SOURCE: Schuyler, William M., Jr. “Portrait of the Artist as a Jung Man: Love, Death and Art in J. G. Ballard's Vermilion Sands.” The New York Review of Science Fiction, no. 57 (May 1993): 1, 8-11.

[In the following two-part essay, Schuyler attempts to amend David Pringle's pioneering study of Jungian psychological symbols used commonly by Ballard.]

Just as the present holds perils that you did not face in the past, the future will hold threats from which you are for the moment mercifully exempt. Even now, you must speak and act carefully lest you be noticed and thereby elicit some bizarre act of violence. But J. G. Ballard imagines an even more dangerous future in which your semi-sentient clothing could respond to the emotional turmoil of an angered lover and crush you to death. Or perhaps your psychotropic house, traumatized by the violence of a previous owner, will try to suffocate you. Such incidents are commonplace, even trifling, in the desert resort called Vermilion Sands.

Authors are free to imagine any kind of future they wish, but Ballard's futures (and pasts) are so lurid, so bizarre—words he himself has used to characterize the effects he seeks (Preface, Vermilion Sands, 7)—that they urge a kind of scrutiny different from the ones critics, even science fiction critics, usually apply. Ballard himself has provided some clues in interviews and nonfiction that suggest a productive approach. It is time to take him at his word and see where they lead.¹

There is a system of symbols which Ballard has been using and developing since very early in his career. David Pringle wrote a pioneering study of it which is still very valuable² but does not form a single, coherent system. I shall amend his schema to produce a unitary, comprehensive strategy for reading Ballard.

INNER SPACE

By 1962 Ballard was already saying that the new frontier for science fiction was inner, not outer, space (Guest Editorial, New Worlds; cited in Stableford 281). He was still saying the same thing in only slightly different words in 1975 (“Introduction to Crash”). There is no reason to think he has changed his mind since.

This could be taken figuratively to mean that the subject matter of the field should be psychological. This is right as far as it goes, but Ballard meant something more radical. “Inner space” in his lexicon is not simply the internal landscape of the mind. It is the interface between the internal space of the unconscious mind and that of the external world (“Time, Memory, and Inner Space,” 101).

Most, if not all, of Ballard's fiction is set in this inner space. His stories scrutinize the psychology of their subjects from the inside, but their locale is this interface which is neither quite external nor exactly internal.³ Inner space in this sense is the space of consciousness; not consciousness itself, but the “place” in which consciousness operates.

Ballard discovered psychoanalysis in adolescence and read everything about it that he could find (“From Shanghai to Shepperton,”⁴ 114-15), so it is there that we should turn for enlightenment as to what he means by “consciousness.” But which version of psychoanalysis did Ballard use? Even in the rare cases where two psychoanalytic systems agree on the meaning of a term, it fits into different places in the different systems. Moreover, different psychoanalytic systems generally assign differing significance to any given symbol. Of course, Ballard might have mixed parts of several systems. This is how Pringle reads him (e.g., Earth is the Alien Planet, 49-50).

Ballard has specifically mentioned Freud and Jung as influencing him (“From Shanghai,” 114-15), so we should look to them before casting our net any wider. We should also seek to find and justify a consistent interpretation in terms of one theory before retreating to the position that Ballard created a mix of his own. Such an interpretation is at hand, and it is Jungian.

CASE HISTORIES

Ballard has spoken well of Jung, albeit in an oblique way, as “a great imaginative novelist” (“From Shanghai” 115). This is the key to justifying a Jungian interpretation of his fiction, but we must find the lock it fits. We will discover it in what Ballard says about his own writing.

In an interview with Graeme Revell, Ballard said that

… we don't arrive at every moment of consciousness completely free of the past. The past is enshrined in us, of course, and our minds contain the materials of huge mythic quests formed probably long before we were even born, probably at the moment of conception.

(Interview with JGB, 45)

In response to Revell's remark that this is a Jungian idea, Ballard agrees and elaborates:

… I accept the collective unconscious—I don't think it's a mystic entity. I think it's simply that whenever an individual is conceived, a whole set of operating instructions … are meshed together like cards being shuffled. A whole set of unconscious mythologies are nestled and locked into one another to produce this individual, who will then spend the whole of his life evolving and fulfilling the private mythology for himself, and setting it … against the universe around him. …

(45-46)

Ballard contrasts his own concern for the future with the concern of psychoanalysis for the past. Classical legends, he says, are useful tools for psychoanalysis because they are concerned with origins, and psychoanalysis is concerned with the origins of the crisis which brings the patient to the psychiatrist. Ballard, however, wishes to have predictive myths; myths that can be used to guide us through our future (Revell 42).

