The Shadow Archetype in Mahmud Dowlatabadi’s Novel Yusef’s Days and Nights

The present article studies Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s novel Yusef ’s Days and Nights and attempts to provide a different reading of the novel through the application of C. G. Jung’s theories on the collective unconscious and archetypes. From Jung’s perspective, the collective unconscious is the reservoir of psychic energy and the source of all human memories; also, the archetypes are universal mental structures the recognition of which becomes possible through the symbolic interpretation of dreams, fantasies, myths, and rituals. “Shadow” is one of the most important archetypes that, according to Jung, is the dark half of our being. This shadow is our alter-ego, and it is only when we accept it as a part of our being that we can achieve psychic equilibrium and complete the process of individuation. The process of individuation, and indeed of the conscious mind’s coming to terms with the ‘self,’ usually begins with suffering. Although this initial shock is not often recognized, it is a kind of summoning. However, Yusef (the protagonist of the novel) follows the path of denial and his projections of his fears and anxieties gradually make the distinction between illusion and reality difficult for him. Therefore, the confrontation with theshadow, although difficult and perhaps horrifying, is a necessary step on the road towards mental and psychical maturity.


Introduction
, where he spent his childhood and adolescence. The memories of those days, which were mainly wrought with difficulties and hardships, have been reflected in many of his works. His works have a touch of local color 1 and portray the culture, dialect, rituals, and, in a word, the lifestyle of the people of Khorasan (a province in northeastern Iran).
Dowlatabadi's artistic grandeur, apart from his unique talent and taste, owes to the priceless and valuable experiences that he gained in the different periods of his life, including shepherding, working on his father's farm, immigrating to Tehran and working in a printing house, being arrested by the SAVAK (the intelligence service of Iran during the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty, formed in 1959 and dissolved in 1979, after the Islamic revolution), and acting at the theater. 2 Love for the homeland, attention to history, and reflections on the life of ordinary people, with all its miseries and difficulties, constitute the themes of Dowlatabadi's works. He "created an artistic picture of Iranian villagers in a transitional period through a new approach to rural issues. Literary and social values of Dowlatabadi's works play a considerable role in the evolution of the Iranian novel for him" (Mir'abedini, 1: 550). He has dedicated more than half of his life to writing and literature in general, which makes him one of the greatest contemporary Iranian writers. Of his works, the following could be mentioned: Tah-e Shab (The Bottom of the Night, 1963, his first work); Laye-haye Biaban-i (Desert Layers, 1969); Owsane-ye Baba Subhan (The Legend of Baba Subhan, 1 Local Color is a specific style of writing that describes features and characteristics of a geographical place and its people. For example, in American literature, the events of James Fennimore Cooper's novels mainly happen in central parts of America, while the works of Mark Twain focus on the regions along the Mississippi River. 2 In the opening years of 1960, Dowlatabadi moved to Tehran and began his career as an actor and author. He acted in many plays, including Dostoevsky' s White Nights, Maxim Gorky' s The Lower Depths, Ali Hatami' s The Tale of Magic, Silk, and the Fisherman, and Bahram Beyzayi' s The Feast and the Dolls. 1969);Tangna (Hardship, 1971); Gavarban (The Shepherd, 1972); Hijrat-e Suleiman (Suleiman's Immigration, 1973); Soluk (Journey, 1973);Aqil, Aqil (1975); Didar-e Baluch (Meeting Baluch, 1978); Jay-e Khali-ye Soluch (Missing Soluch, 1980);Kelidar (1985); 3 Ruz va Shab-e Yusef (Yusef 's Days and Nights, 2005); and The Colonel, which won the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature in 2013.
