SOURCE: "Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl," in Literature and Psychology, Vol. XVII, Nos. 2 and 3, 1967, pp. 120-27.

[In the following essay, Neumarkt interprets Peter Schlemihl as an introverted personality type with repressed extrovert tendencies.]

Chamisso's novel Peter Schlemihl has remained a literary delight ever since Chamisso conceived the idea that a man's shadow was not necessarily an epiphenomenon tied up with the existence of the human personality but rather a possession to be taken care of, tended, cherished; a possession, above all, capable of being lost. An, individual may "lose his shadow" in many parts of the world, probably quite frequently. The chances are that the individual whose shadow has gone astray is not even aware of the extraordinary circumstance he finds himself in. Neither are his coevals in a world in which time and space have become commodities, subject to the exigencies of demand and supply. The busy engineer who is engaged in translating his blueprints into remote-controlled vehicles penetrating space to its outer reaches, and the business magnate who is ready to support such phantastic endeavours by supplying astronomical sums of money, are all too much occupied to ponder on so trivial a matter as the shadow cast by a vestigial entity known as the human body. That a man should, however, be aware of the fact that his shadow may perchance have slipped from what he has thought to be his legitimate possession, is indeed remarkable. That this selfsame individual should, moreover, make an effort to retrieve the lost treasure is no doubt indicative that the said person has turned from the logical to the psychological. People of marked individuality have always found it difficult to get along in a world dominated by collective values. The individual who has "turned psychological" is for all practical purposes a displaced person. He lives in a world which is strange to him, and in which he feels himself a stranger. Shrugged off by his matter-of-fact contemporaries, he pursues his rather eccentric, if not quixotic, endeavors to recapture a vanished shadow. At best he is left alone to roam the universe, mocked at and ridiculed. If he is bold enough, in addition, to boast of his doubtful undertakings, he runs the risk of being labeled a lunatic. In this case he may soon find himself put away in a structure with heavy iron bars adorning his windows, and a gigantic chart attached to his bedstead, indicating his particular afflication.

This then is the story of Peter Schlemihl which stunned the reading public when it first appeared in 1813. In the course of a few years it was translated into French, Italian, and English. The question most frequently asked was, What was the poet's intention when he created the figure of Peter Schlemihl. The poet himself has given us a clue as to how he wanted the shadow to be understood. In his foreword accompanying the French translation Chamisso indicates that it is the hero's shadow rather than his material aspect, leading the hero astray, that should occupy the minds of the readers. Thus he states:

Un corps opaque ne peut jamais etre éclairé qu'en partie par un corps lumineux, et l'espace privé de lumière qui est situé du coté de la partie non éclairé, est ce qu'on appelle 'ombre.' Ainsi, 'l'ombre' proprement dite, représente un solide dont la forme dépend à la fois de celle du corps lumineux, de celle du corps opaque, et de la position de celui-ci à l'égard du corps lumineux…. C'est donc de ce solide dont il est question dans la merveilleuse historie de Pierre Schlémihl. La science de la finance nous instruit assez de l'importance de l'argent, celle de l'ombre est moins généralement reconnue. Mon imprudent ami a convoité l'argent dont il connaissait le prix et n'a pas songé au solide. La leçon qu'il a chèrement payée, il veut qu'elle nous profite et son expérience nous crie: songez au solide.¹

The foregoing quotation puts us, without delay, into the situation which constitutes the core as well as the purpose of this paper. Psychological insight has always been a much cherished quality in any type of conative activity. As a science, in the present-day meaning of that term, psychology had, in Chamisso's own time, scarcely achieved any role of significance. The fact that the poet speaks about "l'ombre … un solide" leads us, however, to the assumption that what he had in mind was more than the intangible entity which is perceptible whenever an object obstructs the passage of light. To sound this 'solide,' to delineate it as to shape, colour, and depth is more specifically the very purpose of the present analysis.

