Jungian concept in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’, Kubla Khan.

Jungian concept in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’, Kubla Khan.

Coleridge writes his poem, Kubla Khan with the form of historical legend. He tells us the story of a king whose name is Kubla Khan. Kubla Khan is the Mongol Emperor and the grandson of Gengish Khan. He stays inside the beautiful palace. It is build up in the middle of the green hill. The green hill has a lot of amazement. This palace has a lot of luxury and it is wonderful. Although the palace has beautiful scenery, it is not too good. There are still many dangerous things which are standing on that beauty. Everything which spread out the palace hides the danger. This palace is surrounded by the great walls and tower. Outside this palace is a dark forest and river. There is contradiction among those to things, beautiful inside and darkness outside.

Coleridge justifies Kubla Khan as the person who is trapped to the unconscious and conscious mind which is really related each other. This is shown in every line of his poem. These conscious and unconscious minds lead Kubla Khan into his individuation process. This is a kind of psychological journey of Kubla Khan. According to Jung, human archetype is firstly seen. Jung uses persona and shadow as the main point of his theory.

From this poem, we can analyze that persona can be stated in the word “Palace”. Palace here is the place for Kubla Khan to save himself from the other influence. Kubla Khan considers this palace as a beautiful place and keeps him with the best treatment. In his individuation journey, he meets some troubles which made him trapped into the unconscious mind. This trouble is called shadow. Shadow represents the personal unconscious of that person and it can be made difficulty to him. From Kubla Khan’s story, it can be seen that the shadow is represented by “Wall”. As it is kown that wall has surrounded Kubla Khan’s palace and it is separated the beautiful of the palace and the dark of outside world. The wall here takes the part as the shield of that beautiful palace. This is the “savage place” for Kubla Khan while he tries to reach his individuation process. It can make him save from the danger of the outside world. Kubla Khan’s conscious mind is composed in the words sun, green hill, fountain, milk and paradise. Beside that conscious, it also can be seen that those kind of conscious may lead him into his unconscious like moon, river, cavern, forest, demon, and hail. Conscious here means the real condition of Kubla Khan’ physically appearance and unconscious means the real condition of Kubla Khan’s psychological order.

Beside those conscious and unconscious, Coleridge’s work Kubla Khan also consists of Anima and Animus. Anima is the female archetype of man. It represents the female nurturing character which can make the man character is save. The example of anima can be seen in “Abyssinian Maid”. This kind of Anima represents the condition of Kubla Khan. This Abyssinian Maid can make him want to have place in that condition only. He will do anything in order to make his will become true. Because of his act, he is avoided by everyone in that place. It can be shown in the words “with holy dread”.

At the last, Kubla Khan does not achieve his individuation process. He cannot do it because he still cannot far away from his dreadful. His dream is not yet realized. It is difficult to him to step in his way of getting the individuation process.

Noura Nahdliyah (Mahasiswi Sastra Inggris UNESA 2008)