ABSTRACT
The conclusion begins by summarising the various roles that the American father is presented to us by American cinema, making the point that masculinity is indeed pluralistic and multi-faceted, demonstrating the move from singular to plural gender, outlined earlier in the first chapters. We then move on to the advantages of post-Jungian theory, or more correctly, post-Jungian sensitivities, as this allows us more flexibility when it comes to analysis of texts than perhaps traditional semiotics have allowed for in the past. This is demonstrated by an example of how the symbolic masculine sequence in Road to Perdition can be interpreted in a number of ways. Similarly, A Bronx Tale demonstrates the flexible symbol of the doorway or portal as a liminal entry point in a number of different ways and perspectives.
The chapter then moves on to the father’s role in the American Dream and his cultural and psychological journey, both as an archetype and as a key part of the cultural complex that is the American Dream around success, material wealth, and social mobility. The chapter argues that the father is simultaneously both conscious and located within the collective Shadow of the American psyche and that this collective individuative journey is fraught with danger, in that the archetype of the father is denied his Shadow by Bly, amongst others.
We then examine the figure of the balanced father in the film Away We Go, by Sam Mendes. This is a film that manages to both satirise and demonstrate the benefits of father-involved parenting and can be read as an encouraging symptom of archetypal and cultural shift around both American masculinities and the American paternal. Finally, the chapter finishes with an analysis of the paternal journey and how important it is to differentiate between the paternal and the patriarchal.
