The Shape of Water : An Ecopsychological Fairy Tale

Abstract

Abstract

Depth psychology recognizes the role of myth and fairy tales in providing insight into the unconscious aspects of people and cultures. By working with these stories, we can often find a path of transformation. A depth psychological analysis of the film The Shape of Water uncovers the two suitors that Richard Tarnas recognizes reflect how we can relate to the world around us. The first suitor assumes that the world is inferior to people and is exploitable, as it is only valued by what it provides to man. The second suitor is very different, as she approaches the world with affection and respect, knowing that it is at least as intelligent as she is and is intrinsically valuable and soulful. We find this second suitor in the film's main character, the princess Elisa. Through Elisa's relationship with a mysterious sea creature, we find a much-needed image for a new myth. She shows us how we can re-relate to the world around us and transform our current ecological situation.

Introduction

Despite the overwhelming evidence that we are in an environmental crisis, there has been little change in human behavior. This suggests that we cannot simply approach solving our ecological problems through logical decision-making and rational behaviors (Kiehl, 2016). Something deeper is at play, something powerful and emotional in the cultural depths. We need to expose these “fundamental psychological roots,” both the conscious and the unconscious aspects of the collective psyche, to understand and solve the problem (p. xii).

Along with other disciplines, depth psychology has been working to excavate these roots by exploring the mystery of the unconscious psyche and its “powerful mythic structures” (Tarnas, 2013, p. 14). Tarnas removes a lot of soil when he illuminates two contemporary myths with archetypal patterns that lie deep in the collective psyche. The first, the myth of progress, is the heroic journey from an ignorant, primitive world to an intelligent modern world. This myth has been made possible by the development of human reason and the focus on the modern mind. It feeds our desire to continually achieve and conquer new frontiers, including outer space.

The second, the myth of the fall, has gained some steam in recent years. It compensates for the myth of progress and blames it for the separation of humans from nature and for the exploitation of nature and a “desacralization of the world” (Tarnas, 2013, p. 4). Both humans and nature have suffered as a result of the domination of the patriarchy and science and technology. Soul is in an unhappy state.

Tarnas (2013) argued that we are currently experiencing these polarized myths, both of which hold partial truths. By suffering their opposition, we will undergo a type of crucifixion in the way we see the world. This death will provide space for the birth of a new perspective in which we are not trying to conquer a soulless universe nor are we regressing to a state of being at the whim of an ensouled world. Instead, we will be in a position to re-recognize the anima mundi, the world as ensouled. We will also have the opportunity to become creative participants in a “co-evolutionary unfolding of reality” and act as “an organ of the universe's self-revelation” (p. 21). As part of this rebirth, we will have to do our own inner psychological work, including confronting our shadow and integrating our own inner masculine and feminine.

To begin this transformation, Tarnas (2013) asked us to put ourselves in the shoes of the beautiful, ensouled universe and imagine two different suitors approaching us wanting to get to know everything about us, including our deepest secrets. The first suitor assumes we are lacking intelligence and are somehow inferior. He approaches “as though you were ultimately there for his exploitation, his self-enhancement; and his motivation for knowing you is driven essentially by a desire for prediction and control for his own self-betterment” (p. 20).

The second suitor has a very different attitude. He draws near with curiosity and considers us as at least as intelligent and powerful and soulful as he is and wants to co-create something new with us. His approach is based on empathy, aesthetic delight, intellectual curiosity, and trust and “becomes an act of love” (Tarnas, 2013, p. 21).

The filmmaker Guillermo del Toro joins Tarnas in unearthing our psychological roots when he brings these two suitors to life in his modern-day fairy-tale film, The Shape of Water (Bull Productions, 2017). This is not the first time that del Toro has explored the depths and our relationship with nature, which he did beautifully in the fantastical Pan's Labyrinth. Depth psychology recognizes how story, including film, myth, and fairy tales, uncovers the unconscious aspects of the collective psyche and incites transformation. Tarnas and del Toro activate this alchemical process through their two suitors.

