ABSTRACT

This chapter examines how the notion of existential, psychical or moral individuation is explored by a popular Scandinavian tale of crime The Killing. The Killing was created by Soren Sveistrup and starred Sofie Grabol as the emotionally repressed detective Sarah Lund, who is one of the most celebrated figures of Nordic noir. Sofie Grabol has describes Sarah Lund as isolated and unable to communicate yet somehow at peace. Lund is alienated from her family and detached from her colleagues, yet somehow at one with her own existence. Analytical psychologist C. G. Jung sees the heroic process of individuation as essential to the progress of civilization, and Sarah Lund comes to approximate the Jungian archetype of the developing hero who undergoes an individuation process which is approaching wholeness. Jungian individuation like, for that matter, the universality of Jung's archetypes presupposes certain essentialism.