"'Skyggen' - en analyse af forholdet mellem godt og ondt".
This paper has been published in Andersen og Verden, Odense 1993.
"The Shadow" - An Analysis of the Relations between Good and Evil
Inge Lise Jensen(summary for pages 406-09)
This is a study of the relations between good and evil made clear from a philosophic point of view. The different concept areas, which will illustrate the chosen themes, are ethics and humanism and also the question of imagination.
The tale deals with two aspects of the human mind and also two forms of the understanding of life form, a humanistic and a materialistic one respectively. That means that we have a subjective statement about psychic and social conditions. Good and evil are here primarily seen as tendencies in the psyche of the individual; but the two forms also have a way of existence as trancendent strength through humanism and materialism, respectively. With good and evil related to the psyche of the individual the interpretation assumes a psychological character; and with the same elements related to society it assumes a general and universal character.
Society has great influence on the elaborating and development of the life of the individual. As a poet, the learned man lives in agreement with the psychic elements implanted in him. This harmony does not conform to the expectation of society. Therefore his psyche has to be changed. It happens and it happens especially through constant economic pressure caused by an expansion of his own material wishes, which mostly are rooted in status symbols.
In "The Shadow" we see a subjective picture of the conditions of the poet and of some social conditions. This understanding of the values of life is viewed from a narrator's point of view, but is it an understanding which can be regarded as being of universal validity? Can the understanding of the values of life in the relation between good and evil be regarded as a universal social problem at all times? Within this question lies another question concerning the kind of society people want. What form of society and which types of human beings are to be primarily represented in it?
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