Part Two:

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Escaping the Narcissus and Echo Traps: Disney, Jesus, and Shakespeare

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In Ovid’s version of this myth, both Narcissus and Echo endure such horrible fates as punishments from the gods. The god Nemesis gets revenge on Narcissus for his cruelty to those who fall in love with him. Echo’s fate results from the animosity between Jove (Jupiter, in Greece) and his wife, Juno (Hera), caused by Jove’s constant infidelities. Juno punishes Echo for distracting her with juicy gossip (today this might be conspiracy theories) to help Jove. Like today, a related problem emerges from a disengagement of the masculine from the feminine. Narcissus’s love of the image of being superior prompts Echo to do and say whatever he wants, and he dies from starvation, lacking authentic human connection, while she slowly fades away. Patriarchy is one aspect of hierarchical social structures, which themselves create narcissistic-like behaviors, where everyone tries to be better than those beneath them.

Disney’s Snow White offers an example of what might happen if Narcissus had lived a bit longer. Perhaps he might choose to see other options than his current image in the water, inviting him to a new phase of life. Remember the scenes in the movie where the Evil Queen, looking in a mirror, resolves to kill Snow White, who is now better looking than she is? Well, why is she so upset? Because she holds on to her younger image in her mind, like Narcissus does to his reflection in the water, which is not reflected in the more-up to-date mirror. Therefore, she wants to kill Snow White. In part, it may be because as a woman, her status and power come from her looks! Today we could imagine her as any aging successful person whose looks, talents, money, or power are threatened, who then seeks to harm new or old competitors. But that is not the only choice available. For others, this can be the wake-up call to accept the age we are in—individually and collectively—and the challenge of letting go of images we have cultivated in the world at another time of life, and to seek out what calls us now.

What else can we do to avoid the sad fates of Narcissus and Echo? Perhaps checking out wisdom from respected figures we all know: Jesus and Shakespeare.

So, what would Jesus do? Jesus’s central teaching was to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” That leaves no room for falling in love with our own superiority or looking down on others. Jesus’s good Samaritan story reminded the faithful then and now that the neighboring country they see as inferior to them is full of people who are their spiritual betters. The early Christians, guided by Jesus’s teachings, lived communally. In a time and place that mainly kept men and women quite separate. these groups included both, and many were led by women. However, as the Romans spread Christianity around the world, they replaced communities with extreme patriarchal hierarchies, as well as autocratic and warlike values. Still, it was the Romans who passed on Jesus’s teachings.

And much that Jesus taught has been retained in various Christian sects, and in some other faiths today, which helps us avoid the Narcissus and Echo traps. Although many hippies of the 1960s tried living communally and gave it up, in large societies our challenge is to hold a communal attitude, supporting issues and structures that reflect care for all—within reason.

What would Shakespeare’s plays tell us? I have long loved Shakespeare’s comedies, but have had little interest in his history plays. However, last summer, at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, David and I saw not only The Tempest, but also Richard II. Its director gave a talk beforehand, describing the play as the beginning of a series of Shakespeare’s histories recounting life in the court over time. Richard II demonstrated the chaos that ensued when a spoiled, childlike royal became king. Infatuated with his power, Richard saw everyone else as dispensable. Members of the court had to please the king, but doing so was difficult because the king ruled arbitrarily and exercised poor judgment.

Ambition and chaos: In Richard II, all the court royals were seeking to gain status without irritating their ruler, because he could send them to the dreaded Tower, perhaps never to be seen again. To me, this showed what a Narcissus-like person would be like in power. In a variation on Echo’s dilemma, all the members of the royal court would repeat and act on what he said. Even more, they would try desperately to guess what the king (just as now, in response to any person with such extreme power) would want them to say and do.

I used to think these plays were just about the English royal courts of that time, but now I see their archetypal nature in ours. The histories were Shakespeare’s warning, not his recommendation. The parallel to today’s world is obvious.

A path back to happiness: Shakespeare’s comedies show how to reach happy endings and demonstrate that fighting for status is not the way. In the comedies, royal or aristocratic families often are in conflict, and thus do not want their children to marry, however much they might love each other. The problem cannot be solved within the social structures of the time. To resolve this conflict, Shakespeare takes all the play’s characters out of high society, with its rigid rules, and into natural settings. There they are freed, somewhat, from many of their limiting societal ways of thinking. Still, women characters must disguise themselves as men to be able to speak more plainly or just get heard As with romances today, the difficulties begin with miscommunications, which then need to be resolved. As this happens, in all these comedies families come together to bless the nuptials of their now happy children, having let go of their grievances against one another.

Happy endings: Like Jesus, Shakespeare’s happy endings show us how to abandon constraining cultural expectations, such as those today that pit people against one another. We may say that women now are liberated, but in a world that still elevates masculine ways of thinking, professional women still need to know how to dress, act, and speak to get listened to in business or politics, and are still judged by their looks. Many people today—especially the young—are stressed to the max from the pressures of living up to cultural expectations. Nevertheless, more people are choosing the freedom to be themselves.

Returning to our natural selves: As adults, most of us still unconsciously internalize the examples and values of our parents. Sometime in our adolescence, our bodies linked us with natural desires (especially sexuality and romance). Connecting with our bodily yearnings may have helped us challenge the older generation’s assumptions, resulting in social change. Today, we need to listen to young people, lest they get swept up into conspiracy theories or other limiting paths, just as the adults in Shakespeare’s comedies learned to respect their child’s choice of a mate. Doing this freed those adults from being controlled by issues of status and who hates whom; instead, they were led by the natural desires of their hearts. And what are those? To want their children to be happy and to feel like family with those they once despised.

In our own time, it is important that we not confuse genuine attainment fueled by our authentic callings with the narcissistic compulsion to be seen as better than others. As individuals we can promote a better future for all of us by getting real about what we genuinely desire and then coming together to imagine how to work for a better outcome for all.