Labyrinths: Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis by Catrine Clay - Harper (2016)
Writing about those who lived their lives in the spotlight is generally a straightforward pursuit. Their movements are relatively well-documented in letters and newspaper clippings, their accomplishments are recorded in official documents and placards, and some are even immortalized in paintings, poems, and songs. The ambitious scholar can usually dredge up quite a bit of material—albeit murky and decomposed—from various historical archives. There is, after all, a collective understanding that the details of certain lives are worth preserving. These are the lead characters in the drama of human existence. But how does one write about members of the supporting cast? How do we isolate and appreciate those who are seen most clearly in the reflected glow of their spouses, relatives, and acquaintances? It is a daunting task and one that most biographers would never choose to undertake. Catrine Clay gives it a valiant effort in her stunning biography, Labyrinths: Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis. Although she is not entirely successful in her attempt, allowing her focus to drift at times to the more obvious subject, she does at least strive to pay due homage to a woman whose steadfast determination was just as vital to the legacy of Carl Jung as was his beautiful mind.
Catrine Clay is no stranger to obscure subject matter. Her 2010 biography of Manchester United goalkeeper Bert Trautmann won a British Sports Book Award for Biography of the Year and was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book Award. Unless you are an avid football fan, Bert Trautmann would probably not be considered a household name. On the other hand, Clay’s 2006 book, King, Kaiser, Tsar, is about King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II—three of the most recognizable (and ridiculed) men of their time. Clay’s genius in this case is deployed in illuminating the overlooked connections between the three rulers, thereby bringing perspective and clarity to wider international machinations. In Labyrinths Clay makes the most of both approaches: she chooses an obscure woman to focus on, and uses her subject to reveal the hidden influences behind the great figure of Carl Jung. This is a book about an unrecognized woman and her vicarious contributions to the field of psychoanalysis. The argument Clay puts forth is that Carl Jung would never have accomplished all that he accomplished without the steady, calming force of Emma Jung keeping him upright.
Emma Jung was born to one of the wealthiest families in Sweden. She was loved by her parents and afforded every opportunity for happiness and success. When she met and married Carl Jung, the son of an impoverished pastor and a mentally-unstable mother, the circumstances of her life were dramatically altered. While working at a mental hospital in Zurich, Carl was required to live with his new wife among the troubled men and women he aimed to treat. Writes Clay,
So began Emma’s new life as the wife of an Irrenarzt, living amongst hysterics, schizophrenics, catatonics, alcoholics, addicts, chronic neurotics and suicidal depressives—people who had lost their minds for one reason or another, and who spat and screamed and paced the wards, up and down, shouting obscenities, tearing at their hair, breaking the furniture.The contrast with her former life was complete.
Everyone who met Emma Jung, including the many men and women who went on to define the field of psychoanalysis, were impressed by the graceful manner in which she endured. She stood by her charismatic, volatile husband as he travelled to meet intellectuals across the globe, uprooted their growing family multiple times, and carried on a number of hurtful extramarital affairs with analysts and patients alike. A modern woman might wonder why Emma Jung didn’t abandon her restless spouse the minute he tried to convince her that a longterm ménage à trois would be ‘healthy’ for their relationship. It can be easy to think of her as weak—another wife whose selfish complacency stands in the way of gender equality. But, as Catrine Clay makes clear, things were not so simple in the case of Emma Jung. To say that Emma allowed her husband to overrule and disrespect her is to ignore the unconventional aspects of her own character. As Clay suggests,
Carl’s intuition told him that beneath her reticent, formal manner Emma was yearning for something less conventional, more intellectually satisfying, more adventurous—an outlet for her cleverness which she could not have if she married her haut-bourgeois beau. So he embarked on his campaign, bombarding her with letters filled with fascinating ideas about his favorite writers and philosophers, his love of mythology, his work, and he confided in her about his ambitions, his hopes and his fears. And he gave her lists of books to read for discussion next time they met. A seduction by intellect.
What emerges in Labyrinths is not so much the unequal relationship between a dominant male personality and a submissive female one, but more the vacillating interactions between two expressions of the same personality. Emma Jung’s quiet, contemplative self is difficult to spy in the shadow cast by Carl’s exuberant, arrogant frame, but their private letters reveal a striking compatibility founded upon shared interests and desires. It is almost as though—to use the lens of psychoanalysis—Carl and Emma embodied a single mind of which Carl was the conscious, visible expression and Emma the hidden subconscious one. In fact, it was her role as an open receptacle for feelings and reflections that Clay considers to be…
…Emma’s strength: to be simple and honest in her approach, emphatic but not directive, helping people to find their own way, as she had hers. Or, to use the Jungian term: to individuate.
Perhaps this is the greatest measure of Emma Jung’s particular strength—that she managed to keep her own interests in sight despite the domineering presence of her husband, that she never let his energy or volume make her feel like less of a person for being quiet and reserved. Emma’s confidence in her abilities as a psychoanalyst grew slowly over the course of their marriage, but she never evolved into the female version of her extroverted spouse. She managed to mature into an entirely different kind of doctor, with an entirely different method of treatment. In fact, many of the men and women who visited the Jung’s for treatment actually preferred Emma’s calm consistency to Carl’s eccentric fits of brilliance. In the end, they could choose the approach that suited them best. Clay writes of Emma’s transformation in the same manner with which Emma herself might describe it—as the kind of uneventful apotheosis that appears naturally at the end of a long period of hard work and perseverance:
She had taken her decisive step: to work as an analyst in her own right…as the years passed and she became increasingly involved in Carl’s work, she found she knew more about it than she realized…she was acquainted with many of the leading lights of psychoanalysis, including Professor Freud of Vienna, and she had met some forward-thinking women too—Hedwig Bleuler and Beatrice Hinkle among them—who had introduced her to new and challenging ideas about women in society. Encouraged by Carl, Emma had become the first president of the Psychological Club of Zurich, where she discovered she could hold her own and rise above the jealousies and rivalries which somehow always surrounded her husband.
Carl Jung was never a perfect husband. His desire to probe and stretch the limits of the mind, as well as the conventions of marriage, often had harmful consequences for Emma. He repeatedly ignored the feelings of his wife and children for the sake of scientific discovery. But Emma Jung’s story is by no means another narrative of female suffering and exploitation. Whether or not he was capable of respecting their marriage, Carl Jung certainly respected his wife’s intellect. If Clay’s account can be trusted, this mattered more to Emma Jung than the sanctity of her marital bed. Her mind was just as lofty and immortal as her husband’s, and her greatest achievement was becoming a respected analyst in her own right. In Labyrinths: Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis, Catrine Clay presents a strangely harmonious relationship between two very different individuals. Although she may have been a member of the supporting cast, Emma Jung radiated with her own subtle glow—a light which both softened and enhanced the sputtering firecracker at her side.
No comments:
Post a Comment