In the Jungian landscape, the Father represents spirituality and consciousness. In the absence of reliable father figures, we create them or paint sympathetic pictures–Ivan the Terrible holding his dying son after having impaled him with the royal scepter. More so, we write of fathers as we live through them. They become part of the stories we choose, or choose not to tell.
The Father Archetype is more prevalent than fathers themselves—friends, mentors, writers, kings and princes, cardinals, and saints have been fathers to many in various faces of the Father Archetype. According to Jung, the Father is an illumination; he is seen in the imagery of solar symbolism, golden halos of the Church and those of the Mughals. The Father is also the symbol of order, discipline, and rationality, as is sought to be depicted by the Godfathers of the universe. Odin–the one-eyed All-Father who listens to the memory and consciousness of the world through his Ravens. The Father can also be hubris in its true form, alienated from reality. Such figures are replete in popular culture, like Saturn eating his children on Goya’s canvas.
