[In the following essay, Blair examines Frisch's utilization of two archetypes—the Wise Old Man and the Shadow—in Homo faber and relates it to C. G. Jung's psychology and use of imagery.]

Max Frisch's familiarity with the work of C. G. Jung and his use of images related to Jungian ideas have increasingly received critical attention.¹ In particular, Jean Quenon's study of Frisch's plays explores the self-realization proc ess of the dramatic characters with reference to Jungian psychology. The present essay, however, is concerned less with psychology per se and more with the archetypal imagery employed by Frisch in the novel Homo faber: Ein Bericht (1957).² The imagery which adds an overall richness to the novel and elevates Faber's search for self-discovery from the plane of the particular to that of the general, or universal, centers around two archetypes: the Wise Old Man and the Shadow.

Critics have frequently compared the death-like figure of Professor O. to death figures in Thomas Mann's novella Der Tod in Venedig and have been content to view him simply as a harbinger of death.³ However, when he is reconsidered as a counterpart to Armin and with reference to Jung's writings, his function in the novel becomes clearer and emerges with a positive meaning. One readily notices that the importance of the characters Professor O. and Armin lies in their symbolic value rather than in any interaction in the plot as personalities; indeed, Armin does not actively participate in the novel at all. Professor O. and Armin are actually different aspects of the archetype of the spirit, or the Wise Old Man.

Jung describes the spirit archetype and some of its manifestations in “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales” (1948).⁴ Originally, spirit was a phenomenon felt “as an invisible, breath-like ‘presence’”:

In keeping with its original wind-nature, spirit is always an active, winged, swift-moving being as well as that which vivifies, stimulates, incites, fires, and inspires. To put it in modern language, spirit is the dynamic principle, forming for that very reason the classical antithesis of matter—the antithesis, that is, of its stasis and inertia. Basically, it is the contrast between life and death.⁵

In dreams and fairytales the spirit frequently manifests itself in the figure of the Wise Old Man—a magician, doctor, professor or any other authority figure—who appears in situations in which the dreamer or hero needs assistance such as insight or good advice. Often the Wise Old Man asks such questions as “who? why? whence? and whither? for the purpose of inducing self-reflection and mobilizing moral forces.” And, as with all archetypes, the Wise Old Man has a good side and a “partly negative and unfavorable, partly chthonic” side, which is often expressed as a physical handicap such as blindness or loss of a limb. He is thus a reconciliation of opposites.⁶

The description of Professor O. as a sinister death symbol (“Totenschädel,” 103, 193) is only the negative aspect of the Wise Old Man and one which actually serves a positive purpose: to force Faber to recognize the reality of death and thus to value life. Professor O. has been a model figure for Faber as a respected mathematician and professor of electrodynamics (an allusion to Jung's “dynamic principle”), and his three sudden appearances illustrate his theory that travel is atavistic (16, 103).⁷ Moreover, he asks Faber many questions at his second and third appearances: “Wohin denn so eilig, Faber, wohin denn? … Wie geht's denn immer? …” (102) and “Was ich denn in Zürich mache? … ‘Was zeichnen Sie denn, Faber?’ … ‘Wie geht's Ihrer schönen Tochter?’” (193-94). An “all-knowing” quality is suggested in his knowledge that Sabeth is Faber's daughter, as well as in his prophetic remark made many years earlier: “Eine Hochzeitsreise (so sagte er immer) genügt vollkommen … und nur noch die Hochzeitspaare werden mit einer Droschke durch die Welt fahren, sonst kein Mensch—Sie lachen, meine Herren, aber Sie werden es noch erleben!” (103-104, my italics). Faber himself refers to his and Sabeth's “Hochzeitsreise” in his thoughts following Professor O.'s remark about his daughter (194), and, with typical irony, Faber does indeed experience this, except that instead of a “Droschke” he and Sabeth find only an “Eselkarren” (128). But the beneficial role played by Professor O. is most clearly indicated in his first appearance, namely, in Faber's dream on the plane to Mexico City:

ich träumte von Ivy, glaube ich, jedenfalls fühlte ich mich bedrängt, es war in einer Spielbar in Las Vegas (wo ich in Wirklichkeit nie gewesen bin), Klimbim, dazu Lautsprecher, die immer meinen Namen riefen, ein Chaos von blauen und roten und gelben Automaten, wo man Geld gewinnen kann, Lotterie, ich wartete mit lauter Splitternackten, um mich scheiden zu lassen (dabei bin ich in Wirklichkeit gar nicht verheiratet), irgendwie kam auch Professor O. vor, mein geschätzter Lehrer an der Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule, aber vollkommen sentimental, er weinte immerfort … aber das Blödsinnigste von allem:—Ich bin mit dem Düsseldorfer verheiratet! … Ich wollte protestieren, aber konnte meinen Mund nicht aufmachen, ohne die Hand davor zu halten, da mir soeben, wie ich spürte, sämtliche Zähne ausgefallen sind, alle wie Kieselsteine im Mund—

(15-16).

