Marie-Louise Von Franz on the “Animus” – Quotations
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The animus fosters loneliness in women, whereas the anima thrusts men headlong into relationships and the confusion that accompanies them. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 55
Woman needs life, relationships with people, and participation in meaningful activity. Part of her hunger comes from an awareness of dormant, unused aptitudes.
The animus contributes to her unrest so that she is never satisfied; one must always do more for an animus-possessed woman. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 55
If she can stand for her human rights without animus, and if she has a good relationship with the man she loves, she can tell him things about feminine psychology which will help him to differentiate his feelings. ~ The animus fosters loneliness in women, whereas the anima thrusts men headlong into relationships and the confusion that accompanies them. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 55
Woman needs life, relationships with people, and participation in meaningful activity. Part of her hunger comes from an awareness of dormant, unused aptitudes. The animus contributes to Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 9
In our Christian civilization, as I mentioned, the image of the woman is incompletely represented. As Jung has said, she has no representative in the Upper Parliament. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 10
In a matriarchal structure, such as in South India, women have natural confidence in their own womanhood. They know their importance and that they are different from men in a special way, and that this does not imply any inferiority. Therefore they can assert their human existence and being in a natural way. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 10
The source of evil and of things going wrong in women’s lives is often a failure to deal with and to get over hurt feelings, for hurt feelings open the door to animus attacks. The source of things going wrong, and of evil in women, in a tremendous number of cases, is that archetypal reaction of not getting over a hurt, or resentment, or a bad mood, through being disappointed in the feeling realm, and then being overpowered by the animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 35
If you can get back to the origin of the hurt and where you have not worked it out, the animus possession will stop; for that is where it jumped in, and that is why in animus possession there is always an undertone of the reproachful hurt woman. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 35
Animus possession in a woman annoys men madly; they go up in the air at once. But what really gets the man’s goat is this undertone of lamenting reproachfulness. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 35
Men who know a little more about this know that eighty-five percent of animus possession in women is a disguised appeal for love, although unfortunately it has the wrong effect, since it chases away the very love that is wanted. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 35
Underneath the animus there is a feeling of reproach and at the same time of wanting to get back at the one who has hurt you. It is a vicious circle, and arguing develops into a typical animus scene. Thus the ignored femininity which plays up in a woman’s anger is something archetypal. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 35
If the woman is in Tao and functioning according to the inner laws of her being, she can afford that kind of feminine nastiness, and it is not animus possession. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 43
There is the expression “a typical lovers’ quarrel.’’ We would call it an anima-animus quarrel, the sword crossing of animus and anima, which consists in a most horrible way of hurting each other in the most vulnerable spots. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 55
Just where the man has a most uncertain delicate feeling, the woman places the thorn of her animus; and where the woman wants to be understood or accepted, the man comes out with some anima poison dart. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 55-56
A world in which nothing on the harsh side is ever allowed, is not on the side of life, and here we come to a typically feminine problem. The more feminine a woman is, and the less aggressive her animus, the more she will tend to be overrun by her surroundings. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 65
So we have a marvelous picture of the annoying and irritating side that a woman’s animus can produce. It shows how a grownup, intelligent woman can entangle herself in such a silly idiotic quarrel or discussion. The irritated animus loses his sense of humor and is ungrateful and full of power. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 66
But usually there is a projection of the woman’s destructive animus onto the man. Even if there is no man on the outside to torture her, the woman will get it from within, for when she is alone her animus assures her that she is lonely and nobody and nothing and will never get anywhere—the sadist within tells her that ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 70
In every couple relationship there are actually four figures involved: the man and his anima, and the woman and her animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 76
I have often observed that women who make a first attempt to use their mind, say at the university, show an animus especially inclined to mix up the instrument of the mental work and its meaning. It is typical for a kind of half-baked animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 78
As soon as she touches anything on the side of life activity she may fall into animus possession or a power drive and become as cold, ruthless, and brutal as her father was. All she can do is to keep right out of the life of the spirit. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 88
The animus is a kind of primitive man, just as the anima in men is a kind of primitive woman who overdoes things and then collapses. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 88
That is the tragedy of such women, but they can get to the turning point, and in the second half of life have their hands healed and can stretch them out for what they want—not from the animus or from the ego, but, according to nature, simply stretch out their hands toward something they love. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 97
It is typical for the animus that, statistically seen, he is generally right, which is why we fall for him. But he is not right in the actual situation. You might say to such a lonely woman that she should introvert more, sink into her loneliness. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 99
A woman who always gives advice irritates a man. It needs a veiling of the inner face of her animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 99
The head is a wonderful image of the animus, with its opinions and musings going on all the time. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 111
The moon god is another beautiful animus figure but different from the head in the sea because he is not the single ghost of a dead person but the generally recognized god of the tribe, a god to whom the Eskimos do not show much love but to whom they pray for luck in hunting. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 115
I have seen analysands again and again cheat themselves in this way. They fight with animus and anima, abreact the emotion, then think they do not need to talk about it. But this is an illusion! ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 135
Women, much more than men, especially if they do not have a strong animus, vegetate in an amazing way. They can live ten or twenty years like plants, without either a positive or a negative drama in their lives. They just exist. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 159
When women have an undeveloped animus, when they have not worked on the animus, their mental functions often remain fixed on gossip and thinking about their neighbors. They get interested in a divorce in the neighborhood and want to know how. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 174
And it is very true that if women live alone for a long time without being in touch with men, they generally fall into the hands of the animus. It is very difficult to stand loneliness without getting overwhelmed by the unconscious, and in a woman’s case naturally by the animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Page 193
In the present-day women’s liberation movement, the animus plays a very prominent role. Often the tyrannical boss that women are struggling against is not so much an external man as the tyrannical animus within themselves, which they have projected onto him. Such women even seem to attract the tyrants in their environments or to choose them as partners.