In the present study, we intend to analyze Yusef 's Days and Nights from the point of C. G. Jung's theories. In the introduction to the novel, Dowlatabadi states: "In the second half of 1974 and the first half of 1975, I felt that I had stories in my mind, other than Kelidar, which I should pen down in a proper time . . . So, I put Kelidar aside for some time and focused on those stories which bore heavily on my mind; they had to be written down so they might leave me alone" (Dowlatabadi 7-8). Yusef 's Days and Nights was one of these stories, although its publication was delayed for about 31 years due to the imprisonment of the author and some other events. That is to say, Dowlatabadi wrote it in 1974 and published it in 2005. Unlike many of his works, Yusef 's Days and Nights distances itself from realism and portrays a surrealistic atmosphere in which the narrator tries to reveal Yusef 's mind. In other words, the writer, "after giving the physical description of people, focuses on their inner dimensions . . . and emphasizes the psychology of the characters" (Mir'abedini 2: 551). In fact, the story narrates a kind of internal crisis: "[c]risis comprises the nucleus of many of Dowlatabadi's works . . . However, if we delve into the depth of his stories, we will find out that . . . we must look for the cause of opposition in the deeper and more unseen layers of the text, where thought hides itself behind compositional and written forms and patters" (Hejazi and Shahin 200). The purpose of this article is also to penetrate into these deep and unseen layers of the text, through an appeal to Jung's teachings on the unconscious and archetypes (specifically the archetype of shadow).

Methodology
Carl Gustav Jung (1875Jung ( -1961 was a Swiss psychologist and one of the most famous students of Sigmund Freud. He was 30 when he sent his Studies in Word 3 Dowlatabadi began writing Kelidar in 1969, and it took him about fifteen years to complete it. Kelidar is the story of the turbulent life of "Gol Muhammad, " who is from Sabzevar. "In this novel, Dowlatabadi has managed to take the reader alongside the protagonists to lively scenes of rural and tribal life, thereby confronting them with a part of the history of contemporary peasant movements" (Mir'abedini 3: 863). This novel includes 10 volumes with 2836 pages, and is the longest novel written in Persian literature.
Association to Freud. Welcoming the work, Freud sent Jung a number of his articles and papers, which prepared the way for their future collaboration. However, this collaboration did not last long as Jung, who did not approve of Freud's over-estimation of sexual issues, left the circle of Freudians in 1913 and founded the school of analytical psychology. 4 Jung's renown was established more than anything through his theories of archetypes, 5 which had their roots mainly in his personal experiences and focused on introvert and extrovert characters, complexes, 6 and of course the collective unconscious 7 . Jung's works and opinions have been influential not only in psychology but also in the realms of literature and religion. It should, however, be noted that Jung's theories have similarities with Freud's psychoanalysis. For example, the concept of the "complex, " raised for the first time by Jung, as well as the concept of the unconscious and the tripartite model of psyche are to some extent in line with Freud's theories. Nonetheless, in Jung's model, the emphasis is on the collective unconscious the content of which is comprised of archetypes. Jung's objection to Freud was mainly due to the latter's one-dimensional opinions and extreme emphasis on the sexual drive. This objection became most famous in 1912 through the publication of Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, which asserts that the unconscious has a symbolic content. In Jung's psychology, images and symbols have paramount importance, since they are definitive of those archetypal patterns that exist in the racial memory of human beings and are considered as a window onto their inner world. 4 Analytical Psychology is a school of psychology founded by Jung, which drifts apart from the Freudian psychoanalysis and Alfred Adler's psychological approach. The highest emphasis falls on the collective unconscious and its content (archetypes). 5 Archetype (arche (beginning, origin) + type (pattern)), means the primitive patterns and eternal images that reside in the collective unconscious of human beings and pass on from generation to generation. 6 Jung chooses "complex" to refer to the content of the individual unconscious (that contains all the repressed or forgotten experiences and emotions). Complex is the series of related or associated ideas. Jung believed that complexes usually have their roots in childhood, and that men's complexes are far more complicated than those of women. 7 "Jung's concept of the 'collective unconscious' owes something to the idea of 'collective spirit' , as used by the philosopher Lucien Levy-Bruhl, and to Durkheim's 'social solidarity' whereby individuals combine to form a collective psychical existence" (Sheehy 131). In 1900, "Jung accepted the offer of working as an assistant in Burghölzli asylum in Zurich. Through treating patients there, Jung formulated theories about the causes of psychosis and the methods of curing psychotics, which later led to his appeal to the Freudian psychoanalysis" (Bilsker 23).
