Frontierism and the materialization of the psyche: The rhetoric of Innerspace

Abstract

This essay employs C. G. Jung's theory of psychological types to analyze the psyche of the typical hero of the American frontier myth, and then examines the film Innerspace to determine how the hero adapts psychologically when confronted with the new frontier of the mind. It is argued that he acts rhetorically to transform the psyche into a material analogue of land‐based outer space, within which he conquers sources of evil while holding constant his own historically based psychological type.