A Jungian Interpretation of “The Black Goat”
In this paper, I will look at animal symbolism and culture in fairy tales by amplifying an Arabic folk tale
called “The Black Goat,” or “Almaeiz Al’Aswad” through Jungian psychological frameworks. We will
explore concepts such as the shadow, the instincts, the collective consciousness, the collective
unconscious and the persona.
It is important to remember, that in discussing fairy tales, that it is not an individual affair, but a collective
one. So, when we speak of these concepts, we are primarily referring to the collective aspect, often of
culture, but also of the structures in the psyche common to all humanity. But in this paper, I will focus
mainly on Middle Eastern aspects due my direct experience and familiarity with the culture.
The title of the tale, gives us the naming of the initial problem. The color “black” in the title inform us that
this is a tale about the shadow and furthermore, it is representative of the collective shadow in the psyche
of the Middle East. The goat, as an animal, and the adjective “black” in the title notifies us that this is
about the shadow, nature and the instincts, which are often associated with each other. In truth, when
choosing this tale, it was a numinous experience for me, as before I had embarked on the table of
contents in Abu Jmeel’s Daughter, roughly two weeks prior, I had a dream about holding up a black goat
by the horns. Though I am a small sample size, I have had other dreams of animals from this region and
therefore, I see this image as showing the survival of the black goat instinct in the cultural psychic
heredity of the collective unconscious.
The exposition of the story begins with “there “once” was a King,” (Abu Jmeel’s Daughter pg.189), who
has grown tired and bored of and the routine of daily royal life. He desires to leave his seemingly
deadened world of order and collective consciousness and seeks to encounter the fresh and fertile green
world of nature, the world of the collective unconscious. The King longs for freedom and to experience the
wild side but he has become alienated from the archetypal energy and his emotions, due to excessive
control through ego consciousness. He is in the prison of the ego, which has had too much contact with
upper world of the persona and has distanced itself too far from the unconscious.
The King being a fatherly masculine figure, shows that this alienation could ultimately a mother problem,
and getting back to the “Great Mother” which is often found in nature. One of the earliest images of the
Great Mother in Mediterranean as the Androgynous Kybele, who was both male and female, as the
“phallic mother.“ We will see why this is important a little bit later.
Of the dramatis personae in the tale, his faithful minister, accompanies him on his journey. They decide to
go dressed as wise men in order to go unnoticed. The changing of clothes shows the need to shake off
the collective persona of the upper world in order to experience the underworld and upon their travel, they
come across a herdboy of sheep and goats, who is charmingly playing his flute. This is a meeting with the
archetype of the divine child and the Puer Aeternus who doesn’t want to grow up. This is shown in the
tale by the boy missing aspects of childhood as the regressive longing in nostalgia. Though important to
the boy, this can be a sentimental killer in the Middle Eastern psyche as it keeps one from moving
forward. Yet in his positive aspect, and through comparative mythology, we might liken herdboy to
Krishna, the Hindu herdboy and God who plays music with his intoxicating flute and leads his followers to
liberation and experience of the Self. A similar function is allotted to the herdboy in this tale, as he helps
the King cross over the threshold of consciousness to reach the Self.
The herdboy invites the King and his minister to eat with him and he reaches into his bag to pull out which
looks like food for one but is food for three. They proceed to have conversation and the herdboy mentions
that his life runs smoothly except for the female black goat who is autonomous and strays away from the
herd. This is the first peripeteia of the tale. It is not the climax or turning point of the tale, but it is a key
point to keep in mind, as the tale ties, nature and instinct to the feminine. The interactions continue to go
well and the herdboy invites the King and his minister back to meet his family after the third day of their
interaction. He has a father, mother and three siblings. The food for three mentioned earlier, the three
siblings and the trinity of the King, minister and herdboy, gives us the common number pattern of three.
Three is the number of time, of beginning, middle and end. This gives nod to order, the thing that the King
wanted to get away from, to experience the timeless which will be tied to the representative of “disorder”
through the black goat.