This is not really an obstacle to a Jungian interpretation of Ballard. The classical legends used by Jungians deal not only with origins but also with such matters as rites of passage, coping with dangerous situations, and developing a general plan for one's life. In general, a theory that can be used to explain can be used to predict, and Jungian theory could use legends to predict outcomes for patients.

Even if we do not allow Jungian analysis full status as a theory, it must surely be counted as a valuable heuristic device. Now, Jung says of one of his patients who was reluctant to give up a transference to him (but did so by falling in love with a suitable man), “I saw how the transpersonal control-point [i. e., the new focus of her affections] developed … a guiding function … how … it gained influence over the resisting conscious mind without the patient's consciously noticing what was happening” (“Relating between the Ego and the Unconscious” 79). Here we see in Jung that the predictive function, in which Ballard is interested, would be in close accord with Ballard's conception of an individual private mythology, and Ballard thinks of his own stories as case histories of a sort.

Relating the form of his fiction to general principles, Ballard says

I think my fiction has a lot in common with case histories. Case histories … always seemed to have an enormous sense of mystery about them—a mystery not of the central event (say the mental crisis … which has drawn this particular patient to the psychiatrist's attention) but [of] the surrounding world which these largely anonymous people seem to inhabit, very close to the world which I sense that I inhabit.

(42-43)

If we look now at Jungian case histories,⁵ we see that they are valuable because we can recognize that the patient's predicament is similar to our own and consider whether a similar solution would work for us. This is just what Ballard proposes that we should do with his “case histories” (“Interview with JGB” 45). Ballard and Jung are not dealing with different material; they differ rather in how they use the material on which both of them draw, and the difference is a matter of degree, not of kind.

It is in this sense, the sense in which Ballard regards his own novels as case histories, that he can also regard Jung, the author of case histories, as a novelist. They are engaged in the same enterprise. And one can hardly deny the vigor of Jung's imagination, given the ingenuity he showed in fitting the most mundane events and dreams into the heroic mold of mythology.

THE SYMBOLS CLANG

If we look at Pringle's analysis of Ballard's symbols, the influence of Jung on the internal structure of his fiction is too striking to ignore.

Pringle has identified a four-fold symbolism in Ballard's landscapes. Oceans, concrete surfaces, deserts, and crystals all occur with near obsessive frequency. Water represents the past, and also symbolizes the unconscious organic world and the state of man before the Fall (18, 21). Concrete represents the present: it is the city with its technology cutting our roots in life but giving us the freedom of consciousness to compensate for the loss of innocence (26-28). Sand represents the future, dissipation of life force and loss of meaning (21-22). Crystal symbolizes eternity, transfiguration and transcendence (32, 35).

This is an astute analysis. There is no question that it is right as far as it goes. That the symbolism is four-fold urges a Jungian interpretation, since Jungian theory distinguishes four stages of life (Jung, “The Stages of Life,” The Portable Jung, 3-22), but the correspondence between the symbols and the stages of life is not a simple one-to-one relation. Let us seek out more subtle connections.

Briefly, the Jungian view of a successful journey through life is this:

1. Consciousness appears in children when they start making connections. At this stage, there are no problems, no conflicts within the individual. Children may be subject to external limitations, but they are not at odds with themselves. Only gradually do they come to think of themselves in the first person. This is linked with the development of continuity of memory. This linking and ordering of memories is the first stage in the development of the Ego. However, the child is still acting from instinct, on impulse (“Stages” 6-8).
2. The second stage stretches from puberty to the age of thirty-five or forty. During this period, the Ego is forced by external circumstances or internal conflict or both to recognize that it cannot always get everything it wants. This is what problems are. Eventually the Ego learns to settle for what is attainable, but this is at best a temporary solution. Something is lost when choices are made; some needs are not satisfied. In order to cope with conflict caused by unmet needs, the Ego suppresses those parts of itself which make the demands it cannot satisfy. But the part of the Ego which lost out on those choices cannot be suppressed permanently. Those needs must still be met (“Stages” 8-14).
3. The effort to keep what was suppressed under control eventually leads to a midlife crisis. The needs on which the Ego has focused have been met; more of the same is less and less satisfying. At the same time, the needs which have been denied and suppressed become more urgent from long neglect. The result is depression and anomie. By this time, however, the Ego should be strong enough and clever enough to deal with the forces of the Unconscious. It is therefore ready to undertake the dangerous but necessary task of reestablishing contact with the Self, which is anchored in the Unconscious. In order to get through the crisis, the Ego must recover from the Unconscious what was suppressed and fulfill the unmet needs. If it does so successfully, it will reunite with the Self (“Stages” 13-18).
4. One never fully and finally solves any problem. Yet no one lives forever, and so the last task the Ego faces is to learn to accept death with equanimity. This is no easy matter, but those who succeed reach transcendence (“Stages” 18-22).