Unlike his teacher Freud, Jung pays much attention to religious and mythological symbolism, and tries to link the content of the human unconscious to myths and rituals of primitive people. He believes that the unconscious consists of two levels: the first level is the individual unconscious, and the second one is the collective unconscious. All the suppressed (or repressed) or forgotten intentions and goals are stored in the individual unconscious, whereas the similar patterns and symbols that become manifest in different cultures and periods are related to the collective unconscious, which is the place for the registration of the common and shared memories of humanity. Jung terms these shared experiences, memories, and images "archetypes. " These archetypes are not limited to the bounds of time and space and causality.
In contrast to John Locke, who believed that the human mind was like a tabula rasa at the time of birth, Jung deems that there are eternal archetypes in the mind of every human being, which are the products of the collective unconscious and pass on from one generation to another: They are fundamental and primitive ideas which remain in the individual's unconscious, although they are not originated from their personal experiences. It could be said that the individual becomes aware of these eternal images only when specific experiences in their lives bring back to life those primary experiences. Jung believed that archetypes have universal and all-encompassing nature. (Bilsker 58) Jung points out five main functions for the process of individuation (psychic maturity), all of which are archetypes: 1. Persona: the identity that we make for ourselves and put on like a mask and show to the world. This persona can have multiple forms, as in the workplace, at home, etc. 2. Ego: the center of awareness and the meaning of self-consciousness.
Ego is the unifying force of the psyche and the center of consciousness. 3. Shadow: the unconscious part of the self and the reservoir of repressed or forgotten secrets and emotions. It is all that we want to conceal from the Other's gaze. 4. Anima and Animus: the feminine (emotional-sentimental) aspect of men's unconscious, and the masculine (logical-rational) aspect of women's unconscious, respectively. 5. The Self: the entirety of the psyche. "Self can be considered the basis for the consolidation of the individual" (Bilsker 58).
In Jung's teaching, conscious and unconscious experiences are relative, and the border between the two can never be clearly demarcated, that is to say, there are no absolute consciousness or unconsciousness. Ego takes a liminal position between the two, while interacting with them.

The Archetype of "Shadow"
"Shadow" is one of the practical and functional terms used by Jung to describe that part of the human psyche of which, since unconscious, the person remains unaware. In other words, shadow is like a heavy, albeit unseen, sack we drag behind ourselves, in which there exist parts of our being that have been repressed in the unconscious because of being rejected by our parents or the society. In A Little Book on the Human Shadow, Robert Bly states: We notice that when sunlight hits the body, the body turns bright, but it throws a shadow, which is dark. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. Each of us has some part of our personality that is hidden from us. Parents, and teachers in general, urge us to develop the light side of the personality-move into well-lit subjects such as mathematics and geometry-and to become successful. The dark part then becomes starved. (7) We should, therefore, accept and acknowledge the dark side of our psyche. Bly believes that culture always asks us to have an oppositional, and not a complementary, look at the white and dark sides of our being. In his view, primitive people did not have such an oppositional view and, as a result, lived with a psyche more at ease than we. In Bly's words, "if any help was going to arrive to lift me out of my misery, it would come from the dark side of my personality" (2). This is what we do not perceive in the character of Yusef and what we are going to focus on.

