This alchemical hermeneutical study analyzes Cormac McCarthy's (2005) novel, No Country for Old Men, as a cultural dream using Jungian and post-Jungian theory. Carl Jung regarded the artist as a collective human being and great works of art as dreams of the collective culture that perform a compensatory function in society and carry teleological implications. McCarthy's work elucidates the archetypal process of individuation toward the mature masculine in our time in the context of a rapidly changing environment and a deteriorating natural world. Following McCarthy's imagery and James Hillman's work, I focus on the split in the senex-puer archetype that structures the masculine psyche as the ultimate psychological site of our cultural dissociation. I also examine the teleological implications in the novel regarding the evolution of the God-image, which reflects man's understanding of the objective psyche, as well as the nature and psychological function of human evil.
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