Of course, not all journeys through life are successful. We naturally prefer the devil we know to the unknown, so some people may never summon the courage to make changes in themselves. Even a successful journey may require more than one attempt to conquer the various obstacles which Consciousness must overcome (“Stages” 11, 13, 20).

Ballard has crafted his stories so that, taken as a group, they follow this pattern from beginning to end. He is concerned with problems, so he has little to say about childhood because children do not have problems in the Jungian sense. (Empire of the Sun is the exception that proves the rule.) This is the first stage.

In symbolic terms, Consciousness begins when it pulls itself out of the ocean of the Unconscious (cf. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, “Ocean”). The Ego paves over the Unconscious with concrete (Concrete Island, Highrise)—what better way could there be to suppress those parts of itself which it cannot satisfy? But when it is done, it finds itself in a desert devoid of life-giving water, an environment which represents anomie (Vermilion Sands). This state, along with the midlife crisis that ends it, is the second stage (cf. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopedia of International Symbols, “Desert”).

To prosper, the Ego must return to the Source, i.e., the Self. This means that it must reimmerse itself in the watery depths of the Unconscious (The Drowned World, The Day of Creation), even though there are great perils to be met on the way (Cooper, “Waters”). Not surprisingly, it may he sitate before taking the plunge; hence the many stories set on beaches, which are boundaries between desert and water.⁶ If it persists and succeeds, it will find the Self and embark on a new course in the second half of life. This is Jung's third stage.

At last, however, the end approaches. Facing death is the most difficult task Consciousness must undertake. Perhaps it is too much to ask. That is doubtless why so many seek transcendence, which is represented by crystal (Cooper, “Crystal”), rather than resigning themselves to extinction (The Crystal World). This is the fourth stage.

The point here is that in Jungian theory the symbols Pringle identifies are given exactly the meaning that Pringle assigns to them. That Pringle apparently did not have Jungian theory in mind when he made his analysis makes the correspondence all the more striking.

However, the correspondence goes much farther than that.

THE DESERT ENVIRONMENT

Ballard has taken the Jungian archetype of the Ocean, the source of life and the container of all potential, as the backdrop against which his Archetypal characters interact. In Vermilion Sands, the ocean has dried up: there is no more potential. All that is left is the sand of the ocean bed, which is symbolic of loss of meaning (e.g., in “The Screen Game,” Vermilion Sands, 49). It is no longer necessary for the residents of Vermilion Sands to cap the Ocean of the Unconscious with an impermeable layer of concrete to protect their Consciousness from the terrible forces which dwelt below and threatened to overwhelm their hard won and precariously maintained humanity. Those forces died with the Ocean.⁷

Although we couldn't live with the Ocean, we can't live without it either. We cannot abide the desert of Vermilion Sands, yet it holds the key to our survival. Quartz, a crystalline substance and therefore a symbol of transcendence for Ballard, crops up everywhere; in dreams the Jungian Self is frequently represented by something inorganic, most often a rounded stone or a crystal (von Franz 221). The escape from the extinction of the Ego that faces those who arrive at Vermilion Sands is by way of a rite of passage, in which the Ego accepts the Self in its entirety. It transcends meaninglessness by getting back in touch with the Unconscious, the source of all meaning. How this is done will become clear from the discussion of the significance of Ballard's character types and what they do in the stories.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, AND WHY ARE THEY ACTING THIS WAY?

Pringle has given a helpful analysis of recurring character types in Ballard's work, but it fails to make some important distinctions among similar types. Pringle identifies one type, which he calls “the king,” as a personification of the Freudian Ego, and another, which he calls “the jester,” as a personification of the Freudian Id. On this reading, they are seeking individuation, which the protagonist must prevent if he is to survive (49). In Ballard's personal symbolism, they have respectively the characteristics of Prospero and of Caliban (or rarely, Ariel) (44-49). A third type, called by Pringle “the lamia” because a Ballard protagonist so labeled one of them, is identified as a warped Miranda, as a personification of the negative aspect of the Jungian Anima (40-43, 49). Curiously, although Ballard's protagonists are also examples of a recurring type, they are treated as whole persons, not as facets of persons.

