The Matrix

The Matrix Interweaves much symbolism, mythology, philosophy, and psychology. On the surface, the movie challenges the dominance of technology in our culture and predicts an apocalyptic result from the use of artificial intelligence. Yet, behind the human struggle for survival is a mythical backdrop upon which are backlit some of C.G. Jung's basic ideas regarding the human psyche. These Jungian ideas include the ego-Self relationship and how it relates to the persona, the shadow, individuation, and the transcendent function.

The earth has been decimated due to a battle for control of the earth between the AI's and humans; the Matrix camouflages this decimation. Humans are artificially created and sustained by the AI superstructure. Then they are plugged into a computer. A computer program generates a simulated reality called the Matrix. Humans live their lives in this computer-generated reality, but this reality is only in their minds. In fact, humans are kept in mechanical eggs filled with an amniotic-like fluid. The AI infrastructure keeps humans alive to tap the energy they produce.

The strangers are a group of humans who have escaped the Matrix. Their leader is named Morpheus. Neo is believed by Morpheus to be the savior, "The One" (The Matrix). An oracle (also an escaped human) predicted long ago that a savior would come, a sort of second coming, and that he would be able to see through the Matrix and bring it down. The oracle told Morpheus that he would find The One. One question, which threads through the movie, is whether or not Neo is The One.

Neo is asleep at his desk at home in one of the first scenes. A computer monitor next to him flashes repeatedly the simple text: "Wake up Neo" (The Matrix). The message is an instruction from the Self. The sleeping man is in ego mode, a symptom of an egocentric psyche. He is unaware of the possibility that there is something else besides the ego and he has not yet awoken to the possibility that there is another world outside of the persona he lives behind.

The theme of Neo as a Jesus Christ figure plays throughout the movie. In Edinger's opinion, Christ was a figure who represented the individuating ego. The image of Christ, and the rich network of symbolism which has gathered around him, provide many parallels to the individuation process. When the Christian myth is examined carefully in the light of analytical psychology, the conclusion is inescapable that the underlying meaning of Christianity is the quest for individuation (131).

The reference to Jesus Christ in this scene implies that Neo represents the human psyche beginning the individuation process. Neo meets a woman named Trinity at the party. Trinity tells Neo that she is aware of his desire to know what the Matrix is. "It's the question that brought you here. What is the Matrix?" (The Matrix). Trinity is the one who will lead him towards the underworld. Jung called the her a soul figure, one that occupies an area or boundary between the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. Trinity is also associated with a person's calling or fate.

Trinity, as a "three" figure, is incomplete. Jung writes, "the number three is not a natural expression of wholeness, since four represents the minimum number of determinants in a whole judgment" (Storr 275). Jung believed that the number four represented wholeness in the human psyche. If one were to re-arrange the name Neo slightly, it would be the word "one" The separateness of the numbers "one" and the "three" in the movie, of Neo and Trinity, represent an incompleteness in the human psyche. As we shall see, the joining of Neo and Trinity is what effects the change necessary for Neo to overcome his adversaries at the end of the film.

Early resistance of the ego characters occurs after Neo's initial recruitment by Morpheus' group. Neo has a meeting with his manager after arriving late to work. His manager says, "You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson" (The Matrix). Neo is his alias as a computer hacker; his name in the "real world" is Thomas Anderson. The manager tells Mr. Anderson in no uncertain terms that he will lose his job if he is late again. The manager is an ego defense mechanism attempting to re-gain control over Neo's distraction of the intrusion by the unconscious (Trinity). Ironically, during this scene, window washers are cleaning the windows on this high-rise building, which distracts Neo. I believe that the window-washing image implies that he is getting some clarity and that he sees things a bit more clearly.

The stakes are raised higher as AI agents arrive (more ego defenses) to take in Mr. Anderson for questioning. Morpheus attempts to help; he calls Neo on a cell phone and attempts to direct him out of the building before the agents can get to him. This is a conflict between the unconscious figure represented by Morpheus and the ego defenses represented by the AI agents. The AI agents capture Neo. The agents' names are Smith, Brown, and Jones. I believe that these common names imply a collective face of society lacking in individuality. They are defenses of the ego, there to keep Neo under control so he doesn't discover what is really happening. He is interrogated in a, bland room with yellowed fluorescent lighting. Agent Smith tells Neo that he has two personalities. One personality is a tax-paying citizen who goes to work everyday. The other personality is a computer hacker who has broken "every hacker law imaginable" (The Matrix). He's told that one of his personalities has a future and the other does not. It's his choice.

This split of Neo and Mr. Anderson also demonstrates Jung's concept of the persona. "The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual" (Storr 94). The persona is a public sense a self, the self that an individual displays to the world. Everybody has a persona, but if one believes that the persona is all that one's personality is composed of, then the individual is too adjusted to the outer world and not enough to their inner world. In this case, Mr. Anderson is the persona, the mask worn by Neo in the outer world.

Neo meets Morpheus face to face. He is a black man and represents a figure of the shadow, another Jungian concept. The shadow is a part of the personal unconscious that retains discarded parts of the personality. Oftentimes the shadow contains parts of the personality that have not been accepted