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The Black Swan - Online Term Paper

The Black Swan

My novelist friend Selden really loves Carl Jung. (I got him a Carl Jung action figure once, actually, from Urban Outfitters or some funky little shop in Santa Barbara; I can't remember which.) And Carl Jung, I learned from Selden (and later from reading), has this thing about The Shadow: that part of ourselves that we learn is not desirable and so cram into the depths...

I think about this a lot. Once you know about the Jungian Shadow, you want to figure out what yours is and help it out. But sometimes you don't know how. (And sometimes people get to helping theirs 'out' without meaning to at all.)

In the film 'Black Swan', Nina, always a white swan, begins to explore her Shadow ...

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her, with Nina calling her 'mommy' in a needy, babyish voice (the only thing, it seems, that will talk her mother back from the extreme edge of her bouts of rage).

Nor can Nina explore her Shadow in the world of the ballet--dominated by the forceful and dangerous director and a cut-throat group of ballerinas, many of whom seem to share Nina's eating disorder and her willingness to do anything to be on top in the company.

So from the beginning, is there any chance for Nina? At the end of the ballet, the swan queen can only find freedom in death: a fate that Nina shares. I watched an interview (from The Telegraph, I think) with Natalie Portman, who expressed her own commitment to Nina's breakthrough in the story, her realization that she can only aim to please herself.

Huh? Natalie Portman, this is not a happy story. As in Greek tragedy, Nina's fate is sealed from the beginning (and as in Shakespeare, we still want to watch it unfold, even though we know).

In Charlotte ...

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The Black Swan. (2012, April 11). Retrieved January 10, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Black-Swan/100657

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"The Black Swan." Essayworld.com. April 11, 2012. Accessed January 10, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Black-Swan/100657.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 4/11/2012 10:31:02 AM
Submitted By: michaelamieiro12
Category: Film & Theater
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 824
Pages: 3

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