Pringle is on to something here, but this mixture of theories leads to confusion. It is methodologically sounder to separate the Freudian and Jungian approaches, and then to see how each can reveal patterns in Ballard's writing. Ballard is more uniform in his symbolism than Pringle sees. The Jungian pattern is especially fruitful in interpreting Ballard, so I shall limit myself to a Jungian approach.

From the Jungian point of view, each recurring character type will represent an aspect of the Self. The narrator will be a personification of the Ego; but it will be the Jungian Ego, which is something quite different from the Freudian Ego. The latter must be prevented from individuating if the person is to remain whole, but separation from the Self is the task of the Jungian Ego for the first half of life and absolutely necessary in Jungian theory for the development of the individual Psyche (Edinger 5-7). The king, the jester and the lamia will represent Archetypes which are especially significant to the Self. The king is often a hero, and the jester is often the Shadow; although in both cases Pringle has included other kinds of figures under a single rubric. Moreover, Pringle has lumped together in the malevolent lamia several distinct Archetypal figures, some of which are helpful.

In Greek mythology, a lamia was a ghost that hungered for the lifeblood of the living. That is an accurate figurative description of what the true lamia-figures in Ballard want. But a personification of the negative aspect of the Anima can also be a Moon-figure, which may be malevolent but is not the same thing as a lamia. We have, for example, Lunora Goalen in “The Singing Statues.” And we have Hope Cunard in “Cry Hope, Cry Fury!,” “a tall, narrow-hipped woman with blonde hair so pale she immediately reminded me of the Ancient Mariner's Nightmare Life-in-Death” (Vermilion Sands, 93). She is hunting for something in her white sand-schooner, with her pack of white sand-rays to seek out her prey (94). It is not likely that Hope's resemblance to Diana the Huntress is a matter of chance.

The Moon, however, is itself a symbol for the Great Mother (Cooper, “Moon”). It is on this conception that the full import of these powerful and enigmatic female figures is clearest. The Great Mother is both Mother and Lover and can appear in each role in either beneficent or maleficent form, leaving open all kinds of options. Note that a single character can personify several Archetypes at once, as when Diana represents the Anima in “Cry Hope,” where she is also symbolically a Miranda and a bereft lover of the Flying Dutchman. This does not contravene Jungian theory.

When she is a negative aspect of the Anima, the female character in the Vermilion Sands stories is narcissistic, quite mad and very dangerous. This is not out of any particular malice toward anyone present, for she is barely aware of the external world, but because of a compulsion to reenact her own traumatic past. Not all instances of this type are alike. They can and do have very different motivations, depending on which facet of the Great Mother they personify. We can distinguish among them by considering which figure from Greek mythology each embodies. Leonora Chanel, who was portrayed as Medea (“The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D,” Vermilion Sands 22) personifies the devouring aspect of the Mother. She is a lamia. Hope Cunard, who is clearly Diana, is the baleful side of the Lover. She is malevolent but not devouring, not a lamia. It is not naïve to attribute to them different reasons for being hostile.

The other major female type is certainly peculiar, but she lives in the present and she takes forceful action where things are not to her liking. Jane Ciracylides in “Prima Belladonna” and Aurora Day in “Studio 5, The Stars” are examples of this class. This type is a personification of a positive aspect of the Anima, despite what often appears to be hostile and malevolent behavior. Different versions of her also personify various figures from Greek and Roman mythology, especially Venus, who has positive and negative aspects of her own.

Once the female characters are seen in this light, as one or another aspect of the Archetype of the Great Mother, the roles of the jester and the king fall neatly into place. The paradigmatic jester personifies the Shadow: the Archetype which represents everything that the Ego finds unacceptable in the Self (although, as noted, figures identified as jesters by Pringle can also turn out to be something else). The Shadow may include positive as well as negative qualities (Jung, “Aion,” The Portable Jung, 145). In Ballard, the jester is often a dwarf, such as Petit Manuel in “Cloud Sculptors of Coral D.” A dwarf symbolizes the amoral and unconscious forces of nature (Cooper, “Dwarf”), which makes such figures apt symbols for the Shadow. Until the Ego can accept the Shadow, which it represses, the urges and energies it incorporates will always threaten to break loose and do what would be, from the Ego's point of view, appalling damage (Jung, “Aion” 141-148). Like the lamia, the jester can often be more precisely identified, personifying the Shadow while also taking the specific forms of other Archetypes in different stories. In “Cry Hope, Cry Fury!” he is Caliban (104).