They fail to see that this is connected with their inner worship of their own animus, which is suppressing their femininity. The same thing also sometimes holds true for men. They become woman-scorning homosexuals and never see that the cold, inconsiderate, and tyrannical behavior that they criticize in women is seated within themselves. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 220-221
It is just the same but one layer further in. You could say that with a woman the animus always anticipates what she has to do later in reality. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 16
If she has a puer aeternus animus, she generally has a creative problem, and the cure for women is unfortunately exactly the same as for men: it is also work. When you say that, do you include having children? ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 16
In private life it is the animus of the devouring mother who takes the lead for the sheep-son. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 44
The devouring animus of the mother feeds on the innocence and the best and most devoted feelings of the son. And there too the sheep have been eaten by the shepherd. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 44
With a woman, it is the animus who whispers something at the back of her mind, some kind of “nothing but” remark. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 85
In the case of a woman, it is the animus who engineers things, and he is always a professional pessimist who excludes the tertium quod non datur. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 149
The animus says to the woman that he knows there are only so many possibilities; he says the thing can only go in such and such a way, thereby blocking off any possibility of life producing something itself. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 149
Like so many women who feel unloved, in her bitterness she has sold herself completely to the animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 208
The pretension of knowing all the answers is exactly what the father-animus produces in a woman: the assumption that everything is self-evident—the illusion of knowing it all. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, Page 209
Women usually accept any new spirit of the times more quickly than men, and accept it with their animus, which is a logos spermatikos, because frequently they are less skeptical. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Dreams, Page 89
When a woman stays alone, she often falls into the animus. The Arabs say of a woman who leads a lonely life that a djinn has captured her in the desert! ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Dreams, Page 105
Animus Personification of the masculine nature in the unconscious of a woman. The animus is often recognized in projection onto spiritual authorities; in this way, a woman’s inner image of masculinity finds expression. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Dreams, Page 193
There the wolf becomes an attribute of a dark feminine goddess and of dark nature. In the dreams of modem women the wolf often represents the animus, or that strange devouring attitude women can have when possessed by the animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, Page 255
Even if one watches one’s shadow or one’s animus, if one is not constantly on the alert, these figures get one in a moment of fatigue or in an abaissement du niveau mental. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, Page 321
In general, the extraverted man has an introverted anima, while the introverted woman has an extraverted animus, and vice versa. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, Page 30
If I project my animus onto a man it is as though a part of my psychic energy would flow towards that man and at the same time I would feel attracted to him. This acts like an arrow, an amount of psychic energy which is very pointed. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz – Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motifs in Fairytales, Page 71
Unfortunately, possession carries the conviction that one is right. Just as Russian protagonists are convinced that the Western world is the destructive thing, so if the animus has you, you are sure that it is so. Marie-Louise Von Franz, Meaning of Redemption in Fairytales, Page 105
The great thing is to know that. Like most of my brothers and sisters, when I am possessed by the animus, I do not notice it I am convinced it is my own and not the animus’s opinion. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Meaning of Redemption in Fairytales, Page 105
When you are too much in the animus you cannot get out of it at once, so keep quiet. Go back into your room and say, “This is all wrong, there is something very suspicious about the state in which I find myself so I will not say anything for a few days,” and then afterwards you can thank God that for once you managed to keep it inside. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Meaning of Redemption in Fairytales, Page 105
Thus when a woman feels she needs to assert herself in some respect vis-à-vis the man, she finds herself face to face with the problem of a “two-front war”—against the man, on one hand, and against her own animus, which spoils her plan, on the other. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 145
This masculine spirit is the animus of the woman, mentioned earlier, which now, however, no longer manifests purely as affect, impulse, and vital force, but has become human, can express itself in words and deeds on a human level. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 148
The prince can be looked at as an animus figure within the woman, and in this case it would mean that when a woman makes an effort to develop the masculine side of herself, she inevitably passes through a temporary phase in which she behaves arrogantly and unskillfully by way of compensation for her otherwise yielding feminine nature. (History shows this, for example, in the behavior of the first feminists before the First World War.) ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 149
Jung tried to prove in his life’s work that behind the animus and anima in the unconscious of man and woman, a still mightier content dwells hidden, the true “atomic nucleus” of the psyche, which he called the Self to distinguish it from the ordinary everyday ego. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 153
