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Access Type
WSU Access
Date of Award
January 2022
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
Communication
First Advisor
Karen McDevitt
Abstract
In this thesis, I examine four popular films from the 1980s: First Blood, The Big Chill, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Back to Future Part II. Based on Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, archetypal images should appear in each film and serve as metaphors for the collective fears. Using Hockley’s model and post-structuralist textual analysis, I analyze each film in the contexts they were made to identify the archetypal images. I then interpret the meaning of the archetypal images and how they represent the collective fears of the 1980s. Although not dreams, films function in a similar way, capturing repressed emotions in a fantastical world that we can control. Whether we like it or not fears rise to the surface in the metaphors of film. I argue the fear of the Other and “contagion” appear through the metaphor of Jungian archetypes in each film.
Recommended Citation
Evans, Jennifer Leann, "Fears In The 1980s: Jungian Psychoanalysis Of Four 1980s Films" (2022). Wayne State University Theses. 900.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_theses/900