Massive Ouran / Jungian Psychology Post (Episodes 1-26)

[o_ren_ishii]

Note: I decided to move my post from
ouranhostclub, partially because it refers to Episode 25 and the mods are cleaning out the redundant posts, and also because I promised that I would post future analysis into a big comprehensive post.

Yoji Enokido did the screenplay for Utena and the series composition for Ouran, and Ouran seems to have been influenced by Utena with regards to symbols. I happen to be deeply interested in Jungian psychoanalysis with respect to stories and fables, and both shows are rich with meaning. I think that one of the appealing things about the series is its' ability to simultaneously be a crack-tastic satire of the shoujo genre and be a story with an amazing amount of subtext.

I realize that this level of analysis is overkill, but I do enjoy it on some level. Also, digging through these symbols helps me when I'm stuck on my storywriting. Slowly but surely, I will go through all of the episodes and write down the symbols that I find, which I will highlight in bold along with fairly prominent terms in Jungian psychology.

(A caveat: I prefer Jung to Freud. Meaning of symbols will therefore vary accordingly. Although members of the Host Club do have mother issues, I will not get too Oedipal on people -- as Niles Crane said: "Although I feel perfectly qualified to fill Frasier's radio shoes, I should warn you that while Frasier is a Freudian I am a Jungian. So there'll be no blaming mother today!")

Episode 1:

• The first scene shows birds flying in the sky by the Ouran Academy clock tower. Birds symbolize the soul and the desire of the soul to be free -- which is a rather pat way of expressing Haruhi's individuality and integrity. Birds also act as psychopomps in some cultures, which makes sense in that they also appear when Haruhi is speaking to her mother.
• The clock tower in the Ouran courtyard: a circle, often in a square, can symbolize the mandala. The mandala can also symbolize the wholeness of the Self or the yearning for such wholeness. The more serious aspects of the Host Club involve that search for the wholeness of the self, and the clock appears in many of the later shows as a continuing symbol.
• Roses are a reoccuring aspect of the Ouran series, and are used in a variety of ways to convey psychological significance. In general, roses are a representation of the mandala, which is the most important archetype of all: the self. The self is the ultimate unity of the personality and is symbolized by the circle, the cross, and the mandala figures that Jung was fond of painting. A mandala is a drawing that is used in meditation because it tends to draw your focus back to the center, and it can be as simple as a geometric figure or as complicated as a stained glass window. Unfolding petals symbolizes the return to wholeness and the return to the self. So when you see a rose unfolding and expanding in every episode (at the opening of the Host Club doors), the idea is being presented that the Host Club is a vehicle to self-actualization.
• Lightbulbs represent each host club member's awareness regarding Haruhi's true gender: the light of knowledge and so on.
• We see Haruhi's "nerd glasses" and Kyouya's "scary shiny glasses" which act as a persona -- the mask that we use to represent the public image we desire to show, whether it is a good impression or an impression used to manipulate people's opinions and behaviors. A person come to believe that their persona is their true self, with less than ideal consequences. Haruhi is here at Ouran to study and to be left alone, and her glasses make that clear -- until the club takes off her glasses, they do not pay too much heed to her.
• Haruhi's initial foray into the world of the super-wealthy starts with breaking a very expensive vase -- which leaves her trapped in their world with an obligation to repay the cost of the vase. I had thought that the breaking of the vase was a pretty straightforward plot device, with some possible interpretations of the vase as the representation of Haruhi's self-containment and isolation (because vases hold things in). However, there is a tantalizing anecdote from Wolfgang Pauli regarding a broken vase at the opening of the C. Jung institute, which is just total serendipity!
• When Haruhi and Tamaki are digging around in the water fountain for her belongings -- water can stand as a place of transformation and rebirth. For Tamaki/Haruhi fans, this is probably their first "meaningful moment" even though he is currently unaware of her gender. Note that Tamaki says "A handsome man's skin shines like water" (from the Solar sub) -- this quote will return.
• The "water as baptism" theme continues when the twins pour pitchers of water over Haruhi and Ayanokoji -- in baptism, water purifies and drives out bad influences (Ayanokoji) and affirms the place of the baptized as someone belonging to a "community of faith." Haruhi is fully baptized into the Host Club now -- after all, the club turns out Ayanokoji because of what she does to Haruhi.
  