Continuing with the tale, the herdboy’s father asks the King to employ the herdboy and give him an
education. The King agrees and this shows how the King is open to a new standpoint and developing this
new standpoint through the puer child. But he decides to not totally pay attention to this aspect of his
psyche because he puts the in charge of accounting and keeping track of the treasury which will cause
the King some problems. This is where the second peripeteia and climax occurs, as the herdboy gaining
more favor with the King becomes framed by the “faithful” minister who steals the King’s treasury and
then and accuses the herdboy of the crime. The herdboy is eventually exonerated and the minister comes
out as the betrayer showing to trust the new developments in one’s psyche rather than blindly trust the
old. The lysis or ending result of the tale is ambiguous, the herdboy proceeds to tell the king that
everyone has their black goat to spoil their happiness (Abu Jmeel’s Daughter pg.189). This leaves the
King no real result but tale serves as lesson about the shadow. That one’s shadow is always going to
spoil the desires of consciousness. I don’t believe this totally addresses the problem of instinct and
shadow. We shall amplify the symbolism of the tale to see if we can get to a more complete lysis.
If we treat this tale like a dream, we may draw much closer to its meaning. Barbara Hannah, one of
Jung’s students says that animals that appear in dreams signify a need to reestablish a connection with
our instincts (Archetypal Symbolism of Animals pg.VII) and the feeling of the need to return to nature
(Archetypal Symbolism of Animals pg.4).This is expressed very clearly by the King as a vital need. The
animal as instinct is not something to be passed of as something everyone has and accepted as
nuisance, but if one aligned with it, it brings a possibility of healing and psychic renewal (Archetypal
Symbolism of Animals pg.IX). In quoting Jung, Hannah says that animal life forms retain a connection to
the “absolute knowledge” knowledge of the unconscious (Archetypal Symbolism of Animals pg.14). We
saw some bit of this already with the King seeing “God everywhere” in nature. What Hannah is also
referring to is Jung’s concept of instinct and archetype, which are two ends of the same pole. The instinct
lies at what Jung called the “infrared” end, and the archetypal image at the “ultraviolet” end. The infrared
end is the impulse to action and automatic behavior, and the archetype is the psychic image in need of
realization. In this case, it is the archetypal image of the black goat that needs realization, as seen
perhaps by my dream on the one hand, and the emphasis of this animal in the tale.
The color black that the goat embodies, signifies a dark or primitive aspect of the psyche, and an
unconscious figure. With this von Franz tells us that the color black is not necessarily tied to morality, but
is associated with the underworldly, the earthly, the unconscious and with fertility (Shadow in Fairy Tales
pg.303).In the tale, the Black Goat is extremely fertile and gives birth to twins every year and is
responsible for the milk sold in the family business. This shows both the need to contact the creativity and
nurturance of the great mother and yet, the inability to separate from reliance on the mother because the
herdboy’s mother refuses to sell the goat, despite its petulant nature which shows the relation to the
phallic mother mentioned earlier that dominated the early Mediterranean psyche, has degenerated to the
image of the goat and phallus in this tale.
It goes without mention and important to note that in the tale, the Black Goat is female, considering that
female characters are in the background and not directly involved in the tale. This completes the
quaternity as the fourth to the trinity of the King, minister and herdboy. This dark, phallic and chthonic
mother image could speak to the King’s primitive anima and inferior function that is comprised of a dark
intuition. We look to von Franz who tells us that the goat’s cousin, the lamb is often known for being
mediumistic and has “hunches” of impending catosphrophe and the death of their master (Archetypal
Patterns pg.138) This is in fact mirrored by the faithful minister who sees the herdboy replacing him as
his master’s favorite. In Hindu Astrological Mythology, the Lunar Asterism of “Purva Bhadra Pada” which
is in between the constellations of Aquarius and Pisces, has chosen the deity of “Aja Eka Pada” or the
“One Footed Goat,” as its representative. Vic Dicara says, that this one footed goat image is a poetic term
for “lighting” (27 Stars 27 Gods pg.140) which is a common image for intuition that sees the whole in a
“flash.” Certainly, the King desires to see the whole and is tired of his superior function that was keeping
imprisoned in the ego world of consciousness and another aspect of sheep and goats is the “herd” like
mentality. The King wants to sacrifice the mass man (collective consciousness) part of himself
(Archetypal Patterns pg.139) and encounter whole as a unique autonomous part of himself, shown by the
Black Goat.
