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Abstract
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The Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea is one of the clearest manifestations of the anima in mythological literature (Durant). Pygmalion, as an artist, creates a woman according to his inner image and falls in love with her. The central question of the myth is whether Pygmalion attains psychological development through his encounter with the anima or becomes trapped in projecting his ideal onto the external world. In contrast, Shakespeare’s Othello depicts a relationship in which the male protagonist, Othello, fails to recognize the anima and becomes caught in its negative, shadow-like projection. This failure to recognize the anima drives him toward jealousy, violence, and destruction. The gap between the “real woman” and the “unconscious woman” onto whom Othello projects his inner world constitutes the central tragedy of the play. Thus, analyzing the anima in this work provides insight into the psychological mechanisms of the characters. In George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, we also observe the tension between the idealized and real woman. Henry Higgins, like the mythological Pygmalion, attempts to “remake” a woman according to his mental criteria; however, unlike the myth, this process leads to the discovery of the complex dimensions of the anima, rather than its simple realization. Examining the anima in major literary works such as Pygmalion, Othello, and Shaw’s Pygmalion demonstrates how characters interact with the anima archetype and the psychological transformations they undergo. This analysis enables literature to be studied not only as narrative but as a map of individual psychological development. This study aims to explore how Jung’s concept of the anima is represented in three mythological, tragic, and modern texts, and the factors leading to its realization or failure in the main characters. The research seeks to conceptually analyze the anima in each work, explain its manifestation in characters, examine its influence on character development and narr
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