The Psychology of “The Yellow Jacket”

The following study of the material of the Yellow Jacket has been restricted, necessarily for the sake of clearness, to the symbolism, lines and characters that have an immediate value for certain problems in psychopathology.1 Each interpreter will naturally select somewhat different material from the play and present it according to his purpose. The Yellow Jacket was selected because of its profound psychology and the marvelous sequence of its unfolding of the personality of the male youth.

The material for the poem, for the play is a poem, I am informed, was found in the writings of the ancient Chinese poets, particularly Confucius. The method of its presentation is taken from the Chinese stage.

The poem, as a whole, and its mine of symbolism is, therefore, not the fruit of one personality but the product of countless individuals who peopled eastern Asia for thousands of years. Hence, as one would expect, most of the symbolism, the lines and story, except for minor adulterations, is a synthetic arrangement of the most pertinent expressions of feeling of those peoples. Whatever is retained and repeated through the centuries lives and is used again and again because it most clearly expresses the trials and yearnings of the unconscious—the soul. Such expressions as are not so pertinent are lost through disuse.

The mediums through which this wonderfully clear expression of the most profound depths of the human soul was transposed into English, were an Arabian poet Benrimo and an American poet and dramatist, Mr. G. C. Hazelton. The exquisite expressions of feeling and lines by the characters must be attributed to the genius of Mr. and Mrs. Coburn, who not only had to train their assistants to act Chinese characters, but certain personalities had to be selected that had already grown up with particular characteristics so highly developed that they were already the natural result of certain affective