Here, Professor O. is warning Faber of future events, for as a respected advisor-figure his very presence should induce Faber to look carefully at his dream.⁸ This dream, coming as it does very early in the novel, illustrates two of the main themes of Homo faber through archetypal imagery: the discovery of personal identity and “Bildnis” or “Du sollst dir kein Bildnis machen.”

Jung's essay “The Development of Personality” (1934) elucidates much of the dream's symbolism, as well as certain details of Faber's earlier life and present situation.⁹ “The achievement of personality,” writes Jung, “means nothing less than the optimum development of the whole individual being. It is impossible to foresee the endless variety of conditions that have to be fulfilled”; however, the complete development of the whole individual being is an ideal which is unattainable but towards which one must strive nevertheless. But it is a “bold venture” to develop personality, and both the individual and society shrink back in fear from such an undertaking. Nor can one be told or advised to develop one's personality: only “acute necessity” and the “force of inner or outer fatalities,” added to conscious moral decision, and finally “vocation” will motivate a person to rise from the mass. By “vocation” Jung means

an irrational factor that destines a man to emancipate himself from the herd and from its well-worn paths. … He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths. Anyone with a vocation hears the voice of the inner man: he is called. That is why the legends say that he possesses a private daemon who counsels him and whose mandates he must obey. …

The original meaning of “to have a vocation” is “to be addressed by a voice.”

In his dream Faber hears himself called, just as he actually had been called over the loudspeaker in the Houston airport. Because he resisted this earlier call—an irrational act completely contrary to his business-like attitude and reverence for timetables—his dream repeats this summons. Symbolically, this is Faber's “vocation,” an inner calling to free himself from the crowd and from his own well-worn paths of habit and false security in technology. Professor O. is here warning Faber (his weeping suggests some disaster) and thus gives added encouragement to his “private daemon” or guardian spirit; and because of Professor O.'s interest in Faber's dissertation on the so-called Maxwell's Daemon (“Maxwell'scher Dämon”), the play on words further strengthens the association between Professor O. and “daemon.” The automatic gambling machines symbolize the “unconscious automatism” in which personality development will become stuck if not accompanied by the moral decision to follow the path one truly believes to be the best; the colors are the primary ones from which all others derive and may suggest the primary elements of Faber's personality. Faber's nakedness obviously suggests the unmasking and stripping away of false coverings and defenses. In its unnaturalness the marriage to Herbert Hencke foreshadows the unnatural “marriage” to Sabeth—Faber actually does propose marriage to her on the ship—and the divorce will be Sabeth's “departure” or death (word play on the basic meaning of scheiden, “to go away, depart”). The Freudian fear of one's teeth falling out indicates the fear of castration, as other critics have already pointed out;¹⁰ later, castration as punishment for incest will be symbolized by Faber's impotence (178). Finally, the entire dream is set in a Las Vegas gambling casino and graphically illustrates one of Jung's concluding remarks from “The Development of Personality”:

To develop personality is a gamble, and the tragedy is that the daemon of the inner voice is at once our greatest danger and an indispensable help.¹¹

Hanna's friend Armin, a blind man, is the other Wise Old Man figure who is not mentioned until near the end of the novel. Armin is clearly a respected, advisor-figure who inspires in Hanna a love for the ancient Greeks; they even planned someday to visit Greece together, and it was their secret (184). He has thus spiritually guided Hanna, as she physically guided him through Munich, prefiguring Sabeth's guiding of the “blind” Faber. Like Professor O., Armin too is somewhat mysterious, for while they were in Munich Hanna did not know where or how he lived; yet when describing the Zürich period, she tells Faber that he was her uncle. And just as Professor O. appears to Faber, Armin appears to Hanna at three different times and places—Munich, Zürich, and London. Faber finally remembers Armin as the old man at the Café Odéon whom Hanna often fetched and guided to the tram; although Faber had not really noticed him, Armin, says Hanna, had noticed Faber (184).

