part of the unconscious mind, made up of primordial images or archetypes from which innate human drives emerge. It’s how the “structure of the soul spontaneously and independently organizes


experiences.” All human beings have access to this collective unconscious, and it influences human


behavior on instinctive, ethical, moral, and cultural levels.


Jung wrote, “The collective unconscious — so far as we can say anything about it at all — appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious... “


Marie-Louise von Franz, a Jungian psychoanalyst, wrote of the value fairy tales hold for understanding the collective unconscious. Unlike myths, fairy tales are not layered with cultural, national, or religious meaning. “Fairy tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes...Every fairy tale is a relatively closed system compounding one essential psychological meaning which is expressed in a series of symbolic pictures and events and is discoverable in these.” Each symbol is connected not only to a thought pattern but to an emotional experience.


In this view, the traditional fairy tale characters of Into the Woods emerge from the collective unconscious. They express a universal human journey: from the known and safe into the unknown in pursuit of their heart’s desire. So, too, do the characters invented by James Lapine, the Baker and the Baker’s Wife. Sondheim writes that that they are “at heart a contemporary urban American couple,” but their quest has a universal resonance. Lapine and Sondheim are the conduit through which these characters and their associated archetypes have emerged from the collective unconscious.•


INTO THE WOODS UPSTAGE GUIDE 13


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24