The theme of individuation in the wedding of Zein : an archetypal analysis

Abstract EN

This study is predicated on C.

G.

Jung’s theory of the archetypes and the collective unconscious.

It focuses on Zein’s process of individuation in Tayeb Salih’s novel, The Wedding of Zein.

The assumption is that the novelist’s major concern in this novel is neither political nor social, but psychological, springing from his intention to explore what he calls in his interviews “the psychic revolution” within the character of Zein.

Hence, I analyze in this paper the archetypal motifs of the anima, the wound, the laughter, the shadow, the dance, and the senex figure, and explain their symbolic importance to Zein’s individuation.

I also analyze the sympathetic correspondence between Zein’s personal individuation and the village of Wad Hamid’s collective search for identity, for “collective individuation,” so to speak.

Thus, I conclude that the “Wedding” in the title does not only signify The Wedding of Zein and Ni’ama, but it may also signify the metaphorical wedding of the “ego” and the “collective unconscious”.