Tarnas's first suitor: Western science and religion and the disconnection from nature

Tarnas's first suitor reflects Western society's mechanistic view of the world and the belief in human superiority over an inanimate nature. Tarnas (2013) noted Western civilization's great cultural and scientific achievements such as the development of democracy, Shakespeare's plays, and landing on the moon. These accomplishments have come at a cost including “a subtly growing and seemingly inexorable crisis on our planet, a crisis of multidimensional complexity: ecological, political, social, economic, intellectual, psychological, spiritual” (p. 3).

Tarnas (2013) blamed the influence of science and religion on the West's worldview, particularly, the work of Francis Bacon and Descartes, who stressed the Cartesian view of dividing the self and the world into subject and object. As a result, humans strive for dominion over a perceived inanimate, unintelligent nature. Intellectual knowledge is paramount, and all things are valued solely on what they provide to man. This view has disenchanted the universe and reduced our sense of meaning in the world. It has also fueled the drive for power, profits, materialism, and technology above everything else.

Tarnas (2013) noted that Judaism and Christianity have also contributed to the schism between humans and nature. God is seen as separate to a mundane nature, just as soul is distinct from body. The belief that man is made in the image of God makes humans separate and superior to nature. Kiehl (2016) also recognized that medieval Christianity influenced how we perceive nature. As the world was created by an external maker, God, who then imposed his will upon us, we “no longer played a co-creative role in the world” (p. 88).

Tarnas (2013) and other scholars also noted that nature has historically been tied to the feminine, and how we treat nature reflects how we treat the feminine. Bacon created an image of nature as “a female waiting to be dominated and violated” (Fideler, 2014, p. 143). Merchant (1983) argued that the association of nature to mother and nurturer leaves nature and the feminine subjugated by the masculine. Tarnas recognized the need for the feminine to be in a sacred marriage, a hieros gamos, with the masculine, reflecting their equality.

Tarnas's second suitor: Depth psychology and a new relationship with nature

Depth psychology has been working to achieve this equality and to undo the dualism of the Christian and scientific age in order to re-see the world as ensouled and inseparable to humans. Tarnas (2013) noted that Jung saw beyond the Cartesian limitations in his work on synchronicity. Jung (2002) also developed the idea that the earth and nature contain both spirit and matter in his concepts of the one world, the unus mundus, and the psychoid.

Tarnas (2013) recognized that Western thinking would consider the idea of an ensouled world childish. However, he suggested ways to change this. The first is to expand our ways of knowing beyond rationality and empiricism to include the imaginal, intuitive, and kinesthetic. Second, we must listen to and develop a sense of empathy for the “other,” rather than just consider it an object. Using Barbara McClintock's words, he argued that we must create “a feeling for the organism” (p. 20). Ultimately, we need to move from an I-It to an I-thou relationship with the world, acknowledging its intelligence and soul. Tarnas believed we are not just recovering the idea of the anima mundi, but we are also finding a new way to relate to it.

Depth Psychology, Film, and Fairy Tales

Film is one vehicle for us to do so. Film engages us with the anima mundi and is a “tool of the Soul” (Gibson, 2005, p. 74). Depth psychology and film are “siblings” as film is “a medium for awakening, for conscious provocation and integration of the Soul” (p. 72). Gibson argued that film is an initiatory ritual and highly therapeutic, providing hope and healing for us individually and collectively. It communicates our culture's living myths and acts as a dream for collective society. Film can show the split between ego and soul, providing a place for the two to dialogue.

In film, the screen becomes a window through which we experience the archetypes, the universal patterns that make up the human psyche (Slater, 2005, p. 3). Slater noted that film is not passive, as it requires us to descend into the dream realm where we may experience the shadowy dark. He argued that the film's chosen images and the way that the story is told are critical to our experience. They ignite the imagination and access the archetypal realm, stirring us emotionally and revealing the numinous. Images are the language of the soul.