yusef 's Days and Nights
Yusef 's Days and Nights is a short novel that portrays two days in the hard and grievous life of Yusef who is in his early fifties. Yusef lives under severe economic conditions with his parents and sister in a lowly house near the railway. His mother works as a housemaid and the pressure of hard work has made her weary and sick. His father is a laborer, with whom Yusef has no genial relation and their rapport exceeds to no more than mere greetings. Yusef thinks that a shadow is always in his pursuit, a shadow that has turned into his mental obsession. We attempt here to analyze Yusef 's unconscious and show that the shadow, which has become the source of his terror and anxiety, is but a product of his restless mind, which has not succeeded in confronting its own "shadow" and acknowledging it as part and parcel of its own being. The story begins in the following way: "A shadow was in his pursuit. The same old shadow. The shadow hid itself in the shadow of the wall and then appeared again. It was huge. Was it huge in Yusef 's eyes or did the night and the twilight of the alleys made it huger and huger? Whatever it was, this shadow had filled Yusef 's mind. It was something like a nightmare" (Dowlatabadi 11). 8 In Jungian psychology, "shadow" is the most powerful and dominant archetype of the collective unconscious as it brings to life oppositions and conflicts that might lead to the hero's downfall and destruction. In fact, shadow objectifies those features and characteristics from which the individual yearns to flee and keep his or her distance. This, however, is impossible, because shadow is the dark dimension and underside of the individual's psyche, in a sense, his or her alter ego. The masterful depiction of Yusef 's shadow in the following passage reflects our argument: Dream had enthralled Yusef… He could not escape its bond even for an instant. The shadow of a man who was haunting him, was etched in his mind like a stubborn question; yet the shadow ran after him. Day and night, night and day. Inside and outside. Yusef escaped, yet the shadow pursued. He did not look at it. He did not dare. He did not want to see it. He did not want to feel it. But he did. He always felt it. All the time. Every now and then. It followed him. Just like his own shadow. Like him-self… He saw it in his own dream. It was always with Yusef. It was inside Yusef. It seemed as if it had become a part of his soul. It had stuck to his soul. It could not be severed. Always. Always. It had turned into a part of him. Like his hand. Like his leg. Like his memory. Torture. Day and night, night and day, now and then it has stuck to his mind. Always.  Another important issue to which Jung points is that the shadow is always of the same gender as of the individual, not of the opposite one. Similarly, in the 8 All the quotes from the novel are translated into English by the authors of this article. story, Yusef provides masculine descriptions of his stalker: "It seemed to Yusef that this man had worn the same clothes for ages… but his face, what his face looked like? Yusef had not yet seen his face, so how could he know? He could only imagine" (Dowlatabadi 12) as well as "In pursuit of Yusef might -not for certain -be the shadow of a man who had a coat and loose trousers on and wrapped a silken handkerchief around his head. Yusef could not still look behind himself. He did not have the courage. He ran. This was the only way, the only thing which came to his mind" (Dowlatabadi 27). The shadow that pursues Yusef always and everywhere is in fact the objectification of the negative and repressed dimension of his unconscious, which, through projection, has become materialized in the guise of a stranger whose face is always hidden in the darkness. The shadow that Yusef drags behind him hither and thither is thus but the projected form of his fears and anxieties. In The Undiscovered Self, Jung asserts that "the projection carries the fear which we involuntarily and secretly feel for our own evil over to the other side and considerably increases the formidableness of his threat" (68). When these projections exceed the bounds of normalcy, the individual will find it almost impossible to distinguish between illusion and reality. In the novel too, Yusef falls prey to his illusions as none other than he himself ever catches sight of that menacing shadow: His dream took the reins and rode wherever it desired. It made for itself what did not exist… He was in prison to his illusion. His dream made him suffer. His dream made him suffer more. It was the source of his pain. He could no longer tolerate himself. He wished to thrust his fingers into his skull, pluck his brain out and throw it away like a useless fat. He longed to walk in the streets without a brain, without a dream, and without illusion… He had the sense that with these illusions and nightmares he could be no more. .
