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for 7\J o v e mh e r 19 2 9
21
Psycho-Analyzed
^By James Oppenheim
athletic motion of a Helen Wills, the comedienne lightness of a Marion Davies — we can say of Greta Garbo that she has a thousand rhythms, as if she were all women in one, as if she were typical of all the women of all time.
Such women are comparatively rare and they correspond with what the psychologist calls the soui-image, that is, the ideal woman, the woman that every man seeks in his dreams, the woman who will mean everything to him; and because she is changeable and varied, so unexpected in her thought and action, so different always, remains forever a mystery. The soul-image type woman, as Dr. Jung points out, runs the gamut of what women have been: from the shady to the light, from the demonic or devilish to the divine. Of course she may not have lived these things; but one senses in her nature all feminine possibilities — the child-like, the naive, the worldly, the
irregular; maiden, mistress, wife, mother. She is Mona Lisa with her mysterious smile, a smile that sometimes looks like sadness, sometimes like joy. She is Cleopatra. She appears on the world-stage always as a disturbing beauty, a Helen that launches a thousand ships and destroys a kingdom.
Psychologically this means that the woman is manysided, instead of being caked and fixed like most of us. She is a mystery even to herself, and hence to men she furnishes the lure of the unknown and her many-sidedness gives promise of rich relationship.
This, of course, does not explain Greta Garbo, so
The popularity of Garbo points to a change in the American people. The great audience has come to appreciate subtlety in beauty, depth in character, artistry in acting.
According to Oppenheim, Garbo has become the 'soul-image' to the American people — that is, the ideal woman that every man seeks in his dreams! Above, in a love scene with Lew Ayres.
much as describe her.
For explanation we must turn to the problem of types. To begin with, Greta Garbo is an introvert, not an extravert. The extravert is normally well adopted to the world, a doer rather than a dreamer, a good mixer, one who plays the game with a certain lightness of touch; among women usually a good hostess, a good pal, sociable, tactful, charming, 'selling' herself easily, and just born that way. The introvert is the opposite. He tends to withdraw from the world into the world of imagination, of dream, of inner things. Such men and women in the Middle Ages became monks and nuns and retired to the cloisters. Such women sought not 'carnal love1 as they put it, but became the brides of the church. The introvert usually isn't a good fellow, he finds it almost impossible to 'sell' himself, he (Continued on page 107)