Abstract

The present paper elaborates on the concept of self- knowledge in Tennessee Williams’A Streetcar Named Desire based on Carl Gustav Jung’s psychoanalytic theory of archetypes. Jung considers the “collective unconscious” as a mental process in human mind from which he/she is not aware. It is the immortal part of man and the unknown psyche of him which is shaped by archetypes - the images, motifs or thematic patterns that occurred regularly in history, literature, or folkways. The aim of the study is to apply Jung’s archetypes to Blanche Dubois’s psyche in order to find the causes of her disintegration. It is concluded that the lack of self-realization and an unbalanced psyche causes the failure of individuation process and consequently some abnormal behaviors in this character.

Key words: Animus, shadow, persona, self, process of individuation.