The problem arises when the individual begins to deny and negate the shadow in himself while "evil has abided in the human's nature without a conscious choice on his part, " and as a result, "in his self, [the shadow] nurtures a threatening enemy" . The opposition between good and evil and evil in the guise of good have always existed in the collective unconscious of the human race. In literature, the most famous examples of this issue could be found in Shakespeare's tragedies. In Hamlet, Claudius is the vice disguised in the mantle of goodness; in Othello, Iago is the objectified evil; in Macbeth, Macbeth and his wife hide behind the mask of virtue; and in King Lear, Edmund is the hypocritical antagonist. Nonetheless, as mentioned before, the problem occurs when we try to wholly negate evil. For Jung, the shadow is the demonic aspect, or better to say, the dark side of human nature. For this reason, coming face to face with the shadow and acknowledging it is a fearsome yet necessary stage in the development of the individual's selfhood and psychic economy. Without accepting the shadow as an inseparable part of one's being, one cannot attain psychological and mental maturity. Yet, Yusef cannot even stand the thought of this encounter; he never dares to cast a look behind himself and look in the eyes of that shadow: "Yusef could not turn his head and cast a glance. He could not. It seemed as if his neck had stiffened. He could not turn it. He did not dare to" (Dowlatabadi 21). The author seems to have put great emphasis on this matter as he repeatedly points to Yusef 's fear at looking at the shadow and encounter it: "Yusef could still not look behind his back. He did not have the courage" (Dowlatabadi 27).
However, escaping from the shadow only helps to make it thicker, to the point where it becomes very difficult (if not impossible) to encounter and deal with it. According to Jung, "fear of the evil which one does not see in one's own bosom but always in somebody else's checks reason every time" (71). In the story, Yusef gradually leaves the path of reason and, as we near the end of the novel, we sense that he abides in the realm of illusion: "This dream had turned into an illness in Yusef. An invisible thread led his dream to a ruin, to a wreckage, to tortuous halls. Halls solitary and horrifying. Dark and scary. Their dust smelled of blood. His mind became agitated. More agitated" (Dowlatabadi 65). This passage and the mental atmosphere it creates brings to mind the psychic, terrifying ambiance of Hitchcock's movies that reflect the agitated mind of the main character. The loneliness of the protagonist makes the traumatic and psychotic memories of the past boil like infectious ulcers, leading to an onslaught on the conscious mind by all those feelings that were repressed behind the lofty wall of the unconscious. As a result, illusions replace reality step by step. Therefore, mental health requires equilibrium. In analyzing types of characters, Jung points to extrovert and introvert characters and declares that a healthy individual should succeed in maintaining a "balance" between the two because these types can never exist in an absolute form. In Dowlatabadi's story, such a balance does not exist in the main character as Yusef is an emotional introvert; that is, one of those who "prefer their internal excitement to their surrounding world" (Bilsker 56).
The unconscious is the locus of oppositional impacts and a place where psychic energy is in dynamic flow. These conflicts can be seen in the character of individuals as well. For example, in order to confront the "shadow" and bring about an equilibrium, the "self " creates a "veil" as a defense mechanism. The "veil" is not our real character, but a mask we put on in order to blind the others from seeing the real of our being. In literature, one of the most famous examples of "veiling" is Robert Louis Stevenson's short novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which puts to view the two oppositional appearances of a single individual. The veil/shadow opposition is also visible in the character of Yusef. His social veil is that of an obedient son who attends Quran classes; yet behind this veil lurks the shadow with all its negative features, which finally succeeds in upsetting the balance and gaining dominance. For this reason, "Jung conceives of the shadow as an 'ethical problem' , which challenges the Ego in its entirety" (Bilsker 63). The completion of the process of individualization and psychic maturity necessitates the acknowledgement of the shadow and its merging into being. From Jung's point of view, the shadow is the reptilian tail we drag with ourselves everywhere. It is interesting to note that in Yusef 's Days and Nights Dowlatabadi also uses the image of a crawling creature (probably snake) to refer to the shadow: "It crawled on the ground and came near. It crawled near" (17).
