Antonio Traficante
Concordia University College of Alberta, Canada
Of Beast and Wo/man: The Trickster-Figure in D. H. Lawrence's The Fox
My discussion will look at the role of the Trickster-Figure (mentioned by Lawrence on at least two occasions ) as interpreted originally by Paul Radin, the translation of which appears in the chapter titled "On the Psychology of the Trickster-Figure," in Jung's important volume, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Although Lawrence's novella The Fox continues to attract attention from critics (some of this Freudian) nearly nothing, to my knowledge, has been said of this enigmatic story from a Jungian perspective. Among the points of interest to be discussed is the idea of the Shadow, which, in relation to the Trickster-Figure "contains with it the seed of an enantiodromia, of a conversion into its opposite" (Archetypes, p. 272). Or, as some recent critic has explained, "Wherever and whenever he (the Trickster-Figure) appears, and in spite of his unimpressive exterior, he brings the possibility of transforming the meaningless into the meaningful." Lawrence's The Fox, I maintain, brilliantly and most subtly illustrates what has been stated in the quotations above in the love triangle between its three main characters: Henry, March, and Banford.