Animus

Meghna Maiti

The man in her may well be an illusion,

A dark, empty, reckless presence,

That personifies everything evil, unreal.

Yet often he appears as a translucent dream,

And builds its bridge to her ‘Self’,

Through a bundle of creative threads.

Animus is the male part of the female psyche or consciousness which stands for hidden sacred convictions. According to the famous psychologist, Carl Jung, when such a conviction is preached with a loud, insistent, masculine voice or imposed on others by means of brutal emotional scenes, the underlying masculinity in a woman is easily recognized. He also said that, even in a woman who is outwardly very feminine the animus could be an equally hard, inexorable power.

Some of us come across a kind of men in life who sort of turn into reflections of our animus. He could come in the disguise of a 'beautiful stranger' or a 'compassionate soul' ever ready to pull us out of our miseries and give us much happiness. They become our spiritual guides but often emotionally unavailable or standoffish. The chase becomes increasingly futile until we realize the illusory aspect of it. Carl Jung has explained how this beautiful stranger is probably a pagan father-figure or god-image. 

Psychologically, he represents a particular form of the animus that lures women away from all human relationships and especially all contacts with real men. “He personifies a cocoon of dreamy thoughts, filled with desire and judgments about how things “ought to be,” which cut a woman from the reality of life,” said Jung in his book, ‘Man and his symbols.”

A woman has to recognize her anima and her sacred convictions to be true to it and not allow herself to be possessed. She has to question who or what her anima is and remain true to her dreams. She could also turn this anima into art. Only then he becomes a true inner guide to her and endows her with masculine qualities.

ENDS