Women, for example, often confuse the rigid opinion of their own animus with the much softer divine inner voice, which is why the French are wont to remark sardonically, “Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut!” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 154
Beyond those, it seems to have been chosen by nature to serve the development of consciousness and the realization of the Self; for without a deep psychic relationship and interaction with a member of the opposite sex, one cannot become conscious of one’s animus or anima. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 155
Jung pointed out in his work that the tendency exists for both animus and anima to be projected onto a human partner, or in the framework of the Christian tradition to be projected onto the dogma. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 209
The projection of anima and animus onto religious figures was in many ways quite useful, because it protected people from overvaluing and deifying the opposite sex, the result of which was that there was more room for straightforward, realistic personal relationships. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 220
Today the religious symbols that could have served as a vehicle for the projections of anima and animus have lost their meaning for many people. Anima and animus have fallen back into the unconscious of men and women, where, as Jung showed, they create complications in people’s relationships. To this we can ascribe the enormous number of shattered marriages we see around us today. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 220
When men and women get to know more about their own anima or animus, they get along better with the opposite sex and also redeem these figures within themselves. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 221
The animus, however, does not express itself so often in women as an erotic fantasy or mood, but rather as “sacred” convictions. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 279
One can seldom contradict the animus, for it (he) is always right; the only problem is that his opinion is not based on the actual situation. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 279
The animus appears in many myths, not only as death, but also as a bandit and murderer, for example, as the knight Bluebeard, who murdered all his wives. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 280
The animus then embodies those half-conscious, cold, unscrupulous thoughts that many women permit themselves in the “quiet hours,” especially when they are neglecting matters that are obligations from the feeling point of view—thoughts about the division of the family inheritance, manipulative plans in which they go so far as to wish other people’s death. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 280
Like the anima, the animus, too, consists not only of negative properties. It too has an extraordinarily positive and valuable side, in which it, like the anima, can form a bridge to the experience of the Self and perform a creative function. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 281
The animus frequently appears, as it does in this dream, as a group of men, or as some other collective image. Thus also the pronouncements of the animus possessed woman usually begin with “one should” or “everyone knows” or “it is always the case . . . ,” etc. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 281
Many myths and fairy tales tell of a prince, who has been turned into an animal or a monster by sorcery, being saved by a woman. This is a symbolic representation of the development of the animus toward consciousness. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 281
As the anima does with men, the animus also creates states of possession in women. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 282
Through her suffering, the animus (for both the demon and the savior are two aspects of the same inner power) can be gradually transformed into a positive inner force. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 282
In real life, too, it takes a long time for a woman to bring the animus into consciousness, and it costs her a great deal of suffering. But if she succeeds in freeing herself from his possession, he changes into an “inner companion” of the highest value, who confers on her positive masculine qualities such as initiative, courage, objectivity, and intellectual clarity. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 282
The creative courage in the truth conferred by the animus gives a woman the daring to enunciate new ideas that can inspire men to new enterprises. Often in history women have recognized the value of new creative ideas earlier than men, who are more emotionally conservative. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 282
As mentioned, the woman’s animus can lead to courage, a spirit of enterprise, truthfulness, in its highest form, to spiritual depth and intensity; but this only happens if beforehand she musters the objectivity to call her own “sacred” convictions into question and to accept the guiding messages of her dreams, even when they contradict her convictions. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 283
For this reason Jung says that the integration of the shadow is an apprentice’s work, but the integration of the animus and anima is a masterpiece. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 319
In the Middle Ages, the negative animus of women was embodied in the devil (the witch trials), the positive animus in Christ. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 320
Today the problem of projection of animus and anima onto collective religious figures has become much less acute, and thus these contents exert pressure directly and immediately on the individual. Hence the vulnerability of marriages. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, Page 320
The beard plays an enormous role in fairy tales. You know the story of Bluebeard, who killed his wives. Now he is a wonderful image of the destructive, murderous animus! There is also the tale of King Thrushbeard, which illustrates the transformation of the negative into the positive animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 18
When one is possessed by the animus, one has a holy conviction about one’s assumptions. But one must ask, “ls that what I really believe?” One must pin down the flow. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 19