The king is usually an ameliorating factor in Ballard's stories, lending the narrator a helping hand. Pringle has combined in this single category several distinct, though related, Archetypes. When the king dies, as he frequently does in Ballard's stories, it often seems to be the result of his own willfulness. And so it is, for in those stories he personifies the Hero. The Hero is a Projection which is endowed with vast powers so that he can accomplish a task which the Ego needs to carry out but does not feel it has the strength to perform. The Hero, however, is beset by the sin of hubris; he always goes too far, bringing about his own death or downfall. There are several different types of Hero, corresponding to the different tasks which are required of the Ego at different stages in its Individuation (von Franz 114, 101-103).

At other times the king appears as the Sun Father, a version of the Wise Old Man, representing the Self and favoring Consciousness. In this role, his purpose is to help the Ego through a rite of passage (von Franz, 120-125, 208). As Jason Kaiser in “Say Goodbye to the Wind,” he saves Samson, the narrator, from the fate planned for him by Raine Channing, although he, Jason, had helped her set it up.

Pringle recognizes that the king can also be a sinister figure (46). An example of this type is Dr. Gruber in “The Screen Game.” As we shall see, Dr. Gruber personifies the Archetype of an actual king, not just a metaphorical one, as well as the Archetype of the Self.

The Self can also appear in other guises not related to Pringle's kings. Sometimes it appears in a role in which it will be almost unnoticed. The Ship and the Chariot, which in the form of sand yachts or limousines bear the female characters which we know to be personifications of the Anima, pervade Ballard's writing. These vehicles have crewmen or chauffeurs to operate them. When the charioteer is driving for someone other than himself, he symbolizes the Self (Cirlot, “Chariot”), and so do these operators of modern conveyances. They appear in six of the nine Vermilion Sands stories.

But according to Pringle, the jester frequently appears as a chauffeur (45). Here again he is conflating two distinct character types, in this case the Shadow and the Self. The mistake is a natural one. The Shadow is regarded negatively by the Ego; it is often personified as a dwarf or a troglodyte. Foyle, the Shadow in “Cry Hope, Cry Fury!,” is characterized by the narrator as being both like Caliban and like a faun (104). In the Vermilion Sands stories, the chauffeurs when they are described at all are crippled or faun-like; in the one case where a chauffeur gets a specific archetypal identity, he is personified as Pan (“Studio 5, The Stars,” Vermilion Sands, 147, 180).

Thus it is plausible to suggest that these are all instances of the same type, but the resemblance is only superficial. Pan has his base features, which are expressed in his hairy goat legs; but he also has horns, which signify the rays of the Sun, the emblem of Consciousness (Cirlot, “Pan”). That makes Pan (which means “all” in Greek) an excellent symbol for the Self, which includes both the Ego and the Unconscious. Representations of the Self must depict parts of the Unconscious which the Ego doesn't like, including the Shadow, so it is natural that a representation of the Self would look a lot like the Shadow to the unwary observer. The way to avoid error is to look at the part which the puzzling figure plays. The role of the Shadow is very different from the role of the Self. The chauffeurs clearly play roles appropriate to the Self.

I apologize to the patient reader for what may seem an extravagance of theory. It was necessary in order to lay out the system I propose and to distinguish it from that of Pringle. Once the distinction is made, though, the result is remarkably productive. Indeed, it is so fruitful that I must limit myself to a discussion of just one aspect of Ballard's four-fold symbolism and to just a few of the stories that deal with it. The Vermilion Sands stories suit my purpose very well, and I shall confine myself to them.

