Ring of Power

Jean Shinoda Bolen blended psychology and mythology to explore the lives of modern women and men in her acclaimed Goddesses in Everywoman and Gods in Everyman. Now she looks to the richly mythic, multigenerational family drama of the Ring Cycle operas for archetypal truths and liberating insights. Bolen shows how Wagner's ever-popular Ring Cycle articulates universal experiences and deep-seated longings by offering a mythology of the dysfunctional family and the patriarchal society in which the quest for power distorts personalities and relationships. We respond to the Ring because we recognize ourselves and our relationships in the Cycle's stern father, disempowered mother, abandoned children, and brave truth-tellers. Bolen vividly relates the events of the four operas and spotlights characters in ways that evoke the reader's identifications, memories, and healing emotions. Following the story, she offers psychological interpretations which amplify the Ring of the Nibelung as though it were a complex dream. When an interpretation rings true for us we learn something about ourselves. Exploring the transformational power of the truth, Bolen shows us how recognizing our patterns and understanding their effects frees us from our personal and global "Ring Cycle" of destruction and dysfunction.