The Bending of the Anima
As many have undoubtedly noticed, an odd feature of the latter two plots, A Tower of Bones (hence abbreviated aToB) and The Last Temptation (hence abbreviated TLT), is the strange flashbacks involving Elan's parents, predominantly his mother. First appearing in aToB 32, these flashbacks may seem puzzling, especially given the diffuse nature of the prose as they only occur when Elan's mind is fragmented. It would seem odd that these flashbacks almost always occur before a sexual scene between Elan and Shelley (e.g. aToB 32 and aToB 78, both taken up later in the essay.) However, with proper consideration and the correct tools, a deep understanding can be reached regarding Elan and Shelley's relationship, though by no means the only view of their relationship.
The first parent to consider is Lord Morin, Elan's father. Though we may derive all that we need to know concerning him from the two quotes, other information on Lord Morin is useful. When I formed the character, Lord Morin was envisioned as an ancient Aes Sedai, an elder statesman, who had taken several non-Aes Sedai wives prior to Elan's mother, and perhaps had many children, but who were older. Elan is thus an only child. Lord Morin is quoted as being calm and collected even after the death of his wife ( aToB 69). Elan would also have developed some of his ideas towards what constituted proper behavior towards women from his father. The other and more important quote is:
"Only human, really. Father once told him that he had to be careful for they were not as strong. Love them for who they were, but realize that they were like flowers, beautiful, fragile, and transient." ( aToB 48)
This attitude explains why Elan is unperturbed by Shelley's mortality and is indulging of her foibles to the point of being patronizing.
The far more interesting parent, however, is Elan's mother, Lilen Morin (her name may not have been given in millicanon yet). Unfortunately, information on Lilen Morin is not easy to acquire as Elan usually has to be mentally unbalanced for the flashbacks to occur. We know that Elan's mother dies when he was young, and very suddenly ( aToB 32). We also know that his mother was a cheerful, and even playfully mischievous woman as is seen in aToB 78.
To proceed further, however, we must acquire a concept from Jungian psychology, the anima. Jung derives the concept from studying that “other side” of our character, the side of ourselves that we show when we are upset, riled, or otherwise off our guard. Jung posits that over a long time that one can form a picture of one of these unconscious aspects, and for our purposes, we are interested in “the anima, the woman in a man, and the animus, the man in a woman” (Jung Integration 19). Unlike the shadow, another concept from Jungian psychology, the anima is not a negative aspect nor a complete inverse of the personality as only certain aspects are inverted. Thus we may see that Elan who is most often intellectually minded, somber, reflective, and calculating can become cheerful, light-hearted and playfully mischievous as seen in Mirrors 33, La Vita Nuova 1, TLT 15, and many other occasions. As may be obvious, if we consider the personality traits of intellectually minded, cheerful, spontaneous, and occasionally mischievous, we see not only the traits of Lilen Morin, but those of Shelley Winters.
Now, we may rightly wonder the exact relationship between the personalities of Lilen Morin, Shelley Winters, and Elan's anima. Jung warns that “for the child, the anima lurks in the supremacy of the mother, which sometimes leaves a sentimental attachment through the whole of life and seriously impairs the masculine development” (Jung Integration 79). This exactly what happened in Elan's case. We know that Elan, who was very close to his mother, had not managed to step away from her and bring his attentions to girls his own age, though this is unsurprising given the difficulty his immense intellect would have caused in making friends at that age ( aToB 69). Her death during those formative years of his sexuality crystallized in his mind her as the embodiment of his anima, thus flashbacks of his mother are common when his ardor is aroused.
The anima serves an important purpose in the initial attraction stages of a relationship. The anima is the standard that a male judges women by. Every woman is compared against the standard and the closer that they are, the more desirable. We can then see that Elan's attraction to Shelley should come as no surprise as she is very similar to his mother and anima. Note how often Elan often mixes the smell of his mother's hair, apples, with the smell of Shelley's, pomegranates ( TLT 18).
In and of itself, this is not all that problematic but the nature of Elan's relationship with his mother causes problems with boundaries. The first is in the area of physical affection. We know that Elan and his mother were more affectionate with each other than most, though it was by no means incestuous. This was a factor in Elan's often inappropriate use of physical affection. Along similar lines, Elan uses the Affective Intimate title improperly as a result of his mother. For a thorough treatment of the Second Age title system, please see this article. We see that Elan's mother use the Affective Intimate with her son in TLT 12. This is not an appropriate use of it, and we see Elan use it inappropriately himself on occasion (Medea 47).
