Wednesday, May 9, 2012

2001 analysis - part 45: More on Melusina


Melusine by Ludwig Michael von Schwanthaler (1845). [Image from the Wikipedia 'Melusine' page, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.]











As described earlier in the analysis, the alien who eventually 'combines' with Bowman represents Melusina (also known as Melusine), the feminine aspect of Mercurius. From Jung's Alchemical Studies:

"[Melusina] was descended from the whale in whose belly the prophet Jonah beheld great mysteries. This derivation is very important: the birthplace of Melusina is the womb of the mysteries, obviously what we today would call the unconscious...Melusina can be interpreted as a spirit, or at any rate as some kind of psychic phenomenon...Melusina is clearly an anima figure. She appears as a variant of the mercurial serpent, which was sometimes represented in the form of a snake-woman by way of expressing the monstrous, double nature of Mercurius. The redemption of this monstrosity was depicted as the assumption and coronation of the Virgin Mary...

"The anima belongs to those borderline phenomena which chiefly occur in special psychic situations. They are characterized by the more or less sudden collapse of a form or style of life which till then seemed the indispensable foundation of the individual's whole career...One is confronted with a hopeless and impenetrable darkness, an abysmal void that is now suddenly filled with an alluring vision, the palpably real presence of a strange yet helpful being."[a]


a. Jung, C.G. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 13. Princeton University Press, 1967. pp. 143, 144, 177.


      






Disclaimers
1) In certain instances it has been determined that the creators of some of the productions analyzed on this blog, and/or the creators of source material(s) used in the making of these productions, may be making negative statements about certain segments of society in their productions. These statements should be taken as expressing the opinions of no one other than the creators.

2) This blog is not associated with Stanley Kubrick or the Kubrick estate, nor is it associated with any of the studios, authors, publishers, actors, writers, editors, crew, staff, agents, other filmmakers, or any other persons or entities involved at any stage in the making of any of the films or source materials that are analyzed, mentioned, or referenced herein.

3) In keeping with the policies of the filmmakers, authors, studios, writers, and publishers, that have created the productions (and their source materials) that are analyzed, mentioned, or referenced on this blog, any similarity of the characters in these films or source materials to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All images on this blog are used solely for non-commercial purposes of analysis, review, and critique.

All Wikipedia content on this blog, and any edits made to it, are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.