The life history of Peter Schlemihl constitutes an attempt at depicting the development of the hero's psyche from undifferentiated origins within the personal and collective unconscious. It is an analytical problem that arrogates to itself the full scope of psychological implication. Jung maintains that the "integration of the shadow, i.e., the personal unconscious, in its process of gaining consciousness, constitutes the first step in the analytical process."² In other words, the integration of the shadow causes a neurosis which is essential in the process of analysis because the unconscious part of the personal psyche is thereby rendered conscious. "The shadow originates from the repression of thought, impulses and feelings not acceptable to the persona [i.e., mask]. It also contains the unexpressed attitudes and functions of the persona. That is, in an extravert, the shadow contains introverted tendencies; in an introvert it contains extraverted tendencies."³

Peter Schlemihl is the introverted type, as can easily be deduced from the beginning of the story. He withdraws, is shy, reticent, and finds it difficult to engage people in conversation. He is, nevertheless, drawn to mix among people, to acquire wealth and status. Consciously he rejects the symbols associated with extra-version. He flees from Mr. John's party, which frightens him with all its splendour and extravagance, but he is magically drawn to the selfsame elements that reside within his personal unconscious, i.e., his shadow. Thus the integration of the shadow in his conscious plans is tantamount to lifting the contents of the personal unconscious of the shadow sphere and exposing them to the full impact of conscious understanding. "If we think of the conscious as the source of light and of the persona as being erected to allow us to see into the outer world and protect ourselves from it, we can visualize the persona as casting a shadow. If we face the light, as we do except when we are asleep … we do not see our shadow, and prefer to be unaware of it."⁴ Since the personal unconscious and the shadow are synonymous terms, it follows that the repressed thoughts, impulses, and feelings which make up the personal unconscious, are held in abeyance. By the same token the conscious ego must be on guard lest the repressed contents, dwelling so near the surface, break through the protective wall created by the persona (mask). If the ego, however, is weakened, the defenses are overrun by the negative forces of the shadow, gain the upper hand, and assume leadership. We can then say that the individual is no longer in possession of his shadow, simply because there is no longer a mask (persona) to cast a shadow. When the "Man in Grey" challenges Peter in a direct confrontation, the latter succumbs. The sinister forces lurking deeply within his shadow have already overrun the persona and have established themselves firmly in Peter's conscious ego. One of the first actions after this fateful event is Peter's acquisition of new, stylish garments, fashionable living quarters, and other paraphernalia associated with the extraverted disposition. The shy, reticent introvert has been overcome by the formerly repressed, but now dominant, functions associated with extraversion and collective values.

