The Shadow


Harry Potter, as everyone knows a famous fantasy novel written by J.K. Rowling. Throughout the series of this story, there is a person called the dark lord Voldemort can be seen with Harry. Voldemort represents the dark and evil. Harry represents the light and good. But did you think both two are highly interconnected? So the question: Is Voldemort exactly evil, or is he just Harry's shadow that Harry needs to embrace and use for good? However, if you consider the seven Harry Potter novels, you will discover that Harry and the Dark Lord are closely intertwined, and to some extent, Harry "is" Voldemort, and Voldemort "is" Harry. Harry is elevated to a hero in the wizarding community by Voldemort. Thus, in my opinion regarding the contentious issue of whether Voldemort is evil or not, Voldemort is Harry's dark side, which Harry must own, and because of Voldemort, Harry turns into a good person.

Through the above explanation of Harry and Voldemort, you may find some words like Shadow, dark side, and another side likewise. What did I mean by that? Is one person having two sides? According to Carl Jung’s analytical psychology, Shadow is an archetype of the human psyche which represent the dark side. Shadow is characterized by wildness, chaos, and the unknown. Everyone has a dark side within us. Also, everyone must battle their own inner demons and shadows. The Shadow is currently our unconscious selves. It's all the aspects of who we are that we deny and may even be ashamed of. In literature mostly this archetype takes by the villain.  

Lao Tzu expressed his perspective on good and evil in the Tao Te Ching, the main book of Taoism, saying that there is no genuine evil or good and that darkness is simply the opposite of brightness. Together, they complete the universe. As well as Carl Jung said in his Psychology and Religion: West and East book, everyone has a shadow, and the less it is integrated with the person's conscious life, the blacker and thicker it is. If a weakness is aware, the person always has a chance to correct it. But if it is inhibited and cut off from consciousness, it never gets corrected and is more likely to come out suddenly. In every way, it creates an unconscious barrier that sabotages our greatest plans.

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