As You Like it: A Journey from the Known to the Unknown

Abstract

Orlando and Rosalind in William Shakespeare’s As You Like it — one lacking self-awareness and behaving like a weakling, and the other too sentimental and emotional, preferring to cry herself out of a situation — are unable to cope with the situation that Oliver and Ferdinand have created for them. Both hesitate to declare their love for each other. Both have lopsided personalities, Orlando, being unconscious of the strength of his animus, and Rosalind, having an overdeveloped anima to the detriment of her animus. This paper is an attempt to study the two characters from a Jungian point of view. I contend that both need to individuate and integrate into the conscious mode to show what they are potentially capable of. The change of setting, from the Urban (the conscious) to the Woods (the unconscious), affords them the chance to connect the conscious with the unconscious in order to become whole.