With the upward movement of repressed contents residing in the personal unconscious, the persona is of necessity affected. Psychologically speaking the individual identifies himself with these erstwhile repressed elements so that "the subject is himself convinced that his manner of behaviour to his inner processes is … his unique and actual character. In such a case the unconsciousness of the persona results in its projection upon an object more especially of the same sex, thus providing a foundation for many cases of more or less admitted homosexuality, and of father-transferences in men or mother-transferences in women."⁵ The crumbling of the defence mechanism is tantamount to the identification of the individual with his shadow, i.e., personal unconscious. Thus we can adequately explain this process as the cessation of the existence of the shadow. At the same time, however, as the place of the persona has been occupied by the shadow, the former is projected upon an outside object. The projection of the persona is therefore not that of the originally unconscious contents but rather of contents that have been rendered unconscious a posteriori. This explains why Chamisso calls Peter's object of projection the "Man in Grey." It is Peter that is originally in possession of his shadow. It is he that wears the 'black' coat. When he loses his shadow it becomes the possession of the "Man in Grey". This is an indication that the shadow, having been exchanged for a purse of gold, is no longer representative of the dark, personal unconscious sphere of the hero, but rather of the much lighter shade of the mask, i.e., persona. By means of projection the persona has been rendered unconscious, i.e., dark, but not dark enough to constitute a genuine shadow. The admixture of the sparkle of gold, in terms of Jung the 'Logos principle', has transformed the impenetrable blackness of the shadow and given it a greyish nuance. It is this vicarious expression of shadow that the "Man in Grey" represents. Since the persona is originally associated with and centered around the conscious ego, its projection refers, as pointed out above, to the same sex. This enables us to explain Peter's association with the "Man in Grey" as a projection in the above sense of father-transference. Our assumption is further supported by the fact that Peter indulges in numerous love affairs but never reaches the point where love is fully consummated. He moves ahead to the brink of passionate involvement but always manages to withdraw short of the climactic experience of love. His basic fear of heterosexual relationship would be in support of Jung's suggestion that regressive homosexual tendencies might possibly be involved. If we take into consideration that the shadow "contains inferior, childish, or primitive qualities which,….. because they are closely connected with the problem of the persona, can often play a disastrous role,"⁶ it is possible to explain Jung's indication of homosexuality as a fixation of unresolved childhood complexes which prevent the hero from reaching the full experience of the objective in his love affairs. "Such cases are always people with defective external adaption and comparative unrelatedness because the identification with the soul begets an attitude with a predominant orientation towards the inner processes, whereby the object is deprived of its determining influence."⁷ Whenever the object is deprived of its influence, libidinal charges flow away from the object in the direction of the subject. Thus it becomes clear that Peter Schlemihl represents primarily the introvert type, while his repressed extravert tendencies constitute part of his unconscious psyche. This fact is of great importance since it constitutes the basic premise which is later upset by the loss of the shadow and finally readjusted in a process of growing awareness which establishes the basic premise in a modified sort of way.

Peter's association with the "Man in Grey" in terms of father-transference is of significance in Schlemihl's first dream, which depicts the poet withdrawn in his laboratory. Turning to the poet Peter relates: "I saw you sitting … at your desk between a skeleton and a bundle of dried plants … I looked at you for a long time … you did not move, you did not breathe either, you were dead."⁸ The hero actually addresses the poet in the dream. This is an unusual, if not to say, strange means of technical subterfuge by which the poet as narrator actually makes himself part of the dramatis personae he has created. This points to Chamisso's involvement and identification with the personality of Peter Schlemihl. The poet himself considered his own introvert disposition the dominating feature of his conscious psyche, i.e., his true nature. This is corroborated by Max Koch, the editor of his Collected Works, who stresses that the poet could at times be seen withdrawing into a corner, in the midst of gay company, without uttering a word for hours on end.⁹ His lifelong interest in botany reveals simultaneously a vigorous, scientific propensity occupying an inferior position in the poet's psyche, which, at times, caused him doubt whether he was really entitled to call himself a full-fledged poet. Even at so late a date as the successful publication of his Peter Schlemihl he felt prompted to remark to one of his friends that he had not considered himself a poet in the past and did not think he was one in the present.¹⁰ The conflict between the writer and the scientist in him was finally decided in favour of the former. This is brought out in Chamisso's fragmentary drama Faust. It is within this framework that his preoccupation with language and writing rather than his involvement with science gains the upper hand. "You can only think through the medium of language, only observe nature through your senses … only see your own shadow, but to really comprehend is impossible for us,"¹¹ the poet declares. Thus the dream in which he depicts himself as dead constitutes an unconscious wish fulfillment, the Goethean "Stirb und Werde" (die and become), by means of which he will emerge in full realization of his creative potential as a recognized poet and writer. The dream makes final his conscious decision to keep his involvement with science in abeyance so that it does not interfere with his creative activity. The poet's lingering doubt of his own ability as a writer is an expression of his dire need for approval and recognition of his poetic work on the part of his literary coevals.

