Jung Pynchon

[Mark Kohut]

Three times the word shadow appears in Chapter one. Once capitalized as Lamont Cranston's voice of the famous serial. (This is the voice Pierce talked in "all the way down to Mazatlan". Seems to me an argument might develop between a couple oughta this...partly leading to that break-up? Anyway, let's say at least Pierce is ...not being himself, but playing a cultural/entertainment role? Enacting
"who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man" ??)
 
from wikipedia: "imbued the character with "the power to cloud men's minds" — the ability to become completely invisible — a trait associated with the character for years after the show ended." Does this help explain the line in the paragraph about The Shadow perhaps paying Mr. Mucho Maas a visit: "The shadow [lower case] waited a year before visiting.   ?? Is this where the created Shadow
merges with Jung's notion?  
 
wikipedia: "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." [1] It may be (in part) one's link to more primitive animal instincts,[2] which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.
According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to project: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections are unrecognized "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object--if it has one--or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power."
 
Carl Jung
1958
"Beneath the social mask we wear every day, we have a hidden shadow side: an impulsive, wounded, sad, or isolated part that we generally try to ignore. The Shadow can be a source of emotional richness and vitality, and acknowledging it can be a pathway to healing and an authentic life. We meet our dark side, accept it for what it is, and we learn to use its powerful energies in productive ways.
 
The text clearly links the year-long wait of the shadow as ending with Metger's letter. Pierce's shadow side is now, from beyond the grave, trying to bring about a situation by its power to do so....No wonder innocent Oedipa feels 'exposed, finessed, put down'....