Armin's relation to the spirit archetype is also suggested in water imagery: not only does he live at the “Pension Fontana” (fontanus, “of a spring or fountain”) which happens to be located on “Gloriastraße,” but his death is by water when his ship never reaches port (185). Water is not only the most common symbol for the unconscious, it is also the “valley spirit”: “Psychologically, therefore, water means spirit that has become unconscious.”¹²

Armin and Professor O., then, are two aspects of the Wise Old Man who is a manifestation of the spirit archetype: their initials A and O suggest the alpha and omega of the spirit. Professor O. especially vivifies “the end” by his death-like figure and his warnings of Faber's impending death. That Frisch has Professor O. (omega) precede Armin (alpha) in the novel, thus reversing the traditional order to give “the end and the begining,” is consistent with the novel's movement from west (darkness, death) to east (light, birth) and with Faber's knowledge of the “ending” of his encounter with his daughter when he first begins writing his Bericht. Armin and Professor O. are also linked through their association with the Café Odéon, recalling the original circular Odeion in Athens which was used not only for musical performances but also as a law court.¹³ Moreover, it is after Faber has given away his “Omega” watch at Megara (129) and knows that his time is up (“Meine Zeit war abgelaufen,” 136) that he learns from Professor O. that the Odéon is going to be torn down (194). The performance will soon be over, and in his own “last hour” Faber will learn of Professor O.'s death. These suggestive allusions are clearly not coincidental.

Frisch also suggests the Shadow archetype with regard to Walter Faber. “To become conscious of [the Shadow],” writes Jung in Aion, “involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”¹⁴ Naturally, since this recognition is painful, it can be resisted by projecting all that is negative into the environment. In the case of projections, “both insight and good will are unavailing because the cause of the emotion appears to lie … in the other person.” It is easy to see the similarity between projection and image (“Bildnis”): both involve the image one perceives of another person but which really originates in oneself. In summing up this situation Jung writes, “there is little hope that the subject will perceive this [projection] himself. He must be convinced that he throws a very long shadow before he is willing to withdraw his emotionally-toned projections from their object.” Thus, the suggestion of Faber's Shadow is directly related to the themes of self-knowledge and “Bildnis.”

In Homo faber light imagery is frequently contrasted with shadow and darkness. Some descriptions of shadow, however, are best understood when taken to mean something more than a literal shadow. After the forced landing at Tamaulipas, for instance, Faber looks out over the desert in the moonlight and betrays an inexplicable fear which he rationalizes but which the reader easily sees through: “auch keine Dämonen, ich sehe, was ich sehe: die üblichen Formen der Erosion, dazu meinen langen Schatten auf dem Sand, aber keine Gespenster” (24). Against the background of external and internal wasteland and erosion, Faber's shadow is a “Gespenst” because he is trying so hard to avoid self-knowledge. Interestingly, as he watches his films in Düsseldorf he describes a scene shot in Avignon in a similar way: “Das Wasser der Rhone, kalt, Sabeth versucht es mit den Zehen und schüttelt den Kopf, Abendsonne, mein langer Schatten ist drauf” (189).

But the most important shadow passage in the novel is that of Faber swimming in Havana: “Das klare Wasser, man sieht den Meeresgrund, ich schwimme mit dem Gesicht im Wasser, damit ich den Meeresgrund sehe; mein eigener Schatten auf dem Meeresgrund: ein violetter Frosch” (176). The image of the violet frog, like the subsequent images of the snail and the Alps, may be taken as a symbol of the self.¹⁵ This swimming episode stands in sharp contrast with the earlier one at the Rio Usumancinta, where the water was so murky and disgusting that Faber kept his eyes and mouth closed. Dark waters frequently symbolize the “dark psyche” which must be penetrated before any ascent to the light may take place, and Faber's experiences between his first visit to Guatemala and Sabeth's death constitute a “descent into the depths.”¹⁶ Faber's ascent to self-knowledge, which begins slowly after her death, is suggested here in the clear water. Moreover, in this clear water Faber not only sees his own shadow but also the “Meeresgrund”: Frisch's use of this word three times suggests a symbolic meaning. Since water is the most common symbol of the unconscious, “Meeresgrund” would seem to symbolize something like the “foundation of the unconscious,” or what Jung terms the “ground principles, the archai, of the unconscious.”

