Jungian Analysis of Eternal Sunshine Term Paper

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The events of the film show that despite having Joel consciously removed from her mind, the unconscious need for him remains. This explains why Clementine ends up with Joel even after they both erase each other. The story of Joel shows the same process. In Joel's case, his collective unconscious also draws him to Clementine. His problem occurs when he finds that Clementine has erased him. He then makes a conscious decision to erase her, with this decision mainly driven by anger and a desire for revenge. However, even as he erases Clementine his unconscious seems to alert him to the fact that this isn't a relationship he should let go of. This explains why Joel begins to fight the process, as his unconscious mind struggles to save his relationship with Clementine and prevent it from being erased. With the way the technique is presented, it seems that there is nowhere for Clementine to hide and she is eventually erased. However, as noted earlier, the collective unconscious cannot be erased. Based on this, regardless of having her erased, Joel returns to Clementine. This is seen even more clearly where Joel and Clementine both listen to their own tapes, with this providing rational evidence that the relationship will not work. However, even with rational evidence they are not able to overcome their unconscious desires to be together. This is shown simply where Clementine explains that it will all fail again and gives Joel rational reasons not to be with her. Joel replies simply by saying okay. It is important that Joel does not state that he thinks things will be better or that he believes that he can change the outcome of their relationship.

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There is simply something deeper that tells him to be with her despite knowing consciously that the relationship will fail. This establishes that the unconscious mind will guide people towards what needs to happen. It is only the conscious mind that identifies problem and chooses to act on them, complicating relationships in the process. Even with the conscious mind and the complications it causes, the unconscious mind still has its way. As the film shows, even deleting an individual's history and the entire memory of the other person cannot keep the two people from each other. Clearly, there is something greater than conscious thought connecting two people. For Clementine and Joel, the something greater is the collective unconscious.

This shows that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film shows how Carl Jung's personality theory applies to real situations and real people. The story of Clementine and Joel shows that they are not drawn to each other by anything logical or conscious. Instead, they are drawn to each other and fall in love because of the collective unconscious, with Joel and Clementine being each other's anima and animus. It is also seen that the conscious mind becomes the source of the problem, where it temporarily separates Joel and Clementine because of the conscious decisions they make. Yet even when they consciously decide not to be together, the power of the collective unconscious is too great. They are the other half for each other, their collective unconscious knows this, and even if being together means that they will both be miserable, nothing can keep them apart.

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