A Jungian Analysis of How God-Like Is Isaac Asimov was certainly right when he said that the writer of a story doesn't necessarily know everything about it. The author, Brenda W. Clough, claims to have had no prior knowledge of Carl Jung's work when writing How Like a God. However, the architecture of the book is surprisingly Jungian. At the beginning of the novel, the main character, Rob, has very little interest in his appearance. Many computer scientists are like that and he has his devoted wife Julianne who makes all the sartorial decisions for him. He looks like a desk warrior, pale, uninteresting and out of shape. He wears neutral colors, beige and brown, to symbolize his undifferentiated state. In the second part of the novel, under the intolerable agony of losing his family, Rob's cold, dark side emerges and quickly takes over. The new regime is ushered in with unnatural, life-denying behavior: not eating, not drinking, not sleeping, but sinking into darkness on a park bench. Rob's appearance changes as he begins wearing rags and a dark blue coat. He loses weight because he forgets to eat. His sexuality is also distorted. When he realizes what is happening, he immediately tries to change by cutting his hair. At the hairdresser he notices the music in the book for the first time. Also notice that he is blonder. Now he has a light side and a dark side. In the third part of the novel, under Edwin's beneficial influence, Rob cultivates his better inclinations and inadvertently worsens a one-sidedness. He forces the tramp, now stigmatized as a frightening monster, to descend into his own basement, the trapdoor of which, however, has no lock. Edwin is the natural ally of Rob's good and light side... middle of paper... the power to transform him into the not-self, to become Gilgamesh. Now he knows the face of his evil, and knowledge is a responsibility. In this soup of symbols Edwin has two roles. He is obviously a hermeneut, guiding Rob towards self-realization. But he is also Virgil, the icon of reason and light and Rob's learning of Dante. (This is why Rob feels vaguely repelled by The Divine Comedy housed in the New York Public Library. By then he's in full avoidance mode, and even the first line of the poem hits too close to home. “Halfway of our life's journey I strayed from the straight path and woke up alone in a dark wood. "Ouch!) Edwin can guide Rob towards the final confrontation with his dark side, but he can't fight the shadow alone. Indeed, Edwin finds Rob's realm of the unconscious intolerable, as there is no place for reason there..