Since animals and the shadow refer to the instincts, they pay heed to the somatic unconscious, and some
symbolism that may be of use is that of the yogic chakras. The animal image in mandala of the Manipura
or navel chakra in the yogic subtle anatomy system is a black ram. The psychic localization of the navel
chakra is the plexus solaris, or the abdominal region and is the center of passion, desire and emotion
(Psychology of Kundalini Yoga pg.34). Somatically, we might say this culturally, the collective
consciousness is at the level of the navel and needs to move to the next stage, the heart. This also gives
us a clue on the King’s problem. He lacks, passion and desire due to excessive control through
consciousness. The autonomous black goat, later reflected by the minister shows the need to let go of
control but to not identify with the emotions once control is relinquished, in order to experience renewal.
This detachment and disidentification with the emotions are shown by the herdboy’s stick that controls the
black goat, and his airy flute, which brings the King to the next chakra of Anahata, which means “unstruck
sound.” In going down into the underworld, the King must let his emotions surface keep them at a stick’s
length. Jung ties the Sun phallus represented by the herdboy’s stick and flute, because the Sun
(King/Solar Plexus) is origin of the wind, as shown in Mithraic liturgy (Psychology of Kundalini Yoga
pg.37). The wind being also tied to the spirit (the Ruch), and that of “airy” nature. Crossing this threshold
is a key to the King’s redemption that is helped along by the little herdboy because later, he teaches the
young people the “Dabkeh” a famous Arabic dance, showing a parallel to the Hindu god Shiva, in the
form of “Nataraj” the lord of dance. Dance, brings together the world of order and chaos through moving
our spirit, and brings us to our next stage in individuation. The heart chakra or Anahata is where the first
experience of the Purusha or Self is (Archetypal Symbolism of Animals pg.140) and psychologically
dance would mean to flow paradoxically with order.
Lastly, black ram (or goat) is a sacrificial animal and therefore, it is the potential explosive emotions
needed to be sacrificed (Psychology of Kundalini Yoga pg.51-52) in order to level up to the next stage in
the King’s individuation. This form of “black rage”” of the shadow, von Franz tells us is where you find the
out and the scapegoat (Shadow in Fairy Tales pg.161), where engage in excessive blame. She says that
while white animals were sacrificed to the sky gods, the dark animals were sacrificed to the subterranean
gods (Shadow in Fairy Tales pg.303). This is the “lesson” of the black goat that is embodied by the
minister, that one should not let blind desire and the use blame to gain favor with the collective conscious
status quo. Rather, it is aligning with the shadow, laying blame on ourselves and sacrificing those
emotions up to the altar, so that we may hear the unstruck sound of the flute that the herdboy plays for
us.
Resources:
Dicara, V. (2014). 27 Stars, 27 Gods: the astrological mythology of ancient India. Lexington, KY: not
identified.
Franz, M.-L. von. (1997). Archetypal patterns in fairy tales. Toronto: Inner City Books.
Franz, M.-L. von, & Franz, M.-L. von. (1996). The interpretation of fairy tales. Boston: Shambhala.
Franz, M.-L. von. (1980). The psychological meaning of redemption motifs in fairytales. Toronto: Inner
City Books.
Franz, M.-L. von. (1995). Shadow and evil in fairy tales. Boston: Shambhala.
Hannah, Barbara. (2013). Archetypal Symbolism of Animals: lectures given at. Chiron Publications.
Jung, C. G., & Shamdasani, S. (2015). The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga: Notes of the Seminar Given in
- Florence: Taylor and Francis.
Nuweihed, J. S. (2002). Abu Jameel’s Daughter and Other Stories: Arab Folk Tales from Palestine and
Lebanon. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books.
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