A STUDY OF JOHN DONNE’S “DEATH BE NOT PROUD” THROUGH THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION

Death, the most certain occurrence in our worldly life, has always been feared by man; but, a thorough analysis of “Death be not Proud” by John Donne, gives us a completely different view point. He proposes that although people may think that death is powerful and scary, it absolutely is not; for it holds nothing on us but a temporary sleep, which we will awaken from to our eternity. He also mentions that although we are eternal, death is doomed, since its entire existence is based on others’ lives and has no independent meaning of its own; therefore, with the last person free of this world, death would be no more. He perfectly understates the personified death to the level of a person who over identifies with his persona so much, that once he stops playing the role he has been playing throughout his life, his Being fades away like he never existed. Since John Donne considered man’s eternity in the afterlife as his advantage towards death, this paper intends to discuss how people can find the eternity within themselves through the process of individuation, developed by Carl Gustav Jung. Through this process “by which a man becomes the definite, unique being he in fact is” (volume seven II) and therefore comes to “selfhood” or “self-realization”, one intends to “link himself with the infinite” by proper expression of his “self” or wholeness, as it “is our life’s goal” (volume ۷, II). In this journey one manages to learn death’s message before facing it, so that he will not end up like it will; and by connecting himself with the infinity in this life, reach his eternity in the later, and therefore be forever.

Keywords:

John Donne , death , persona , Jung , individuation