Mapping the collective unconscious through myth and symbol in Neil Gaiman’s ‘The Sandman’

Abstract

Myths possess the power to carry human nature’s values and to convey its moral precepts, seeking to define man’s place in the universe in addition to depicting the tools with which imagination may be moulded into shape. In this way, they impose a system of values on the ways in which we think. Literature and narrative are the vehicles and the means by which myths, including the ideas and beliefs embedded in them, are passed on from generation to generation. Works like The Sandman exhibit a yearning for the world of the past, one where humanity’s need for wonder is not diminished and archetypal grandeur is equally as strong. Much as the readers’ dreams are themselves unpredictable, the stories narrated in the issues of this graphic novel series are impossible to foresee, ranging from ancient legends belonging to far and distant realms to the most modern of nightmares. In my dissertation, I attempt to map out Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious in The Sandman through the use of myth and symbol. I also look at the way in which Gaiman masterfully uses classical mythology in order to tap into age old sign systems and belief systems to create stories that are deeply meaningful today. These are significant because they invite new social and cultural paradigms to come into being. Drawing on Eliade’s concepts of myth and the sacred as well as Frye’s theories regarding archetypal criticism, this dissertation provides an underlying framework from which the relevance of reading myth in The Sandman may be demonstrated, as well as a depiction of the way in which the pervasiveness of myth is still very relevant in our contemporary world.