Episode 2:
- Chameleon/butterfly
- Snake / Kyouya
- Kyouya as the Magician in the Tarot
- Kanako's persona as the "host club butterfly"
- Kanako and the tea cup ride

Episode 3:
- the kite metaphor

Episode 4:
- Renge and video games as an acceptable/controllable filter for the world.
- Renge's persona as "the otaku"

Episode 5:
- The twins representation according to Jung

Episode 6:

Episode 7:

Episode 8:
- Haruhi falls into the water.... again. (Tamaki and Haruhi)

• In a rather ironic moment, Kyouya chooses to leave off his glasses/persona when trying to teach Haruhi the dangers of being "unguarded." Considering that he consciously uses his glasses to successfully intimidate others, why would he choose to leave them off during a little lesson in sexual intimidation?  For a self-proclaimed "egoist," it seems to be a lot of effort for absolutely nothing: after all, he gains no merits from forcing himself on her, but he gains no extrinsic reward from warning her either. The lack of glasses seem to verify Haruhi's theory that he did it because he was genuinely concerned about her. (That, and the fact that he wasn't exactly in a rush to stop the Hitachiin brothers' homicidal frenzy -- he just stood there with shining glasses.)  However, there is a cost to leaving off one's persona -- Haruhi manages to get a very close look into his "real face" and tells him that he's kinder than he would prefer to admit. Kyouya pulls away and retrieves his glasses after she says this -- but later privately admits that she has interesting ideas.

Episode 9:

Episode 10:

Episode 11:

Episode 12:

Episode 13:
[Note: the story of "Alice in Wonderland" has been tapped as one of the enduring myths of the 19th and 20th century, and has been subjected to some pretty severe analyzation by the psychology community. This episode is so saturated with motifs and details on two levels (the original Alice level and the the Haruhi level) that repetition inevitably arises. My apologies.]

• Haruhi starts off as an extremely mature child who applies to Ouran all on her own, a fact that worries Ranka-san. All this is true enough, but the child symbolizes the drive towards independence and maturity. As the protagonist with whom the viewers identify, Haruhi also acts as the hero  who feels lost and confused in the strange world of Ouran.
• Haruhi slips on a banana and falls into Ouran -- sudden descents symbolize plumbing into the deepest unconsciousness of one's mind. Sure enough, Haruhi is dreaming.
  
• Haruhi finds herself in a swimming pool of tears -- a passage derived from the Original "Alice in Wonderland." Tears have the same percentage of salt as the sea, and the sea represents the primordial mother. Kyouya says that Haruhi's "pool of tears" are the total sum of her repressed grief and unhappiness over the years. Kyouya warns her about staying in the pool of tears too long -- she will be consumed by what lurks within and never be able to emerge from her tears into Wonderland. Emerging from her tears represents her rebirth to a new state of being.
  
• The Zuka Bu crocodiles in Haruhi's pool of tears: reptiles can be a symbol of "the shadow." The Shadow is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied. If they pull her under the water, she will never get to Ouran.
• Haruhi is on an quest  -- she starts by trying to take care of baby Nekozawa and ends with trying to save the Duchess Renge. She rapidly transforms from a child into a mother-figure, trying to provide support to those around her -- something rather accurate to her waking life.
  
• Haruhi has long hair in her dream, and Tamaki makes a reference that it will soon be cut (straight from Alice) -- a symbol of her feminine principle that will be hidden at Ouran.
• In Ouran Wonderland, the clocks are always at 3:00 PM -- the time when the Host Club begins its afternoon activities. While having tea with Hunny and Mori, Haruhi is confronted by a wall of grandfather clocks. Clocks and pendulums represent the passage of time and perhaps the unstoppable nature of fate -- here, the clocks and pendulum mark out Haruhi's necessary fate inside the Host Club. ("Fate" isn't a terribly good word here. Think more of "hitsuzen" and you can get a better semantic flavor of what I think the clocks mean.) In the dream, Haruhi only wants to "study, study, study" and she doesn't consciously remember the Host Club. However, her mind does remember, and it will eventually get through to her.
  
• Haruhi's parents wear Venetian carneval masks symbolizing their "masks of persona" as the rulers of  her unconsciousness. (They also represent the King and Queen of Hearts in Wonderland.) In her dreams, her ruler-parents are a manifestation of the side of herself that has suffered and wants to try her mother for abandonment. Masks are also traditionally used in Greek tragedies, mystery plays, and the La Commedia dell'Arte -- if we consider this episode to be an allegorical play (which I think it is), then the masks make even more sense.
  
• Haruhi's end task is to rescue the Duchess Renge (who represents a mother-figure to her) from death, the one thing that she could not do for her mother.
• However, the King and Queen put Haruhi on trial instead, for breaking the vase. The trial symbolizes an initiation for Haruhi -- it awakes her up to the fact that she is unnaturally aware of the workings of Ouran -- she knows about Kyouya's secret files, Hunny's cavities, the twins, and so on and so forth. In spite of the diffidence that she puts on when she's awake (suppression! suppression!), the zany play life of the Host Club has touched her internally.
  
