A Jungian Analysis of the Male Protagonist's Personality in Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Abstract

Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street features a protagonist who can be viewed as a victim of feudal England. In this study, Carl Jung’s theory of analytical psychology are adopted to analyze Todd’s overall personality and in-depth personality as perceived in Sondheim’s musical. The results reveal that Sweeney Todd is found to be an introverted character who dominantly displays thinking and feeling functions through subjective experiences as a result of causal motivations and regressive adaptation. In an in-depth personality analysis, Sweeney Todd is shown to be driven by the Personal Unconscious, which is part of a psychological complex that blocks the logical utilization of the Ego. At the same time, he displays a calm and earnest-looking Persona while embodying the Shadow of a cold-blooded killer. His Anima is revealed as his weakness when he is distracted as well as driven by the desire for a family reunion. He, however, cannot attain the Self, which is central to a balanced personality. In addition, Todd also releases the Sage archetype as a thinker and planner, and the Rebel archetype with a disdain for respectable social practices and a distorted desire for justice.

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