Orphan Black and the Heroine's Journey

Symbols, Depth Psychology, and the Feminist Epic

Valerie Estelle Frankel

• Verlag: LitCrit Press
• Jahr: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781370516117
• Thema: Media & Performing Arts
• Thema: Television History & Criticism

The perfect treat for fans of all ages. Everything Hunger Games, packed into one volume.

Orphan Black

and the

Heroine’s Journey

Symbols, Depth Psychology, and the Feminist Epic

Valerie Estelle Frankel

Other Works by Valerie Estelle Frankel

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From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey in Myth and Legend

Katniss the Cattail: The Unauthorized Guide to Name and Symbols

The Many Faces of Katniss Everdeen: The Heroine of The Hunger Games

Harry Potter, Still Recruiting: A Look at Harry Potter Fandom

Teaching with Harry Potter

An Unexpected Parody: The Spoof of The Hobbit Movie

Teaching with Harry Potter

Myths and Motifs in The Mortal Instruments

Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters & their Agendas

Winter is Coming: Symbols, Portents, and Hidden Meanings in A Game of Thrones

Bloodsuckers on the Bayou: The Myths, Symbols, and Tales Behind HBO’s True Blood

The Girl’s Guide to the Heroine’s Journey

Choosing to be Insurgent or Allegiant: Symbols, Themes & Analysis of the Divergent Trilogy

Doctor Who and the Hero’s Journey: The Doctor and Companions as Chosen Ones

Doctor Who: The What Where and How

Sherlock: Every Canon Reference You May Have Missed in BBC’s Series

Symbols in Game of Thrones

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History, Homages and the Highlands: An Outlander Guide

The Catch-Up Guide to Doctor Who

Remember All Their Faces: A Deeper Look at Character, Gender and the Prison World of Orange Is The New Black

Everything I Learned in Life I Know from Joss Whedon

Empowered: The Symbolism, Feminism, & Superheroism of Wonder Woman

The Avengers Face their Dark Sides

The Comics of Joss Whedon: Critical Essays

Mythology in Game of Thrones

A Rey of Hope: Feminism & Symbolism in The Force Awakens

Who Tells Your Story: History & Pop Culture in Hamilton

This book is an unauthorized analysis and commentary on Orphan Black and its associated products. None of the individuals or companies associated with the television show, comics, or any merchandise based on this series has in any way sponsored, approved, endorsed, or authorized this book.

Orphan Black and the Heroine’s Journey

By Valerie Estelle Frankel

Copyright © 2017 Valerie Estelle Frankel

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

LitCrit Press

Contents

Introduction

Sarah

Beth

Helena

Alison

Krystal

Cosima

Veera

Rachel

Episodes

Works Cited

Introduction

One can watch the five-season epic of Orphan Black as a single heroine questing towards enlightenment, with different aspects of the same woman representing the inner voices of rationality, rebellion, ferocity, cold anger, and propriety. Smaller, quieter voices offer Beth’s paranoia, Tony’s snarky defiance, M.K.’s terror, and Krystal’s lightness. Of course, Sarah is the willpower, the directed self. Her brother Felix calls her “the glue that’s holding us all together” in “The Antisocialism of Sex” (407).

As a heroine’s journey text, Orphan Black is fascinating. Rarely in fiction do five women all quest (with a few more like Beth, Krystal, and Veera going on abortive, simplified journeys). Arguably each has nearly a fair share of the story arc, casting them all as the story’s central heroes. Far from static sidekicks, all grow and change. Moreover, their journeys often reflect, as Sarah and Helena each must accept the other in season one and return together from the symbolic underworld in season five. The heroines are not only questing for freedom, but for unity, binding together ever tighter in their Clone Club.

The heroine’s journey, like the hero’s journey popularized by Joseph Campbell, involves the central character metaphorically growing from child to adult by journeying into the underworld and facing dark forces that represent the tyrannical father and/or murderous mother – both inversions of the potential good parents the hero might become, after he or she has learned from these voices of the dark side. In fact, the shadow, as Jung calls the dark side of the self, is all the undesirable impulses one has repressed – greed, cruelty, anger. This side of the self reveals qualities the hero can see in other people but not in himself – “such things as egotism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions – in short all the little sins about which he might have previously” ignored in himself, explains Jungian analyst Marie Louise Von Franz (Individuation 174).

Still, the shadow side offers a surprising strength. Most often the fictional questor is the sweet, inexperienced adolescent – Dorothy Gale or Harry Potter – discovering the rage and power of the evil tyrant. However, other questors discover other lost parts of the self – the innocent they’ve long left behind or the sexual woman they’ve always repressed. Thus, the women of the series all undergo this journey as the story focuses on their meeting these lost shadow twins as much as it does on their struggle for autonomy.

The shadow need not be evil but simply polarized, as professional Beth and heedless Sarah have chosen contrasting paths. In fact, all of the clones are opposites, representing the different sides of the personality. Each time Sarah masquerades as Beth, she tries on her personality and borrows abilities she’s never discovered in herself. As all the clones use this power, and also tangle with wicked matriarchs and patriarchs, they discover their own potential. The hero’s journey is about facing one’s shadow – all one could have become but chose not to – and discovering one’s hidden abilities. “A woman’s psychological development requires integration of many facets of her self in order for her to become a whole and healthy human being. When a woman is limited to only one or two roles, she can feel or act mad because the unactualized parts of herself are struggling to express themselves,” explains Linda Schierse Leonard in Meeting the Madwoman: Empowering the Feminine Spirit (4). This is the struggle all people face, embodied so directly through the many faces of Tatiana Maslany, the actress who plays them all.

This moment of learning proves true for the actress as well. “There’s a large part of me in each of them. And a large part of myself is revealed in each of these characters,” she says (“Send in the Clones”). Through the series, the women all take each other’s places, walking a mile in each other’s shoes and discovering what it would be like to be so different. Maslany says of switching, “They’re playing, they’re struggling, they’re trying something on – they’re not embodying themselves, they’re putting on an act and they feel exposed and they feel that they’re screwing up and like they’re going to be caught out and they’re going to be seen as a fraud and that’s everything I feel when I’m doing those scenes. And it is technically so confusing, but that’s what is so fun about those scenes” (Berstein 93).

Sarah, questing for her child as the epic heroine often does, learns love from Helena, domesticity from Alison, discipline from Beth. Cosima, who’s dying from the illness they share, impresses responsibility on her. However, Sarah can only defeat the brutal corporations by playing Rachel, the dark insider clone who knows all their secrets and is willing to play dirty. Rachel, by contrast, spends five seasons setting herself above her sisters and ignoring their pleas to protect and join them. She does not step into their shoes, but by observing their love, finally chooses their side. In the same way, Sarah’s accepting Helena helps the madwoman emerge from religious conditioning. After, Helena becomes pregnant and quests to be a mother, but first she must defeat the shadow figure Virginia Coady, murderer of her own children, to absorb her terrible strength. At the same time, Alison grows from a place of denial and repression to a free spirit, finally comfortable with who she is. While Cosima is the best adjusted, contrasting lover-inspiratrices Delphine and Shay ...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Introduction
• Sarah