Robertson Davies's The Manticore, the second novel in his Deptford trilogy, both sets up a Jungian frame of reference and undercuts it. Davies, far from committing himself to Jungian theory, reveals a profound ambivalence about its value, an ambivalence explored primarily through his main character, David Staunton. While David initially involves himself with Jungian analysis, his later relationship with Liesl provides a counter-theory to Jung's, as she questions the analytic process and provides an alternative means through which David can experience a sense of the numinous. While Davies's use of Jungian psychology ironically undercuts its worth as a formula for meeting life, the final irony is that the ambivalence about the Jungian formula is, at its roots, Jungian itself.
