Manifest individuation: Archetypal progressions in Mark Twain's 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' and Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian'

I intend this project to demonstrate how symbolic and mythic influences operate on conscious and unconscious levels within Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. On a conscious level, both Twain and McCarthy work from and generate myths that reflect changes in the cultural perception of a national ideology. On an unconscious level, their writings draw from symbolic and archetypal sources associated with the myths they produce and reproduce. I explore the American mythos of the antebellum South and Westward Expansion, expressed by Twain and McCarthy in relation to the Quest and Underworld myth-cycles, approaching the central characters in my base texts as focal points for a dynamic interplay of disparate archetypal influences. As opposed to a more traditional Jungian analysis, I argue that characters are fluid in their relationship to a range of archetypal qualities that shift, compete, and complement one another in response to narrative movements and trajectories.;The Introduction covers the fundamentals of Jungian psychoanalysis and bridges the gap between traditional literary analysis and the relatively new Post-Jungian school. The question of Jung's continued relevance to the discipline is also discussed.;Chapters One and Two focus on Mark Twain and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, respectively. Twain's manifold identities, the use of dichotomous and Trinitarian patterns in his writings, and his frequent recourse to images of freedom and escape are the focus of Chapter One. The characters in Huck Finn are the focus of Chapter Two, as well as the relationship between Homer's Odyssey and Twain's masterpiece.;Chapters Three and Four focus on Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Chapter Three covers the mythology of the West in American culture, as well as the concept of the anti-myth and the archetypal inversion of Frontier ideology. Chapter Four pairs Dante's Inferno with McCarthy's novel, as well as covering Blood Meridian's representation of the quest-pattern and focusing more specifically on the symbolic qualities of the kid and judge.;The Conclusion brings the two novels and authors together, detailing unexpected symbolic and mythic correlations that suggest a deeper relationship between the two works across the American literary canon.