The other opposition in the story is that of the two contradictory images of woman, which in Jung's theory exist as the archetype of the ideal woman/good mother and the archetype of the terrible mother, which includes "(the negative aspects of the Earth Mother): the witch, sorceress, siren, whore, lamia, femme fatale−associated with sensuality, sexual orgies, fear, danger, darkness, dismemberment, emasculation, death; the unconscious in its terrifying aspect" (Guerin et al. 187). The image of the good mother is realized in the character of Yusef 's mother, who always supports her son: Mother supported Yusef. She took her own morsel and put it into his mouth. Yusef was all her hope. She had spent her life caring for him . . . care and concern for her children, hot and cold weather, coming and going, tolerating humiliation and all that happened, and unknown and hidden illnesses had worn her out . . . Yusef 's mother was a good woman; she never complained about her fate; she never boasted of her income to her husband and children. She never made complaint about hard work. She never came to the house with empty hands . . . every month, without letting Shamsollah [Yusef 's father] notice, gave a few tomans from her wages to Yusef.  Yusef 's mother embodies all the traits of Jung's good mother archetype. The opposite of the good mother archetype is that of the witch and the bad woman, which is embodied in the character of Fakhri, the neighbor's wife: lustful, luring, and hellish: Look. It seems as if Fakhri deliberately discloses half of her body from beneath her mantle, as if she wants to draw attention to her, playing thus her feet. She shakes her body, while letting out half-moans. It seems she is dancing her body . . . She keeps her looks and smiles for Yusef. This is what she does day and night. She desires to draw Yusef 's attention to her. And Yusef knows this. It is a long time he has noticed it. He doesn't know what to do… Fakhri really arouses his emotions.  Fakhri's description corresponds perfectly with every feature attributed to the archetype of witch or femme fatale. In Jung's theory, anima, or the female alter ego, possesses two different aspects in men's psyche: the ideal woman (the positive aspect) against the luring woman (the negative aspect). In fact, being enchanted by the luring woman always culminates in negative and destructive consequences. Many instances of this issue could be found in mythology, for example, in the stories of Scylla or the Sirens, who with alluring appearance caused the death of their victims. Such contrasts, which have always existed in archetypes, in a way reflect the conflicts in the world inside human beings' mind and psyche. The present study was an attempt to prove, through the analyses of these conflicts, that "the oppositional thinking which has originated in the author's mind creates characters who, against their true feelings and inclinations, come into conflict with themselves and with the other" (Hejazi and Shahin 205).

Conclusion
In Jung's theory, the unconscious is like a sea and the conscious mind resembles an island emerging through the mist. Apart from pointing to the immensity and infinitude of the unconscious, this simile puts emphasis on its extraordinary importance. In his psychological model, Jung focused his attention more on the unconscious, especially on the collective unconscious the content of which (i.e., the archetypes) is more or less the same everywhere. He believed that the collective unconscious is the source of energy and the reservoir of all the hidden memories of humanity. Therefore, he always asserted that "great art till now has always derived its fruitfulness from the myth, from the unconscious process of symbolization which continues through the ages and which, as the primordial manifestation of the human spirit, will continue to be the root of all creation in the future" (77). In his theory, the unconscious and the archetypes make use of the symbol-making process; however, this symbol-making does not signify a one-to-one correspondence (A means B), since this image-symbol is sublime and can have several meanings. Thus, it cannot be fixed to a constant and changeless meaning. Among these primordial and everlasting images, Jung put great emphasis on the "shadow" archetype and deemed it the counterpoint to persona (veil), and the demonic and dark side of human nature. We analyzed this demonic dimension in the short novel Yusef 's Days and Nights and showed that the shadow, which Yusef constantly mentions, is, in fact, the projection of his restless mind, which has not succeeded in bringing about his mental equilibrium and accomplishing the individuation process due to his failure in acknowledging the dark half of his being. As a result, this shadow gradually becomes denser to the point that it makes distinction between reality and illusion highly problematic for Yusef, culminating in a replacement of reality with illusions. This brings us back to the point mentioned again and again by Jung, that as long as we deny the shadow as a part of our being, we will not attain psychic maturity and equilibrium. In short, the "other" always lurks within the "self "; in order to keep a safe distance from it, we should not take shelter in denial and negation, but acknowledge its presence in the midst of our being.