Film frequently works to recover the lost child, regaining innocence, not naiveté, often through the help of the Deep Feminine (Gibson, 2005). Great films also often show us the shadow side of typical American values, “films that reveal what societies neglect strike deeper cords” (Slater, 2005, p. 18). Film is a vehicle for cultural transformation. As are fairy tales, as they provide the clearest view of the archetypes. Von Franz (1996) considered fairy tales to be “the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes,” as they are not complicated with cultural material (p. 1). Fairy tales often involve a salvation of the feminine from its masculine suppression.

Thus, del Toro's choice of genre is particularly provocative. It accesses the archetypal realm, shows us the shadow side of American values, and helps us retrieve our innocence. It also emancipates the feminine. His film provides a sacred space for Tarnas's two suitors to engage with the anima mundi, illuminating the collective unconscious psychic processes of the current way our culture views our relationship with nature. It also provides us with a new myth for engaging with the world around us.

The Shape of Water: A Fairy Tale for Troubled Times

In the opening scene, del Toro invites us into a shadowy, dreamy world as we find ourselves in what appears to be the depths of the sea but reveals itself to be Elisa's apartment submerged in water. We meet Elisa asleep, free-floating, gently in the water. Water is a very poignant image used throughout the film. When asked about the title of the film, del Toro said that water is the most powerful element, that it is both gentle and flexible, but it can also destroy anything and everything and “water is like love, it has no shape” (del Toro, 2017).

Water is a critical element in the alchemical process, which depth psychology recognizes reflects the experience of psychological transformation. Water is a part of the alchemical solutio procedure in which the structures of the ego dissolve, providing an opportunity for something new to be born.

Water is also a symbol of the unconscious, the feminine, and emotions, and “is the beginning of life for all species on earth; amniotic fluid and the ocean are the vessels for human birth and all other life forms” (Shamas, 2009, p. 94).

The narrator sets the fairy tale scene by telling us that the story happened a long time ago, in a place far away. It is a story about a princess without voice and of love and loss, and it is about a monster who tried to destroy it all. Elisa's alarm clock awakens her and us out of the watery depths to her reality in an apartment above the Orpheum theatre. The film The Story of Ruth is playing below, and we get a glimpse of the scene where an apparent princess confesses that she has “offended the gods” and is “preparing for a ceremony of sacrifice.”

Above the theater, Elisa's daily routine is done in the dark as she works the night shift cleaning a military research facility with her best friend, a Black American woman, Zelda Delilah. She begins her day with a bath, self-pleasure, and a hard-boiled egg carefully timed with an egg-shaped timer. We also see the large scratches on her throat from the childhood wound that caused her muteness.

We are immediately met with more water. On the day that the story begins, Elisa turns over her calendar for her Daily Thought to find “Time is but a river flowing from our past.” Rivers are a theme in the film, as we also experience the river when we find out that Elisa was an orphan found alongside a riverbank when she was a baby. Rivers often represent the flow of our lives, and as there is a set course, they can also represent the teleological, meaning that something that is directing our fate.

Von Franz (1996) noted that, in fairy tales, the hero-child is almost always abandoned and reflects that the “new God of our time is always to be found in the ignored and deeply unconscious corner of the psyche (the birth of Christ in the stable)” (p. viii). We find this new God through Elisa, whose adventure begins one night in Baltimore in 1962 when a mysterious amphibious, manlike creature from a river in the Amazon is brought into the research facility under top-secret security. Colonel Strickland, who found the creature, chains it up and calls it the “asset.” Strickland uses extreme force to try to tame the creature to learn its secret to existing on water and land. He wants this knowledge to help the United States win the space race against Russia. He scoffs at the idea that the Amazonian people gave it sacrifices and worshipped it as a god.

Elisa becomes fascinated with the creature and sneaks into the area where they are holding him. She brings him hard-boiled eggs and plays him music. As neither of them can speak, Elisa facilitates communication by using touch and teaching the creature sign language. A deep affection slowly grows between the two.