In what follows I can do no more than sketch the bare outlines of Ballard's luxuriant symbolic structure. In addition to figures borrowed from classical mythology, Shakespeare, Coleridge and Melville (cf. Pringle 6), there are also figures which do not fit any of the larger schemes I discuss. Emerelda Garland in “The Screen Game” and Hope Cunard in “Cry Hope, Cry Fury!” seem to be personifications of Ballard's impression of Emerald Cunard, an actual person. Why the latter should have seemed to Ballard to be a suitable guide for an Archetype I cannot say. Perhaps the associations of the names with crystals and ships gave reason enough to particularize archetypes with her unique attributes.⁸ However, it is the universal significance of the symbols, rather than the personalized form which Ballard gives to them, which is significant for my points about Jungian symbolism here.⁹

ART AND DESIGN

Ballard uses creativity in the arts in these stories as a metaphor for the vitality of the Ego. A pattern emerges as the stories are read in the order they have been placed. The connection with the creative impulse is one of the things that must be abandoned by the Ego in its battle for individuation. As a result, it is cut off from the Ocean, the Archetypal symbol of the source of creativity. In the concrete images of the stories, artistic inspiration will soon be figuratively as dried up as the literally desiccated ocean bed which is the site of the town of Vermilion Sands. The arts are in trouble in Vermilion Sands, and that is symbolic of the crisis of the Ego, which is unable to solve its problems. Into this setting come various powerful women, some hostile, some benevolent. They are Anima-figures who are there to catalyze change. If the Ego can survive their attentions and cope with their challenges, it can rediscover the creative powers of the Self.

Personifications of the Anima are always associated with the arts in Vermilion Sands stories. Leonora Chanel patronizes the cloud sculptors of Coral D. Jane Ciracylides is a singer. Emerelda Garland is a deranged actress. Lunora Goalen, a narcissist who falls in love with the image of her that is reflected in the music of a sonic sculpture, was an actress and is a patron of the arts. Hope Cunard is the victim of a portrait of her done in photo-sensitive pigments. In “Venus Smiles,” Lorraine Drexel visits her indestructible singing sculpture on the unsuspecting community. Raine Channing, a former model, tries to kill the owner of a bio-fabric fashion boutique. Aurora Day tries to arrange the death of a poet. The late Gloria Tremayne in “The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista” was one of the great movie stars of her day. Each of the Anima-figures comes to do something about the arts, and by extension about the Ego. We should not assume their benevolence.

Notes

1. Taking him at his word is not the same as taking him seriously. No one can read interviews with him that have been published and be unaware of his strong sense of irony.

2. As can be seen from its publication history. The first version, “The Fourfold Symbolism of J. G. Ballard,” appeared in Foundation 4 in 1973. It was reprinted in 1976 in J. G. Ballard: The First Twenty Years. A much revised version appeared as the second chapter of Pringle's Earth is the Alien Planet: J. G. Ballard's Four Dimensional Nightmare in 1979. This in turn was reprinted in Re/Search 8/9, a double issue devoted to Ballard, in 1984. That in turn has gone through several printings.

3. Pringle almost gets this (39) but never quite brings himself to take it at face value.

4. This piece is in Ballard's own words, but it was not written by him. It was reconstructed by Pringle from many interviews with Ballard (Re/Search 8/9, 112). Like all such compiled material it must be scrutinized carefully, but it seems clear that Pringle has been faithful to his subject.

5. E.g. Jacobi, “Symbols in an Individual Analysis.”

6. Pringle counted 25 at the time he was writing (25).

7. Actually, the Ocean, which represents the Unconscious, is still there; but the Ego has managed to become oblivious to it. This is the only way in which the Ego can achieve and maintain the autonomy which it needs at this stage in the process of Individuation. Ballard's dry ocean bed is an elegant way of symbolizing the state of apparent but not actual separation which the Ego experiences.

8. This possibility was suggested by Barbara C. Schuyler.

9. I may have fallen into error in many details, but the contours I sketch agree so well with the forms in Ballard's writing that they must be accounted as recognizably accurate characterizations of them. At the same time, one must also recognize that Ballard does not always follow orthodox Jungian theory, if there is such a thing.

   His application of the Jungian model of narcissism to the Anima is a case in point. Narcissism in Jungian theory arises from a sense of incompleteness resulting from alienation from one's own being (Edinger 161). The Ego fears the loss of its precariously held autonomy, which it fought so hard to wrest from the Unconscious, which gives rise to the sense of incompleteness. Trying to overcome this loss of what it has suppressed, the Ego moves to get back in touch with the Self, but mistakes itself for the Self and becomes self-absorbed.

   In Ballard, however, it is an Anima figure which is narcissistic. This results from the attempt of the Ego to separate the “good” nurturing part of the Anima from the “bad” devouring part. The resulting incomplete Anima figure can plausibly be represented as narcissistic because the Anima must be taken as a whole, and on some level the Ego recognizes this. Even so, it is unconventional.