Otto Rank was a student and friend of Sigmund Freud, who, like Jung, turned in a different direction in the study of psychology. Rank focused on the "individual's struggle to become separate, whole, creative." Central to Rank's thinking were the binary oppositions of "life fear/death fear, the wish to differentiate/wish to merge, and the causality principle/will principle" (Khamsi). Rank saw these oppositions developing out of the family dynamic and manifesting as ten basic elements of the hero myth. Rank's ten elements of the hero myth are similar to Lord Raglan's 22 incidents, but Raglan's incidents lead to the death of the hero while Rank's lead "to the hero's triumph" (Thury and Divinney 769).
Ten Basic Elements of the Hero Myth
- The child is the offspring of royal or immortal parents.
- Difficulties precede the conception (the mother may be a virgin).
- The child's life is threatened following a prophecy that the child will be a danger to the parent/royal personage.
- The child is separated from parents.
- The child is exposed, often in a basket or other container.
- The child is placed in water, either with the intent to destroy the child or to save the child.
- The child is rescued by animals, underlings, or commoners, such as shepherds.
- The child is suckled or raised by animals or commoners.
- The child is recognized as the hero, often due to a mark, wound, or scar.
- The hero reconciles with the parent or the parent's representative or takes revenge on the parent.
Very young children view their parents as perfect, but, as they grow older, see them as flawed in comparison to their perceptions of other parents or as additional children enter the family. Selfishly, the child wants the parents' total focus, as the parents focused on the child when an infant, giving the attention the child feels is his or her due. Symbolically, then, the basket or container represents the womb and the water, the placental fluid. The parents, now seen as flawed, are symbolized as animals, lesser persons, or common (as opposed to their original rank as royal or divine). The revenge the hero feels arises out of anger for perceived mistreatment by the parents. The reconciliation with the parents restores the parents to their 'rightful' place (Boree).
Binary Oppositions in Rank
- Life Instinct vs. Death Instinct: The life instinct is directed toward individuality, personal competence, and independance. The death instinct is the tendency to submerge the individual within the family, community, or whole of humanity (Boree).
- Fear of Life vs. Fear of Death: Coupled with these instincts is the fear of life, that the search for individuality and dependence will lead to "separation, loneliness, and alienation." On the other hand, the submergence in community may lead to losing the self within "the whole, stagnating, being no-one" (Boree).
- Mortality vs. Immortality: Rank sees "the fear of mortality and the wish for immortality" as primary motivators for individual human behavior. This desire for immortality results in the creation of artifacts (art) that can outlive the individual; procreation, the extension of the individual biologically through descendants; and identification, actions that will lead to being remembered. This struggle for immortality is, in Rank's view, the primary force leading to "the development of culture and civilization" (Khamsi).
- Wish to Differentiate vs. Wish to Merge: Rank believed that "the essential struggle of [humanity] was not to achieve health or normalcy but rather to express [himself/herself] creatively." This requires that the individual "believe in [oneself] as a self-reliant individual." But each person must also learn not only "to accept [his/her] own difference [but also] have it accepted by others" (Mitchell)
- Causality Principle vs. Will Principle: Rank argued, contrary to Freud, that the causality of behavior was not "dependent on forces outside of" the individual but an ethical dimension where the individual works to justify his or her own decisions (Stein 119). The Will Principle is the native desire of every person "to be [himself or herself], to be free of domination." For Rank, the will is the "ego imbued with power" (Boree), a "positive guiding organization and integration of the self, which utilizes creativity as well as inhibits and controls the instinctual drives" (Mitchell).
For Rank, each of these binary oppositions must ultimately come in balance with one another (Stein 128-129).
Rank's View of the Artist
The power of the artist lies in creating art that expresses the artist's sense of reality. However, to achieve immortality as an artist, the artist must, through his or her art, express "the collective will of [his or her] culture and religion. Good art could be understood as a joining of the material and the spiritual, the specific and the universal, or the individual and humanity" (Boree). This struggle to achieve balance results in three basic types of person:
- Adapted Type (Conformed): The adapted type is passive, responding to social pressures to be obedient to authority and managing sexual pressures under the dictates of the moral code of the person's culture. The adapted person is driven primarily by a sense of duty. Rank believes that most people fall into the adapted type.
- Neurotic Type (Conflicted): While being stronger willed than the average person, the neurotic type is so caught up in the struggle between obedience to society and following the freedom of his or her own consciousness that he or she is consumed with guilt and worry, failing to accept the value of any personal freedoms gained because of a sense of society's judgment on the artist's efforts. Rank does see the neurotic as more morally advanced than the adapted type.
- Productive Type (Confident): The productive type accepts and affirms his or her personal sense of value, allowing the artist the freedom to express himself or herself artistically. Rank also refers to the productive type "as the artist, the genius, the creative type, the self-conscious type, and, simply, the human being."
These three types represent a continuum from passive submission to society (adapted) to conflicts between the desires of the self and the demands of society (neurotic) to self determination coupled with the ability to carve out a place within society as leader or inspiration (productive). Characters within a story may represent one of the types or may evolve through the types.
"Personal growth therefore becomes the process of taking responsibility for one's own life and to express one's will creatively in life situations. To achieve this an individual needs to face [his or her] own guilt and fear, which has resulted in a negative pattern of behavior, and break loose from this pattern and risk the courage to create" (Mitchell). This idea is parallel to Campbell's view of the monomyth as the individual's search for bliss.
There is also a social dimension to Rank's View of the Artist. Rank views the artist's as engaged in an evolving relationship with society, from being controlled and conformed to social rules (adapted) to being conflicted about his/her own choices and the demands of society (which can be related to the id/superego conflict of Freud) to the character finally realizing his or her place in society (confident), being true to his or her identity and, in doing so, providing a service to society.
Fans of Ryan Reynold's performance in Green Lantern can see an example of the conflict between causality and will. Hal Jordan fits the neurotic type. Despite his skill, he is trapped by his fears, his fear of death preventing him from living his life successfully (causality). When he becomes Green Lantern, he rejects the role of Lantern, failing to accept his uniqueness, believing himself incapable of serving in the Lantern Corp. It is only when Carol Ferris (played by Blake Lively) and the Earth are threatened that Jordan is able to use the force of will to resist fear and overcome Parallax. With his new sense of himself, Jordan is able to accept his place in the Lantern Corp, his will shaping his destiny (becoming the productive type).