Shadow: The Hidden Side of Every TV Character

How do some of television's most memorable characters get written? Psychology, including the theories of Carl Jung, can help us unlock a character's backstory, and future development, in a streaming series.

* Contains spoilers for Seasons 3 and 4 of Handmaid’s Tale *

I recently finished watching Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu and haven’t stopped thinking about the psychology of some of its most outstanding characters: June Osborne, Fred Waterford, and, of course, Aunt Lydia. Their dynamics drive a majority of the plot in the series, which raked in 15 awards and 75 nominations at the Emmys over the past four years.

Among the recipients was the phenomenal Ann Dowd, who won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2017 for her role as Aunt Lydia.

Ann Dowd plays Aunt Lydia in Handmaid's Tale on Hulu.

Aunt Lydia is the charismatic and tyrannical leader of the Red Center in Gilead, where she trains fertile women into domestic submission with a mix of ruthless physical abuse and tender motherly protection (“Girls, there are two types of freedom: freedom to, and freedom from.”). Say what you will about her deplorable views of women and their role in society, but we can all agree that her conviction, and her sense of duty towards the handmaids, is unwavering. Four years after Dowd received her Emmy, Aunt Lydia remains one of the most complicated and divisive female characters on the streaming series.

So how did Aunt Lydia become who she is? Depth psychology, and especially the theories of Carl Jung, can help us unlock the development of television’s most memorable characters. Around the first quarter of the 20th century, the psychoanalyst Carl Jung described the individual’s psychology as consisting of four parts: ego, shadow, animus/anima, and persona. The latter two make analyzing character arcs loads of fun for another blog post, but let’s stick with Jung’s idea of the shadow for now.

Shadow can be understood as the hidden part of one’s identity. Everyone has a shadow, and each of us confronts it in myriad ways. If someone says or does something that leaves you frothing at the mouth with anger, and that anger is probably disproportionate to the offense, then you are likely dealing with the shadow aspect of your identity. For instance, maybe someone you know at work is really vain and loves getting attention from her or his coworkers for their beauty, and seeing them in action makes you want to throw your laptop through the office window (or your kitchen window, because, you know, COVID...). This might mean that things like getting attention from others, or behaving in very feminine or masculine ways, stirs up some very strong – and very negative – feelings for you. That’s your shadow.*

And, boy, does Aunt Lydia have some really negative feelings towards parts of herself, likely unknown to her: lust and being cared for. Dowd, the series writers, and the Executive Producers did a remarkable job demonstrating the cycle of bodily desires, repression, and punishment that Lydia inflicts upon herself and other women in Handmaid’s Tale. But it wasn’t until Season 3 that audiences got to witness Aunt Lydia’s backstory, which can give us clues as to what happens with her character in Season 4, and beyond.

Ann Dowd (right) as Aunt Lydia and Emily Althaus (left) as Noelle in "Unfit." Season 3 of Handmaid's Tale.

In “Unfit” (Season 3, Episode 8) Dowd plays Lydia pre-Gilead, where she works as an elementary school teacher. Her professional role mirrors the one she takes on in Gilead, acting as both caretaker and disciplinarian to children, rather than grown women. When teacher Lydia finds that Noelle (played by Emily Althaus) does not show up to pick her son up from school, she invites them both to her house for dinner. We discover, along with Lydia, that the young mother is struggling financially and cycling through a series of boyfriends.

Despite Lydia’s moral reservations about Noelle’s parenting, they quickly become close, spending a warm and intimate Christmas together at Lydia’s place, where she lives alone. There are hints that Lydia’s solitude followed a bad marriage, leaving her craving a connection with others, although she is careful to not show it. Noelle gives Lydia a makeup palette as a Christmas gift and begins applying some of it on Lydia, whose initial defenses melt away as the young woman gently glides the brush across her cheeks. Rendered in slow motion and soft colored lighting, Lydia surrenders herself to the femininity, softness, and care of her new female friend. However, her moral righteousness rears its ugly head soon after, as she deems Noelle unfit to mother her child and takes it upon herself to report her and have Child Protective Services take her son away.

Another important moment in “Unfit” tests Lydia’s resistance to physical intimacy, this time lust. She goes out on a date with the school principle (played by John Ortiz) for New Year’s Eve, and the date is playing out like a dream. After they both go back to Lydia’s home, a kiss turns into the promise of a steamy love scene. Ortiz’s character holds back from Lydia’s passion, however, saying he wants to take things slowly. This sends Lydia into a spiral of confusion, shame, and guilt.

When Lydia becomes aware of her lust and desire for physical intimacy, it sends her into a spiral of confusion, shame, and guilt.

“Unfit” thus presents us with two moments of physical intimacy and vulnerability that drum up the shadow aspects of Lydia’s character to a deafening pitch. Lydia goes from being intimately cared for, to lashing out at Noelle and having her son taken away. Lydia is overcome with passion for a man, then lashes out at herself for her lust and breaks the bathroom mirror with her bare fists. As we watch Lydia glaring at herself through the broken shards of her reflection, we see a critical scene unfold in the character’s backstory. Lydia’s shadow finally crawled out from the dark cave she had shunned it to for so long, and her response is to beat it into submission and shove it even deeper into the secret corners of her identity.

These moments of surrender, confusion, and shame in Lydia’s history hold the seed of her character arc. Her motivation to serve as the formidable and abusive Aunt Lydia of Gilead in Seasons 1-3 come from cultural beliefs about female desire and intimacy ultimately fueled by her own shame. In his Collected Works, Carl Jung describes shadow as “...that hidden, repressed, for the most part inferior and guilt-laden personality whose ultimate ramifications reach back into the realm of our animal ancestors…” (CW9, paras 422 & 423).

Shadow can thus help us understand how authoritarianism and dogmatic moral beliefs stain Lydia’s initially benevolent attitude towards younger women and mothers. It can also explain other moments in Handmaid’s Tale where Aunt Lydia defends against being cared for by her handmaids: during a baby shower at a commander’s home, Janine finds Aunt Lydia seated in a lonely corner of the mansion and asks if she is okay. Aunt Lydia’s terse response to Janine’s care reveals the fortress that her character constantly maintains when she senses that her vulnerability or lack of control are visible to others.

Jung’s ideas of shadow were concerned with a person’s future, as well as their past, making the concept useful for delineating a character’s backstory and arc in television. Season 4 of Handmaid’s Tale holds some promise for Aunt Lydia. Her rigidity begins to fall apart when she witnesses Janine and former wife Eden form a special bond at the Red Center. If Hulu does release a Season 5 of Handmaid’s Tale, I hope the writers will have Aunt Lydia finally face her shadow head-on and, perhaps, transform into a very different kind of leader for women.

* For more about the Jungian concept of shadow, check out one of my favorite podcasts, This Jungian Life.