• In the end, Haruhi realizes that the Queen of her world is her mother, who apologizes for the trials and difficulty in Haruhi's life. In a way, this gives Haruhi a sense of closure, allowing her to acknowledge that some play and frivolity is allowed in her life.

Episode 14:

• Tamaki takes Haruhi to play hide and seek in the maze. The maze represents the labyrinth, which is a symbol of the unconsciousness. Mazes play a role in religious mysteries (two examples are the labyrinth in Crete and the maze on the floor of the Chartres cathedral), and can symbolize a pilgrimage to find hidden truths. (If anyone has seen the movie "Labyrinth" with David Bowie, you'll know what I mean!) Labryrinths can also symbolize the hidden nature of women. So Tamaki pulls Haruhi along to hide in the labyrinth: the secret place where he can take her and tell her his secrets about his mother.
• They end up hiding in a gazebo-style architectural folly. Architectural follies were built as symbolic expressions in landscapes -- artful ruins, in other words. Please note that the inside roof of the folly is covered in roses: red roses and one white rose. Red roses stand for true romantic love, and white roses stand for innocent (non-sexual) love. My theory on the juxtaposition is this: Tamaki has a lot of romantic feelings for Haruhi, but he caps it all under the white rose of fatherly devotion. He is unaware of his own feelings, which are sheltered under a rather lovely and delicate folly -- the conceit of being Haruhi's father.
  

Episode 15:

Episode 16:

Episode 17:

Episode 18:

Episode 19:

Episode 20:

• One of the twins is reading Jung's "Ego and the Unconscious" while another one doodles a complex maze (maze reference courtesy of
  erintheartchick)
  
• Kyouya is reading Osamu Dazai's "Ningen Shikkaku" (No Longer Human) -- a novel that deals with the story of a young man's alienation from society and the dropping of the masks of convention.
• The twins envision themselves as living behind locked gates symbolizing deliberate isolation. To open a locked gate indicates the exploration of the unconscious aspects of the self. Although the twins seem to perversely enjoy their identical natures, they are also yearning for someone to open their gates.
  
• The entwined vines cracking through an eggshell. This motif also appears in Utena, as the student council's motto, which itself is a reworking of a passage in Hermann Hesse's Jungian-influenced Demian: "The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born first must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas." The eggshell symbolizes the twins' self-imposed confinement, and the twining vines symbolizes their growth -- they must break out of the shell or else they will be stifled.
• The Ouran clock tower (see Ep. 1) appears in an important scene. In that one moment: Tamaki promises the twins that the Host Club will give them the chance to find that special someone who can help them literally "be themselves," Kyouya comes out from the shadows into the sun, Haruhi promises herself that she will strive to get into Ouran, and Hunny and Mori have their discussion about joining the Host Club.
• In the very end, the twins open the door into the Host Club, taking the first steps towards finding someone who can distinguish them as separate persons.

Episode 21:

• Kaoru's theory of the Host Club's family structure as a "carriage under a magic spell" is a Jungian interpretation of the Cinderella story. In Cinderella, the fairy godmother casts a magic spell that sustains an unnatural state: pumpkins into carriages, mice into horses, and Cinderella gets to go to the ball as a beautiful princess. However, the spell is impermanent -- at the stroke of midnight, everything reverts back into its previous state. Kaoru uses the "magic spelled carriage" to symbolize the Host Club, allowing the isolated and lonely members to have (temporary) relationships that they normally would not have.
  

Episode 22:

Episode 23:

Episode 24:

• (From
  rowein) "When Kyoya and his brother are posing with his father in a photo, all the brother and father has the hair to right side, but Kyoya to the left... and well, all know about the symbolism of the left." Yes! Note that Kyouya is also standing to the left in the picture. The left side has traditionally been associated with unluckiness, evil, darkness, and other socially undesirable traits. The Latin word for "left" is "sinister", which carries connotations of being dark, threatening, and ominous. (Sounds familiar to those of us who enjoy the company of a certain dark-eyed boy in glasses, right?)  Also note that Kyouya's father and brothers are wearing black while Kyouya is wearing white -- another thing that distinguishes Kyouya. Clothes are another symbol for our personas, the social roles that we play -- this is pretty clear-cut in that the other Ootoris are wearing the deliberately drab uniforms of the business world while Kyouya is set apart by his schoolboy uniform. Note that Kyouya is also crossing his arms in the picture -- his body language emphatically isolates him from the other Ootori men. In other words, Kyoya is different and maybe the black sheep of the family.
• (From
  lee_bella) "There's the picture frame in episode 24, where by the end of the episode, a picture is drawn outside of the frame." Kyouya's attempt at painting inside of the frame can be seen as a symbol of his deliberate self-suppression, which is a defense mechanism on his part. Kyouya isn't by instinct a cheerful and obliging person, but he pretends to be due to his feelings about being a third son. As he put it "whether I'm happy or not doesn't matter." Also, he has imposed restrictions upon himself in not competing with his brothers. In the end, the rose that Kyouya draws is significant:: a large and vibrantly colored rose (not some blue daisy-thing) that overwhelms a sterile and dead wooden frame. He really has discovered himself!
• (From
  goldfish_777) "The whole thing about the Kyouya's clothing drawer...represent his ability to hide his true self. He is has a lot of potential, and it's always over flowing, yet he tries to restrain it." Indeed -- Kyouya's clothes are literally bursting from their drawer, and his sister makes the situation "worse" by meddling. (Fuyumi is a very good sister.) Also, if one looks around the rest of Kyouya's room -- it's so meticulously white and neatly minimalistic that it is almost devoid of any signs of habitation, which is a symbol for the amount of suppression that he puts himself through. I personally think that this might be an example of reaction formation -- at the time, Kyouya views any desires for individuality as inherently dangerous, so he turns himself and his surroundings into a blank slate.
  
