you, Molly, I want you to

know that. For ever and ever” (260). Her fear of motherhood is replaced with motherly love

and affection.

This life shows her something she never had before, or thought that is capable of

having, a functional loving family of her own, “Nora’s smile was still there but she felt tears

behind her eyes. This seemed a good life. A family of her own… A good life with a good

daughter and a good man in a good house” (225-233-234). The more she stayed in this life

with Ash and Molly the more she feels the love that was missing from her original life. “And

when she thought of her root life, the fundamental problem with it, the thing that had left her

vulnerable, really, was the absence of love” (248). Through living this life, she is hastily

thrown into a situation she was unconsciously scared of, which was being married and having

a child. She is anxious at first but the longer she is staying the more she loves it. She

understands that contrary to what her mother believed a married life is not necessarily a

disappointing one. She also is a mother in this life, and the love she feels for her daughter is

something she never experienced before. And more importantly, becoming a mother did not

turn her into her own mother, something that she was scared of. How she thinks about

motherhood and marriage has changed and the mental barrier made by the mother complex is

removed.
 Mikaeili 46

3.6 Nora’s individuation

Individuation is a process in which one can see through her unconscious barriers and bring

them into consciousness, and by doing so finds the true self (Jung, CW 9i par. 278). The

process of living different lives through the books which are happening through her psyche in

an attempt to heal is how she actively interacts with her unconscious in her individuation.

Every person she sees and interacts with is a product of her unconscious and how she reacts

to them is her conscious interference, which is basically how active imagination works. Mrs.

Elm as the mother archetype is there to guide her through each step. Thus each life she lives

and each guidance she gets from Mrs. Elm as the mother archetype is a step towards

individuation and finding her true self.

In her root life, Nora was struggling with mental barriers that affected her life just as

Mrs. Elm tells her: “It seems that you have spent all your life saying things that you aren’t

really thinking. This is one of your barriers….You have a lot of them. They stop you from

seeing the truth” (155). She had certain views on life that were causing her depression and

anxiety. At the end of her journey, her perspective has changed completely, and so she is free

from her old behavior towards life: “It is quite a revelation to discover… That the prison

wasn’t the place, but the perspective” (284). By delving into the unconscious, many of her

previous structures are broken, and new structures and values replaced them. To mention

every detail of the process is way beyond the scope of this essay. Apart from the

individuation process that was mentioned and tracked in the previous analyses, some other

positive changes coming from her individuation will be discussed in the following pages.

Jung was of the idea that our psyche can orient itself towards healing by going

through individuation (Rowland 62). Nora’s individuation starts at a point when she tried to

end her life. She did not die, and so at this critical point of her life, her psyche starts the
 Mikaeili 47

process of individuation as a means to save her. But Nora has given up on life and wants to

die, and she will not wake up unless her desire to live is rising again. Jung calls the psychic

energy, libido and perceives it as the urge to live. Previously it was mentioned that mental

barriers such as complexes, block the libido from flowing into other psychic activities. To

release this energy, the complex must be brought to consciousness. Lack of libido causes

depression and eventually losing the will to live. When the complexes and the shadow are

brought to her awareness, she frees herself of their hold. This raises her libido causing her to

gain her will to live. Her desire to live comes back to her by going through many lives, it

does not happen immediately. At first, when going through lives with painful outcomes, she

claims that she still wants to die. Eventually, her will to live comes back, “then something

happened inside her. A strange feeling. A pull in her stomach. A physical shift. A change in

her. The idea of death suddenly troubled her” (115). At the end of the process, when the

library is crumbling down, she is most certain that she wants to live and writes in the last

book: “I AM ALIVE. And with that, the ground shook like fury and every last remnant of the

Midnight Library dissolved into dust” (271). That is when she wakes up in her root life.

The ideal goal of the individuation is for the self to emerge, however, it is impossible

for that to happen since part of the unconscious is not reachable. Yet a desirable outcome will

always come out, by resolving mental knots and peeling all the personas as much as possible

to reveal the true self, the identity, and the uniqueness. Nora used to think that she is useless

because she never truly was successful in any social role. On social media she saw the

glorified images of others who looked happy, “She went on Instagram and saw everyone had

worked out how to live, except her” (21), but she is not able to identify with any of the

personas that the society is expecting, a successful career centered woman, a popular friend, a

wife, a mother, and on and on and therefore she thought that she does not possess the defined

happiness. In the individuation process, she becomes each one of the social roles she could
 Mikaeili 48

imagine, and yet she is not happy enough to stay in that life. She understands now that to be

happy, she does not need to be a certain someone, “She no longer felt like she had to find sole

fulfilment as some imaginary perfect daughter or sister or partner or wife or mother or

employee or anything other than a human being, orbiting her own purpose, and answerable to

herself” (286). She accepted her true self the way she is and her perspective on happiness has

changed:

