Judge of Character

Jung famously advocated the position that we all possess a “shadow”: a dark, inseparable aspect of our personality that represents everything we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves and has us project our perceived personal inferiorities as perceived moral deficiencies in others. Put another way, we are prone to deny the faults in our own personalities by displacing them. Hence the “Jekyll and Hyde” scenario featuring the semi-accusatory, aware, and somewhat empathetic look on the face of a young girl as she projects her own psychic umbra, courtesy of the intruder lurking in the doorway of her consciousness. In the background, a matronly figure peers out from behind a wall as an analogue for the curious—and perhaps self-righteous—others who might deny their own negative tendencies. Or, it might be that the protagonist is in fact the woman’s projection of her own corrupted sense of virtue. Whatever you make of the issue (or the illustration), it remains that none of us are without some murky corner that could use a little more light towards acknowledging the best in ourselves, and others.