After having embarked upon his new venture in life, the transference is removed from the father image referring to the poet and projected upon the "Man in Grey". It is not surprising that the dream contents reflect the sterile laboratory atmosphere in which the skeleton and the dried plants dominate, as both are reduced to symbolic existence divorced from the living source of nature. The figure of the dead poet reflects the changed situation of the hero himself as Peter's basically introvert disposition has been superseded by extravert libidinal contents, hitherto relegated to the sphere of repression. The poet striving for recognition has emerged from the solitude of his basically introvert disposition to take his due place among his contemporaries. With growing success in the literary field he gains enough security to exclaim with modest confidence that he has finally reason to accept himself as one of Germany's poets.¹² In terms of psychology this means that the "undifferentiated function and the underdeveloped attitude … our 'dark side', the inborn collective predisposition,"¹³ has broken through the protective wall of the conscious ego, represented by the persona. Being "the real counterpart of our conscious ego … this dark mass of experience that is seldom or never admitted to our conscious lives"¹⁴ declares its right to exist by sweeping away considerations and relationships which existed prior to its coming into its own.

Chamisso is well aware that the unresolved conflict in Peter Schlemihl's psyche must ultimately be resolved. The dialectical character of the introvert-extravert polarity harbours the persona-shadow constellation which is the plausible adjunct of man's moral existence. Thus the second dream is introduced as a sort of anticipatory motif foreshadowing a possible solution of Peter's endless afflictions. The second dream thus depicts a rather pleasant scene:

"Mina, a wreath of flowers in her hair, glided past me and smiled at me in a friendly manner. The honest Bendel was also covered with flowers and sped by with friendly greetings. I saw others as well, and, I believe, you too Chamisso, in the distant crowd. A bright light shone, but it did not cast a shadow, and, what is even stranger, it did not look bad,—flowers and songs, love and friends among palmgroves."¹⁵

The second dream depicts the undifferentiated state wherein man has either not yet developed a shadow, or has already overcome the moral foundation of our world in which the shadow is an exigency not to be dispensed with. Both possibilities, the yearning to return to the state of childhood bliss, and the projection into the future, when man will ultimately return to the scene of infantile carefreeness are, in fact, expressions of regressive nostalgia. They depict the Paradisaical atmosphere where man's soul is no longer two-dimensional. The basically introvert disposition longs to resolve the psychic discord by coming to terms with the inferior extravert tendency prevalent in the hero's unconscious psyche. The withdrawal from life is characteristic of the introvert type. Note how Peter's essentially introvert disposition comes to the fore as soon as the conflict is hypothetically resolved in the world of dream: Mina and Bendel, in festive garb, glide by him, smiling and greeting in a friendly manner. The poet's own position is somewhat changed on this carefree, blissful occasion. He appears very much alive, but rather remote from the center of collective activity. There is, however, no joyous embrace as could be expected in so happy a reunion. Note further his subsequent statement: "I could not hold the moving … lovely figures."¹⁶

With the emergence of his introvert disposition in primary function within his psyche, his unconscious desire to mix with people is now thwarted. Peter expresses the wish to hold on to his friends, but finds himself unable to do so. Within the sphere of Paradise, however, this dilemma is reconciled in so far as his extravert propensity assumes its rightful place in the hero's psyche, leaving the primary position to be occupied by the native introvert tendencies. If the first dream was explained as the upsurge of undifferentiated contents from the personal as well as the collective unconscious with emphasis on the emergence of extravert characteristics, the second dream constitutes a reversal of this process as the dream made it clear to the poet that his close friends were slipping from his grip. They were within eyeshot, to be sure, but not within physical reach. The realization of this dilemma is, however, not traumatic. In fact, the environment depicted is rather pleasant, as it dwells on the motif of Paradisaical bliss and equanimity where the struggling dialectical forces are reconciled. The essentially introvert contents are about to find and establish a modus operandi with the inferior extravert function, hitherto inflated beyond proportion. In fact, the ensuing activities of the hero point in that direction when he tells the poet about the seven-league boots that enable him to lead his life independent of human society. The symbol of the seven-league boots is thus additional indication that the therapeutic process is about to find speedy solution. By getting away from his erstwhile extravert involvements he will not only do justice to his indigenous introvert nature, but will ipso facto help the latter to regain its rightful place in the psyche. At the same time he is now aware of the fact that this cannot be accomplished at the expense of the inferior extravert elements but rather with their co-operation. If the latter are consciously recognized instead of ignored, the sphere of consciousness has been successfully complemented and the hitherto inflated extravert contents relegated to their indigenous psychic background. Thus Peter Schlemihl's monumental work Historia stirpium-planetarum utriusque orbis, and Flora universalis terrae are to be regarded as contributions of the hero's truly introvert frame of mind. His last earthly companion is not a human being, but characteristically enough a poodle to which he is very much attached.