There is only antagonism between Strickland and the creature. Strickland becomes frustrated as he is unable to learn anything through domination and violence. In retaliation for the abuse, the creature wounds Strickland, taking off two of his fingers. Strickland's boss, General Hoyt, orders Strickland to kill the asset and dissect it to learn its secrets. In the meantime, the scientist, Dr. Hoffstetler, who is responsible for looking after the creature, secretly witnesses the relationship between Elisa and the creature. Hoffstetler, a Russian spy, has also been told by his bosses to kill the creature to keep the Americans from learning from it. Hoffstetler pleads with the Americans and Russians to keep the creature alive, but to no avail.

Elisa becomes aware of Strickland's plan to kill the creature and engages her neighbor, Giles, an aging, gay, alcoholic artist, to help her. The two create an elaborate scheme to rescue the creature. They are ultimately successful with the help of Hoffstetler and Zelda. Elisa keeps the creature in the bathtub in her apartment until the winter rains bring the canal waters high enough for the creature to get to the sea. The relationship between Elisa and the creature draws even closer, resulting in coitus.

In the meantime, General Hoyt berates Strickland for losing the creature. Strickland argues that he has been very successful for many years. However, Hoyt tells him that his career is finished if he does not find the asset. The need to succeed nearly drives Strickland to madness, and he strives ruthlessly to “deliver” on his mission.

Despite her love for the creature, Elisa knows that she must let him go, as his health is deteriorating by being stuck in a tub. Her need to get the creature to the water becomes urgent as Strickland finds out from a dying Dr. Hoffstetler, wounded by the Russians, that Elisa and Zelda were involved. Zelda warns Elisa that Strickland is after her.

With the help of Giles, Elisa gets the creature to the edge of the water and, as they are saying their sad goodbyes, Strickland shoots both Elisa and the creature dead. Within a few minutes the creature miraculously self-heals. He then fatally wounds Strickland by scratching open his throat just as Strickland says, “You really are a god.” The creature then picks up the lifeless Elisa and jumps into the water with her. He kisses her, and after a few moments, Elisa comes back to life with the scars on her neck transforming into gills. The two appear to swim off together to live happily ever after.

The details in the images that del Toro uses bring Tarnas's two suitors to life. Strickland depicts Tarnas's first suitor and our current relationship with nature, one of dominance, utility, and abuse. Elisa, on the other hand, with the help of Zelda, Giles, and Hoffstetler, provides us with a new paradigm of engaging with the world with honor and love, one that reflects a restoration of the anima mundi.

Del Toro's first suitor: Strickland, the Russians, and the American Government

The time period plays an important backdrop to the film. Tarnas (2013) argued that we need to make the unconscious conscious, mainly by looking at our history to “better understand the underlying patterns and influences of our collective past” and how they influence today (p. 2). It was the era of the Space Race and a precarious relationship with Russia, and Tarnas noted that “Man's Conquest of Space” is part of the progress myth. The importance of science and technology increased significantly during this time. Del Toro specifically chose this period for the film as, although it is considered a time of the Great America, it was full of toxic masculinity and discrimination (del Toro, 2017).

Thus, the film shines a light on the American shadow, including the negation of nature and the feminine, of anything that was “other” to the patriarchy. Women were suppressed and mostly confined to traditional roles serving men. In the film, it is the men who are the scientists. Women clean up after them both in their laboratories and in their toilets.

Strickland, the American Government, and the Russians portray the first suitor. Their main concern is how the creature can best serve their needs, and they very aptly refer to it as the “asset.” When General Hoyt first sees the creature, he exclaims that “it is ugly as sin.” Strickland refers to the creature as an “affront” and “filthy.” As he is a “good” Christian man, Strickland tells Elisa and Zelda that there is no way that the creature could be a god, as only man is made in the Lord's image. His words capture Tarnas's reflections. Strickland believed his role was to tame the creature, and he tried to do so through force using a phallic-shaped, electric cattle prod. His behavior reflects the negative masculine which Kiehl (2016) noted can be “violent and aggressive” and only results in Strickland losing his fingers (p. 65).

Strickland also appears to reflect the thinking style of the Scientific Era. When he cannot get what he needs from the creature through aggression, he decides to dissect it. The general scientific approach is to break everything down into individual parts, rather than focus on the whole. When faced with the stress of losing the creature, Strickland reads the book, The Power of Positive Thinking. He approaches the problem through a cognitive, rational approach, trying to “think” himself to success rather than engage with the heart or intuition.