Two other passages are of especial importance for Faber's self-discovery. In the first Faber meets Professor O. at the Café Odéon in Zürich. Professor O. asks, “Was zeichnen Sie denn, Faber?” and Faber explains that “Ich zeichnete auf das Marmor-Tischlein, nichts weiter, eine Spirale, in dem gelben Marmor gab es eine versteinerte Schnecke, daher meine Spirale—” (194). As previously mentioned, the snail is one of the symbols of the self which have been proposed by Jung. Michael Butler also accepts this identification, writing that “held in the rigidity of marble, the fossilized snail still manages to suggest movement towards its own centre, just as Faber, held fast in the deadening routine of a life-time, is nevertheless fast approaching his real identity.”¹⁷ I would suggest, however, that the marble represents the image Faber has made, and allowed others to make, of himself. As a Wise Old Man figure, Professor O.'s presence here also associates the scene with the themes of self-discovery and acceptance of death.

The second passage, Faber's flight over the Alps from Zürich to Athens, immediately follows the Café Odéon passage.¹⁸ Among inorganic symbols, mountains frequently represent the self. Although the alps have been familiar to Faber since his youth, this flight, his last flight, is his first over them, just as he only now, at the end of his life, “sees” himself for the first time. Even from the altitude of the plane, Faber notices individual aspects of the landscape—the play of shadow in the valleys, a white brook, various plants, a herd of cattle—whereas in the Erste Station he was unaware of nature unless it disgusted or frightened him. However, the water imagery, “Wunsch … das Wasser hören, vermutlich ein Tosen, Wasser trinken—” and “ein neuer Stausee. Sein Wasser: wie Pernod, grünlich und trübe, darin Spiegelweiß von einem Firn, ein Ruderschiff auf dem Ufer, Segment-Damm, kein Mensch” (195); and the light imagery, “Schräglicht des späteren Nachmittags,” “Die Felsen im späten Licht: wie Gold,” and most importantly, “Licht, das man mit dem Tod bezahlen müßte, aber sehr schön, ein Augenblick” (195-96), relate less to the self and begin the expansion of focus from the self to the cosmos which culminates in the “Verfügung für Todesfall” passage.¹⁹

Jung has written that “archetypes are complexes of experience that come upon us like fate, and their effects are felt in our most personal life.”²⁰ “Like fate” well describes the interlocking experiences which Faber has and which so profoundly affect his life. It is not, however, a question of Schicksalmystik; Faber is motivated by “inner fatalities” and “conditions that have to be fulfilled” which lead him to self-discovery which, in turn, necessitates confronting his Shadow. These “inner fatalities” stem from the tension between who he is and who he has thought himself, and pretended, to be; or as Hanna says, they belong to him just as his whole life does. Faber's painful self-discovery and knowledge is a particular example of a universal experience, and the Wise Old Man and Shadow archetypes emphasize the universal and timeless dimension of this experience.

Notes

1. See Rhonda L. Blair, “Homo faber, homo ludens, and the Demeter-Kore Motif,” Germanic Review 56 (1981): 140-50, which deals with the Jungian Mother archetype; Jean Quenon, “Perspective und psychologischer Leitfaden,” in Die Filiation der dramatischen Figuren bei Max Frisch, Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Université de Liège 214 (Paris: “Les Belles Lettres,” 1975), pp. 21-26 and ns. 1-27, which deals with the personal and collective unconscious, and particularly with the individuation process and discovery of personality, the persona, and projection; and Doris Fulda Merrifield, Das Bild der Frau bei Max Frisch (Freiburg im Breisgau: Becksmann, 1971), pp. 28-29, which briefly comments upon the anima/animus and the Divine Child archetype.

2. Homo faber, vol. 7 of Gesammelte Werke in zeitlicher Folge, ed. Hans Mayer, Werkausgabe Edition, 12 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976); page numbers are to this edition and will be cited parenthetically in the text.

3. See, for instance, Ulrich Weisstein, Max Frisch, Twayne World Authors Series 21 (New York: Twayne, 1967), pp. 67, 70, 72; and Michael Butler, The Novels of Max Frisch (London: Oswald Wolff, 1976), pp. 96-98.

4. Quotations from Jung's writings are from The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, eds. Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, and Gerhard Adler, trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX, vol. 9, pt. 1: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1959); vol. 9, pt. 2: Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (2nd ed. 1968); and vol. 17: The Development of Personality (1954) (New York and Princeton: Pantheon and Princeton Univ. Press, for the Bollingen Foundation, 1953-1973). These volumes will be hereafter cited, respectively, as Archetypes, Aion, and Personality. The full title and date of publication of an individual paper within the above volumes will be given only when that paper is first cited; all bibliographical information is taken from the Bollingen volumes. It will be noted that the original editions of all three works were published prior to 1957 and thus could well have been known to Frisch.

