Page 96 - Middle Georgia State University - Knighted 2019

Sophie’s Acceptance of Herself Explained Through Young’s Individuation Theory
Lara Persiani

Throughout the novel The School for Good and Evil, written by Soman Chainani in 2012,
Sophie, one of the main characters, presents many difficulties in accepting her true self. Not only
does she insist on believing she is part of the school for Good, but also, she definitely rejects
believing that she is an Evil. When she has been assigned to the School for Evil, she thinks that
there has to be a mistake. Sophie, in her wrong consideration of herself, shows certain determined
behaviors, identified as actions made in the process of her own individuation, that can be analyzed
through Jung’s analytical theory of the self. According to Jung, individuation can be achieved when
the unconscious and the conscious interact, creating the self. Jung calls this the ego development.
Sophie shows her development through her individualization in her constant fight with the
conscious self, the ego, and the collective unconscious, formed by the persona and the personal
unconscious. Interestingly, through Jung’s studies, Sophie’s personal unconscious can be identified
together with the analysis of her own ego, since her conviction of being a princess is so strong that
it is difficult for her to believe the opposite and the true reality. In understanding Sophie’s mind and
growth, her individuation is seen to come at the end of the novel, when she finally accepts who she
really is.

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who worked for many years with Sigmund Freud.
Together they developed their ideas regarding the self, the mind, and the interpretation of dreams
(Barentsen). Today, their points of view are very different even if they share the same origin
(Barentsen). Freud was more interested in the anatomic changes of humans’ brains that, according
to him, are governed by sexual desires, while Jung, the father of analytical psychology, considered
important the individuation of the self with the goal of finding personal wholeness (Schmidt 1).
Jung’s studies say that someone’s individuation is the interaction between the unconscious and the
conscious of the person for creating their own self, thanks to the balance that is created between
these two components of the mind. Jung calls this the development of the ego or development of the

95