Strickland is apparently driven by the myth of progress, including the negative patriarchal need for success at the expense of all else. We see this when he buys the idea that he is a “man of the future” and gets a brand-new Cadillac. Hoyt does not call Strickland by name but rather calls him “son.” Sons of the patriarchy believe that their only value lies in being successful.

Unfortunately, neither Strickland nor Hoyt can see the intrinsic beauty of the creature. Strickland is, as the narrator says, the “monster who almost destroyed it all.” Through Strickland and his comrades, we see the shadow side of American culture. We also see the ego in Strickland, the need to control and dominate, unable to engage with the soul of nature until the very end when it is too late. Let us hope that is not how it ends for us. Luckily, the princess of the fairy tale, Elisa, comes in as the second suitor and heroine.

Del Toro's second suitor: Elisa, Giles, Zelda, and Dr. Hoffstetler

Elisa teaches us a new way to reclaim and engage with the anima mundi. Through the childlike Elisa, we recover our lost child and a more innocent way of perceiving the world. Elisa sees nature's intrinsic value. When Elisa is trying to convince a resistant Giles to help her, Giles tells her that the creature “isn't even human,” and she signs back “If we do nothing, then neither are we.”

Elisa holds the potential for a new way of being, through the essential death of an old perspective and the birth of a new. We see this in the images of water around her. We begin and end the film submerged. We experience the dissolving waters that purify, or drown, and connect us to the depths of the unconscious. We also find it in the symbol of the egg that Elisa has each morning and offers as an olive branch to the creature. Eggs are “important nature symbols, signifying earth, new life, or the seat of the soul” (Shamas, 2009, p. 94). Jung (1936/1968) also noted their importance in alchemy, as the egg holds the potential of the liberated soul.

Elisa's proximity to the Orpheum Theater is a significant detail, as it is named after the Greek god of music and poetry, Orpheus. Hillman (2007) noted that Orpheus was a nature god who appreciated the ensoulment of the world around him. However, the scientific movement and Christianity drove Orpheus into the shadows. Orpheus is also the god of music, and it was through music that Elisa built a relationship with the creature. Fideler (2014) believed that our natures are woven from music, as music comes from the unconscious.

Orpheus is also “a phenomenon of the ear” (Hillman, 2007, p. 305). He is about the art of listening which brings new life by recomposing the “ordinary in the extraordinary” (p. 305). Despite its inability to speak, Elisa fully “listens” to the creature, which she does through unspoken, symbolic ways.

Elisa symbolizes the feminine, as she is the princess without voice, and the feminine is often said to be without a “voice” in our culture. It is Elisa who leads the way, releasing nature and the feminine from the suppression of the harmful masculine. Her entourage also symbolizes the “other.” They are female, Black, gay, and sensitive. Del Toro created this film to help develop empathy for the “other” and the “beauty of imperfection” (del Toro, 2017). This reclaiming of the “other” is an essential part of moving toward wholeness, both individually and collectively. Elisa shows us how to do this through Tarnas's (2013) suggestion of using a mutual symbolic and kinesthetic language to engage with the world with curiosity and love.

Although Elisa has the idea and courage to rescue the creature, she receives critical help from the healthy masculine. The first person to help is Giles, the narrator of the story and the driver of the get-away car. He also assists in taking care of the creature. Giles is an unemployed artist who is unsuccessfully trying to make a living by painting the perfect, heterosexual family for a Jell-O ad. Fideler (2014) noted that it is often the artists who help the culture connect to the spiritual realm.

Giles immediately recognizes the godliness of the creature and accepts the creature's natural way of being. When the creature eats Giles's cat, Pandora, Giles deliberates whether or not the creature is a god “Is he a god? I don't know he ate a cat.” This brings up the paradox that we must accept about nature, as it holds beauty, healing, and nourishment and it also holds the ability to destroy. Tarnas (2013) and Kiehl (2016) both noted the need to endure the opposites in our relationship with nature.