Women cannot fight the animus by killing him-they can only (catch him by pinning him by the beard so they can then escape. The male hero in myths fights, overcomes, conquers the monster. The feminine follows the path of individuation by suffering and escaping. lt is enough if a woman can walk out into the human situation, rebuild human relatedness, relationship. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 20
If a woman hasn’t gone through the experience of being trapped by the demon animus, she has only unconscious thoughts. It is the demon who provides her. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 21
Such a woman becomes a vampire because she has no life in herself. But she needs life and so must take it where she finds it. The negative devil-animus kills every feminine aspect in life. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 23
The Div represents the darker, more archaic form or image of God. The daughter belongs to a particular civilization. The anima is usually one step behind, and therefore the animus is also represented by a very primitive, pagan God. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 31
The animus produces emotional, stormy arguments. Whereas the anima is subject to subtle moods that come out in spoiling remarks. The animus is prone to brutal demonstrations of his power-brute force. The anima has more cunning ways to get what she wants or to make her presence known. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 31
In dreams we often see disorderly hair, which shows animus confusion. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 32
The animus loves to create a misty atmosphere, an ambiance which one cannot find one’s orientation.
The spreading of a cloud over a country is also attributed to dwarfs and giants because they disturb consciousness. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 32
Animus possession may take the form of criticizing everybody and everything-and the damnable thing about the animus is that he is quite right’ but likely to be wrong in the specific situation. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 36
A way to stop the arguing and criticizing is for the woman to say to her animus’ “lf you are so terribly fanatical about what is wrong and what ‘should’ be’ let’s look at my shadow.” ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 36
if a woman has a strong animus, and can overcome her reluctance to knowing her shadow, she can develop a degree of male objectivity about what goes on in her and thereby become conscious’ She must learn to tell the difference between herself and her opinions, between her feminine ego and her masculine animus. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 36
Jung once said that where love is lacking, power jumps in. A woman with a strong animus has a prestige persona which she tries to protect. That is power. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 37
When a woman comes to grips with her animus, when she reflects on his influence in her life, he drowns in her reflections’ while she herself is saved from drowning. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 38
Women can be tortured by the animus, who tells them they are a complete failure, that their life is finished and now it is too late. The thing to do then is to say, “Okay, I am a failure; let’s not discuss it any more.” This is a sort of stepping out of it and thus one saves energy and can turn to something else. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 39
Every possession by the animus is a secret inflation, ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 39
If you check on the standards used by the animus in his constant criticism, you find that they are always a collective truth, something much beyond the individual. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 40
A genuine spiritual attitude which lacks the negative quality of the animus does not oppose real feminine life. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 40
Women are not committed to specific ideas (though their animus may be), and that is why they are able to contribute to the renewal of collective attitudes. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 42
The animus is frequently like this, too impatient: a woman feels she must make up her mind immediately, cut through a situation, act one way or another, instead of waiting for the pregnant psyche to bring forth the proper new development. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 43
Through this appeasement of the animus, one may find one’s true feelings and discover that it was all animus talk. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 44
Every animus conflict, if it is serious enough, seems to touch these deepest, archetypal layers of the psyche where there is an ongoing conflict between the light god and the dark god. That is why we should try to stand outside the conflict and at the same time watch it, try to realize it objectively. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 45
The animus figure appears here as a totem animal, the life principle of the girl’s tribe, the guarantee of their prosperity. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 58
It is important to understand this, because we can see it in people today who blindly marry an anima or animus projection, which then leads to a situation where the couple is not able to deal with the problem. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 58
Sometimes the relationship involves only the anima and the animus and not the human beings at all: anima and animus are attracted to one other, but when the two people are thrown together they may not be able to stand each other at all! ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 60
Animus and anima are not always happy to have this relationship-they lose part of their power when they are made conscious. They would prefer to remain gods and goddesses and keep their power. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 75
In the animus situation, his destructiveness takes the form of an inner argument, which makes it necessary to give him something to chew on. But for a man, if he goes into a place where the anima herself is, it would mean that here he takes a step into life. This has to do with the fact that the anima is an archetype of life, and the animus an archetype of death. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 77
The anima’s darkness is that she wants to entangle the man in the doubtful ambiguities of life, while the dark side of the animus is a demon who would pull women away from life, cut them off from it. ~Marie-Louise Von Franz, Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales, Page 77