We only need to be one person. We only need to feel one existence. We don’t have

to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite. While we

are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility. (277)

Another positive outcome of individuation is the improvement of social life. Jung

emphasized that individuation does not isolate a person from society, on the contrary, it has a

positive effect on social relations. After going through her individuation, when she is back to

her root life, her social interactions with others improved greatly. Her brother is by her side

now and their relationship blossoms. This time Nora is not crushed by the guilt-driven

thoughts and her brother does not have specific expectations of her. Her best friend, Izzy also

starts texting back. Nora used to feel guilty about not going with Izzy to Australia, but now

that the regret is gone, their relationship becomes less complicated. Nora also finds the real

Mrs. Elm and spends time with her. Before her individuation, she was shying away from

social interaction since she constantly had a feeling of guilt, regret, and not being good

enough. After her acceptance of herself, interaction with others becomes much easier for her.

The individuation frees her from regrets, guilt, and constant self-blaming, “But it is

not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the regret

that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy”

(277). She now accepts herself the way she is and is not looking for love and validation by
 Mikaeili 49

following other people’s dreams. She understands that she does not have to be what others

expect of her, and she can find her own dream, as long as there is life, there is hope and

possibility:

Yesterday I knew I had no future, and that it was impossible for me to accept my life

as it is now. And yet today, that same messy life seems full of hope. Potential. The

impossible, I suppose, happens via living. Will my life be miraculously free from

pain, despair, grief, heartbreak, hardship, loneliness, depression? No. But do I want

to live? Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes. (278)

To sum up, Nora goes through her process of individuation by bringing her

unconscious barriers to her awareness, which becomes possible by living different lives in the

library. Since each life is a product of her active imagination, the events and characters are

very much influenced by her unconscious while she consciously interacts with them. That is

when she is able to see the truth about her old behaviors and gain a new perspective on her

life. Many of these mental barriers were the reason for her depression and anxiety, and the

individuation and so the active imagination is the means for her psyche to recover. These

mental barriers such as complexes and shadows, drain the libido, which in Jungian terms is

the mental energy and the urge to live. By bringing these barriers into awareness, Nora gets

the chance to reduce their influences on her, freeing herself from their power and gaining

back her libido and desire to live. The idealized goal of the individuation is to peel the

unconscious layers and reach the real self. By doing so she understands that to be accepted

she does not need to completely identify with social personas. Besides her individual

developments, individuation enhances her social life. Releasing from the weight of remorse

and despair and freeing from seeking outside validation, helps her accept her whole identity

without any expectation of herself or others.

 Mikaeili 50

Conclusion
Applying Jung’s individuation theory to this novel is practicable, since Nora, the protagonist

is going through a psychological inner quest to find her true self. While observing Nora’s

individuation process, I assumed that everything happening while she is unconscious is her

active imagination. That way it is possible for her to actively explore her unconscious mind

and becomes aware of her inner struggles. Mrs. Elm and the library together are the mother

archetype. Mrs. Elm is always guiding and supporting her through the process, and the library

provides a safe place for her to come back to whenever she felt disappointed in a life. Nora

tries different lives by undoing some of her regrets. However, she needs encouragement to

explore more possibilities. The animus, the masculine creative, and adventurous spirit,

appears as a man named Hugo to give her the push she needs in the direction of creativity and

bravery in the lives she chooses. From then on, she explores many more lives and faces her

inner challenges.

By going through different lives, she is faced with her complexes. Through the

process of individuation, she becomes aware of her patterns and attitudes that have been

affecting her root life, causing her depression. For a long time, she was seeking love and

validation from others by trying to satisfy them. This was one of her significant complexes.

She also was not able to acknowledge what she wanted and repressed herself in following her

dreams, which was a result of her shadow. The mother complex was the source of her fear of

marriage and motherhood. By becoming aware of these mental barriers, she is able to change

her behaviors and reduce their negative influences. When her individuation is completed, the

library and Mrs. Elm disappear and she wakes up in her root life. At this point, she has

accepted herself the way she is as her true self, and her relationships are improving. The
 Mikaeili 51

crushing pain of regrets has gone, and she understands that happiness is not in becoming what

others expect of her. She is simply happy to be alive with a heart full of hope for her future.

In closing, Jung’s individuation theory in combination with other Jungian concepts of

complexes, shadows, and archetypes, can provide a more in-depth analysis of the

psychological aspects of The Midnight Library. The essay might be of interest to readers who

are going through similar struggles as Nora as well as anyone who is interested in Jungian

theories, and the psychoanalysis approach will hopefully open more discussions on raising

awareness and improving mental health.

 Mikaeili 52

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