5. Archetypes, p. 210. This essay was originally published as a lecture (1946) and then revised and published as “Zur Phänomenologie des Geistes in Märchen” in Symbolik des Geistes (Zürich: Rascher, 1948). Three years later, in “The Psychological Aspects of the Kore” (1951), Jung uses only the name “the wise old man” for this archetype (Archetypes, p. 183).

6. Archetypes, pp. 216-17, 220, 226.

7. For the importance of the triadic pattern of allusions and events, see Blair, p. 141 and passim; and Butler, pp. 109-13.

8. For other interpretations of Faber's dream, see, for example, Ernst Schürer, “Zur Interpretation von Max Frischs Homo faber,” Monatshefte 59 (1967): 338; and Butler, pp. 110, 164 n. 17. Faber does not actually dream about Ivy but simply makes the association between the feeling of oppression, the plant ivy, and his mistress.

9. Personality, pp. 167-68. Originally a lecture entitled “Die Stimme des Innern” (1932), it was revised and published as “Vom Werden der Persönlichkeit” in Wirklichkeit der Seele (Zürich: Rascher, 1934). For the following quotations, see Personality, pp. 171-76.

10. Butler, p. 164 n. 17; and Walter Schmitz, Max Frisch “Homo faber”: Materialien, Kommentar, Reihe Hanser 214, Literatur-Kommentare 5 (München: Carl Hanser, 1977), p. 102.

11. Personality, p. 186. The original German passage reads: “Das Werden der Persönlichkeit ist ein Wagnis, und es ist tragisch, daß gerade der Dämon der innern Stimme höchste Gefahr und unerläßliche Hilfe zugleich bedeutet” (pp. 210-11).

12. “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious,” in Archetypes, pp. 18-19. The original title is “Über die Archetypen des kollektiven Unbewußten,” first published in Von den Wurzeln des Bewußtseins (Zürich: Rascher, 1954).

13. The Odeion of Pericles was contained within the Sacred Precinct of Dionysus Eleuthereus (cf. Blair, p. 145); for its use as a law court, see Aristophanes Wasps 1109. The other Odeon in Athens, that of Herodes Atticus, is still used today and is located nearby, to the west of the Theater of Dionysus.

14. Aion, p. 8. The Bollingen volume is the translation of Part 1 of Aion: Untersuchungen zur Symbolgeschichte, Psychologische Abhandlungen 8 (Zürich: Rascher, 1951). The difference between the personal Shadow and the archetypal Shadow is perhaps best understood as the difference between the “relative evil” of one's own nature and “absolute evil” (p. 10). For the following quotations, see Archetypes, p. 20; and Aion, p. 9.

15. Jung suggests various “symbols of the self” in several of his essays; for example, “the self also has its theriomorphic symbolism. The commonest of these images in modern dreams are … the elephant, horse, bull, bear, white and black birds, fishes, and snakes. Occasionally … tortoises, snails, spiders, and beetles. The principal plant symbols are the flower and the tree. Of the inorganic products, the commonest are the mountain and the lake” (Aion, p. 226).

16. Archetypes, pp. 17-19; and p. 38 for the “archai of the unconscious.”

17. Butler, p. 90. For opposite views, see Schmitz, pp. 82, 137-38 ns. 8, 10; and Schürer, p. 337. The spiral is also a labyrinth symbol, and as such it suggests death and the Underworld; see Karl Kerényi, Labyrinth-Studien: Labyrinthos als Linienreflex einer mythologischen Idee, 2nd ed., Albae Vigiliae, N.F. Heft 10 (Zürich: Rhein, 1950), pp. 11-16, 22-25, 32-38, 47. Earlier labyrinth images in the novel include the Guatemalan jungle, the corridors and doorways of the medieval fortifications on the Acrocorinth, and the tangle of Athenian streets; cf. Butler, pp. 90, 92-94.

18. Butler, p. 98, mentions this passage, but for the significance of the language which “controls the experience in a meaningful synthesis” rather than for any relationship to the self or the “Verfügung für Todesfall” passage; for a very different view, see Schmitz, p. 139 n. 18.

19. See Blair, pp. 147-48.

20. Archetypes, p. 30.