• Kyouya's tears during Tamaki's piano playing. Honest tears represent feeling and are used in stories as agents of healing and as "lenses through which we gain another point of view." Kyouya is being healed from his illusions about suppressing himself, and is gaining another viewpoint of Tamaki -- even if he is the "idiot of idiots"
• Tamaki as the Fool (idiot of idiots) for Kyouya. In the tarot, the Fool symbolizes a person who is unafraid of seeking new (and perhaps reckless) paths -- in this case, Tamaki fearlessly leads Kyouya to new visions. Later on, Kyouya acknowledges as much in that he is in the Host Club because it is "bizarre" and a way to experience new things.
  

Episode 25:

• Tamaki arranges for a carriage to be airlifted from France. (See Ep. 20)
  
• When Kyouya is slapped by his father, his glasses (symbolizing his persona) fly off his face -- revealing his "real face" momentarily. Note that he seems less shocked about the slap than everyone else is (for reasons that become clear in Ep. 26), a fact backed up by the lack of upset reaction on his "real face."
  
• "Eclair Tonnere" means "Lightning Thunder." What is our heroine Haruhi afraid of, really and truly? Noise and flash that... eventually disappears. Lightning is also a symbol of "sudden knowledge." What does Haruhi suddenly feel and know?
• Tamaki is being chided for his "selfishness" in this episode. The Japanese word wagamama is generally held to mean "selfish," but a finer distinction can be drawn in that it can stand for "self-centeredness to the point of inconsideration" and "willfulness." Considering that all of Jung's work is directed towards a search and fulfillment of the self, I find it rather interesting that Tamaki gets tagged with the word "wagamama" quite often.
  
• Eclair does love her opera glasses -- part haughty mask of persona, part manifestation of her desire to look more closely at the people around her and see their motivations: Tamaki and Haruhi.
• The Tamaki Shadow Play show -- rather like the Shadow Play girls in Utena! Shadows symbolize that which is mysterious and disagreeable to the conscious mind, considered to have a darker hold over the personality.

Episode 26:

• Eclair continues to use her opera glasses (see Ep. 25) as a mask of persona -- to the point where she takes her glasses into the shower. Observe the scary glasses vs. opera glasses match in the beginning of the episode -- both Kyouya and Eclair hide their eyes, but in the reflection of the fountain (with the water symbolizing unconscious truths), you can see Kyouya's surprise at being asked about Haruhi's debt. Eventually, Eclair leaves her glasses on the bridge, after seeing Tamaki smile just for her -- she found what she had been looking for, and the glasses were no longer necessary.
  
• The motif of the carriage repeats as the symbol of the Host Club (Ep. 20, 25). In this case, we see the other club members assuming control of the carriage, which symbolizes their willingness to keep the Host Club together. No longer is it Tamaki alone who "drives" the Host Club. When Haruhi assumes the reins to get to Tamaki, it shows her acceptance of how the Ouran Host Club has affected her positively, and her desire to keep the Host Club together.
• Haruhi catches up to Tamaki on a bridge. Bridges can symbolize the transition from one place to another, a place where things are tenuous and fragile, and for Haruhi to reach him at the bridge adds a bit of dramatic element into the story: the bridge is the most symbolically appropriate place for Haruhi to convince Tamaki to come back.
  
• Of course, Tamaki only changes his mind when Haruhi falls down, and descends to join her. (See Ep. 8, 13)
• And we come full circle with the recurring theme of Haruhi and Tamaki in the water as Haruhi nonchalantly answers Tamaki's question of "Why" with "Why not? A handsome man's skin shines like water." (Ep. 1)
• When the doors to the Host Club open again, we find that Haruhi is now sitting in the chair. This plays into her newly-realized acceptance of her role within the Host Club -- as an active force instead of someone compelled to follow along.