Hoffstetler is also vital to the success of Elisa's mission. He provides Elisa with the key to release the creature from its chains and the necessary chemicals to add to a salted bath to keep him alive. Hoffstetler also kills the guard who is blocking their escape. Hoffstetler holds both the essential scientific knowledge and compassion for the creature. He is duplicitous not only in his spy role but also in his approach to nature. Hoffstetler's views may reflect the idea of biomimicry, which is based on the idea that “nature is a vast storehouse of creative intelligence, which we can learn from and apply to solve our most pressing problems” (Fideler, 2014, p. 237).

The focus on salt to keep the creature alive is vital, as salt is critical in the alchemical process, “the salt of wisdom” (Von Franz, 1996, p. 129). Von Franz noted that salt holds the bitterness of the sea and tears. It is a part of sadness and loss. Salt provides great spiritual power and is also the Eros principle, a life-giving power which connects us and is “the wisdom acquired by feeling-experiences” (p. 130). Kiehl (2016) noted that to change our relationship with the world and help save the planet “We need to bring heart into the world” (p. 10). This is how Elisa engages with the creature, through the heart, just as Tarnas (2013) recommends.

Alchemical symbolism is also experienced in the sexual union between Elisa and the creature as the sacred marriage, the hieros gamos, of the masculine and feminine. The scene takes place in water as Elisa puts towels under the door and floods the bathroom. The union may also represent the connection of spirit and matter, which is what ecopsychology is striving for. Fideler (2014) discussed the perspective of the “alchemy of engagement” by engaging “nature as teacher, nature as partner” (p. 245). We are co-creators with nature, and we are both evolving.

Our relationship with nature needs to be a mutual and loving relationship, rather than a form of dependency, such as that assumed with “mother” nature. In the tale, the creature is not feminine; instead, it is the relationship between the masculine and the feminine that is important. This perspective may help to alleviate Merchant's (1983) concern that continuing to connect the feminine and nature results in the domination of both.

The need for sacrifice is also evident in both the film and in our current ecological crisis. Elisa is willing to let the creature go, which is a great sacrifice, as she loves him. The movie that is showing at the Orpheum theater, The Book of Ruth, is based on the biblical story about sacrifice and the conflict between monotheistic and polytheistic religions. Elisa's willingness to sacrifice finds her reborn in the waters of the canal after a kiss from the creature, and her childhood wounds become her source of breath. In order for us to be reborn, we need to sacrifice our conscious view of the world, including our egoic sense of superiority and the need to control, consume, and exploit it.

Conclusion

Through this film of the two suitors, we begin to expose the psychological roots that are feeding our ecological crisis. The film provides a stage to experience a psychological transformation in our relationship with the world around us, including the process of sacrifice, death, and rebirth.

Del Toro shines the light on the shadow of American culture and the myth of progress. He reveals how it has split our connection to the anima mundi, leaving us disoriented. However, the film also provides us with a new way of engaging with the world as co-creators. Del Toro's film allows us to see the ego and the soul in dialogue, through the actions of Strickland and Elisa.

Kiehl (2016) argued that we currently do not have an image to help us with the transformation of how we relate to nature. Image is important as “images transform consciousness” (p. 46). Perhaps the relationship between Elisa and the creature is the image that we need, a reminder of the mysterious beauty that the world around us holds. The creature reassures us that the “other” that we think is scary may not be so terrible but rather may be “godlike.” We are also reminded that just as the creature healed itself and others, nature is very resilient and can regenerate itself if given a chance (Fideler, 2014, p. 6). Most importantly, we need to engage with the world through the heart, aesthetic delight, and love.

Hillman (2007) argued that ecology and environmentalism do not speak the language required to heal our relationship with the world, as they speak in statistics and morality. Rather, what is needed is the “mode of poiesis to enchant the human ear to hear the singing of the world, ears that have become stone deaf, and human actions that have become boringly wooden with ecological rationality” (p. 303). Elisa, Tarnas, and del Toro show us how to do just that.

Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with your love. It humbles my heart, for you are everywhere. — The Shape of Water