With his decision to bequeath his scientific work to the Berlin University the initially divergent trends are ultimately and realistically resolved. Peter is concerned with the public that is to be the final recipient of his earthly endeavours, but this public is now reached in an indirect way, via the lecture hall and library of an institute of higher learning. This is a true indication that the extravert tendency is in genuine operational relationship to the primary introvert disposition of the hero. With the realization that the attainment of absolute Paradisaical equanimity is practically impossible in our 'valley of sorrow' Chamisso's work draws to a close on a note of resigned, if not subdued, satisfaction.

In conclusion it should be noted that as soon as the hero is able to shed light on the particular problems plaguing him, the "Man in Grey" disappears. This is, in fact, an indication that the persona or introvert disposition of the hero is no longer harrassed by upsurging extravert, repressed contents from the personal unconscious, i.e., shadow. The previously displaced persona, representing Peter's introvert disposition and projected upon the "Man in Grey", has now returned to its rightful owner. The "Man in Grey" vanishes from our sight as Peter understands his psychic dilemma and evaluates it in objective terms.

When we first set out to discover the nature of Peter Schlemihl's shadow in analytical terms it was clear that Chamisso's emphasis of the term 'solide' was ample indication of the direction such undertaking would have to follow. The poet lived long before the emergence of psychology as a science in its own right. He was, however, intuitively aware of the fact that the shadow was a concrete entity of manifold symbolical connotations. The term 'solide' is, for our purposes, first and foremost a denotative quantum. It represents an entity having depth, colour, and shape. To observe this entity throughout the personality transformation of the hero it was incumbent upon us to recognize the extent of the hero's projections and regressions in order to reach an understanding of his actions and their motivational causes. By means of the foregoing analysis the shadow has been lifted out of its cryptic, symbolical context and, for the first time, brought within the intellectual grasp of the present day reader it is in this light that Chamisso's work Peter Schlemihl takes on added significance in the age of depth psychology.

Notes

¹Chamissos Gesammelte Werk, "Peter Schlemihl", ed. by Max Koch, (Stuttgart, Cotta'sche Buchhandlung), vol. II p. 282. (All subsequent quotations from this source henceforth referred to as Peter Schlemihl.) The translation from the German original is my own.

² C. G. Jung, Welt der Psyche, (Zürich, Rascher Verlag, 1954), p. 101. The translation from the German original is my own.

³ Robert A. Clark, Six Talks on Jung's Psychology, (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Boxwood Press, 1953), p. 34.

⁴Ibid., pp. 33-34.

⁵ C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, transl. by H. Godwin Baynes, (New York, Pantheon Books, 1962), p. 598.

⁶ Jolande Jacobl, The Psychology of C. G. Jung, transl, by Ralph Manheim, (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962), p. 109.

⁷ C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, p. 598.

⁸Peter Schlemihl, p. 290.

⁹Chamissos Gesammelte Werke, "Biographische Einleitung," p. 17, passim.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 49. passim.

¹¹Chamissos Gesammelte Werke, "Faust," p. 350.

¹²Chamissos Gesammelte Werke, "Biographische Einleitung," p. 49, passim.

¹³ Jolande Jacobi, op., cit., p. 107.

¹⁴Ibid., p. 109.

¹⁵Peter Schlemihl, p. 325.

¹⁶Loc. cit.