Since the anima resides in the unconscious, it is best examined through dreams. Fortunately, an "ether dream" as Jung calls it, a "big" dream, is provided during aToB 43. (An example of a "little" dream, which lacks the importance of an ether dream, is seen in TLT 20). During the ether dream, we see a number of elements that shed light on the anima relationship. First, we see the mother present Shelley and Elan with the amulet. This is symbolic of the anima embodiment passing from in partiality from Lilen Morin to Shelley. In Jung's studies, this was an extremely common motif. The other extremely common motif is that of the unconscious being symbolized by the ocean. Since the goal of the quest is the cup at the bottom of the sea, we can see that the sought object is at the depth of the unconscious. More interestingly, the object is a cup, a clear symbol of female sexuality, obtained from the father. Recall that earlier in the essay, we discussed the idea and rough content of Elan's view towards women is derived from the father. To complete the ritual, however, the mother-anima symbol in the amulet must be combined with the father's cup. Most importantly, the amulet must be dissolved in Shelley's blood and then consumed by Shelley. Now, by Elan's own admission, blood is a sexual/virginity symbol in his mind ( Medea 89). Thus the completion to embody the anima, Shelley must dissolve the mother element in a sexual element and consume it by the father's vehicle. The undertones of conception in the ritual ought not to be ignored. (It must be noted that this is far from the only way to read this particular dream).
Embodying the anima is more complex than this, however, as the subconscious anima can be impressed upon a person who resembles it closely. In other words, when Elan sees Shelley, he doesn't see her but rather his feminine ideal. While this is a very normal process and occurs in nearly every relationship, it does possess a certain danger. Because the anima is a creature of the unconscious mind, when it is impressed upon a real girl, the anima endows her with an archetypal power, the whole scope of the female archetype. Campbell phrases best this when he speaks of the mythic goddess archetype:
"The goddess is red with the fire of life; the earth, the solar system, the galaxies of far-extending space, all swell within her womb. For she is the world creatrix, ever mother, ever virgin. She encompasses the encompassing, nourishes the nourishing, and is the life of everything that lives. She is also the death of everything that dies. The whole round of existence is accomplished within her sway, from birth, through adolescence, maturity, and senescence, to the grave. She is the womb and the tomb: the sow that eats her farrow. Thus she unites the 'good' and the 'bad,' exhibiting the two modes of the remembered mother, not as personal only but as universal." (Campbell 114)
It is this power which Shelley possesses in Elan's mind. Elan desires that Shelley be to him the three things that his mother, his anima, was to him: friend, mother, and the love of his life. We see his desire to be friends with Shelley throughout, often through wanting to spend his leisure time with her as in Mirrors 39, aToB 70, and TLT 15.
The desire for Shelley to be a maternal figure may not be readily apparent, but is present nonetheless. When Elan is not feeling well, either mentally or physically, we see him go to Shelley, and seek a submissive physical interaction, desiring not to hold, but to be held, seen easily in aToB 34, and TLT 26, but also many other places. This is emblematic of her to be a maternal figure, and while the need for comforting in such a way is hardly unique, Elan's is peculiar maternal in nature.
The desire for her as lover hardly requires exegesis.
For all its immense power and sway, the anima remains an abstract figure, a wraith of the unconscious mind. Shelley, though similar, is not Elan's anima. In many relationships, once the fact that the beloved is not the anima comes to light and the all-too-glaring discrepancies arise, many people consider the "magic" lost, and the relationship is dissolved. Later on, the anima is re-impressed on another similar female and the process is repeated. However, some times, the reverse occurs, when discrepancies arise between the anima and the beloved, the anima is changed to mirror the beloved. Thus the feminine ideal is altered to become the beloved. This is, perhaps, as firm a definition of "true love" as any I have run across. Elan is all too aware of the discrepancies between anima and the beloved, being a self-aware person. However, instead of altering the anima to fit Shelley, Elan is altering Shelley to fit the anima, his feminine ideal, twisting and bending her until she fits. The examples of him discussing recasting her are numerous, though one particularly blatant one is found in aToB 47.
Hopefully, this helped enlighten you to the forces at work in the relationship. I know I found writing it, crystallizing and codifying my thoughts on the matter, extremely helpful. One may wonder with all this talk of the anima, what about the animus, the man in the woman? Virtually all suppositions here may be inverted and applied to the female.
~Rance
Works Used:
Amy and Rance, Rose & Flame: The Collected Stories
C.G. Jung, The Integration of the Personality
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Rance, The Second Age Title System