CHAPTER TWO: THE LOVER FROM THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM

©2001 by Judith Searle

 Holden Caulfield, hero of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, is a classic example of the Two temperament. As 17-year-old Holden talks with his 10-year-old sister, Phoebe, about the kind of career he might choose, we see the Two's dedication to helping others:
 

"You know what I'd like to be?" I said. "You know what I'd like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?" 
     "What? Stop swearing." 
     "You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye?' I'd like--"
     "It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns."
     She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though.
     "I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around--nobody big, I mean--except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy." (pp. 172-173) 

      At their best, Twos are generous, highly emotional, and intense in their relationships. I call Two "The Lover" because people of this temperament generally have a powerful concern for others and empathy for their sufferings. Twos often devote their lives to supporting others, and they take great pride in this loving service. 

Candida
      In Bernard Shaw's play Candida, the heroine exemplifies the Two's dedication to helping loved ones with their life tasks, as Candida does for her preacher husband, James Morell. The playwright's description of Candida at her first entrance offers a witty portrait of a self-aware Two:
 

She is a woman of 33, well built, well nourished, likely, one guesses to become matronly later on, but now quite at her best, with the double charm of youth and motherhood. Her ways are those of a woman who has found that she can always manage people by engaging their affection, and who does so frankly and instinctively without the smallest scruple. So far, she is like any other pretty woman who is just clever enough to make the most of her sexual attractions for trivially selfish ends; but Candida's serene brow, courageous eyes, and well set mouth and chin signify largeness of mind and dignity of character to ennoble her cunning in the affections. (p. 213)

     Morrell, a Three, introduces his wife to Eugene Marchbanks, a Four, a young poet whom Morell has rescued from personal difficulties. Marchbanks falls in love with Candida, who is 15 years his senior, and persuades Morell that Candida may return his love. 
     Candida has an instinctive understanding of Marchbanks' hunger for love and beauty. When she confides to her husband her sense that Marchbanks is ready to fall in love with her, we see her Two pride in her potential power over the young poet's life. She explains to Morell that Marchbanks's ultimate view of her will depend on how he is introduced to love:
 

CANDIDA [explaining] If he learns it from a good woman, then it will be all right: he will forgive me.
MORELL. Forgive?
CANDIDA. But suppose he learns it from a bad woman, as so many men do, especially poetic men, who imagine all women are angels! Suppose he only discovers the value of love when he has thrown it away and degraded himself in his ignorance! Will he forgive me then, do you think?
MORELL. Forgive you for what?
CANDIDA [realizing how stupid he is, and a little disappointed, though quite tenderly so] Don't you understand? [He shakes his head. She turns to him again, so as to explain with the fondest intimacy]. I mean, will he forgive me for not teaching him myself? For abandoning him to the bad women for the sake of my goodness, of my purity, as you call it? Ah, James, how little you understand me, to talk of your confidence in my goodness and purity! I would give them both to poor Eugene as willingly as I would give my shawl to a beggar dying of cold, if there were nothing else to restrain me. Put your trust in my love for you, James; for if that went, I should care very little for your sermons: mere phrases that you cheat yourself and others with every day. (p. 242)

      Candida's threat to withdraw her love if her husband fails to fully appreciate her may be subtle, but it is real. The iron hand within that velvet glove is characteristic of Twos, whose self-respect is maintained by the love and dependency of others. 
     In the end, the two men decide that Candida must choose between them. Morell offers her his strength, dignity, protection; Marchbanks offers his weakness and need. Candida, appalled at their common assumption that she must "belong" to one or the other, deliberately delays declaring her choice until both men are miserable with the suspense:
 

CANDIDA [significantly] I give myself to the weaker of the two.
Eugene divines her meaning at once: his face whitens like steel in a furnace.
MORELL [bowing his head with the calm of collapse] I accept your sentence, Candida.
CANDIDA. Do you understand, Eugene?
MARCHBANKS. Oh, I feel I'm lost. He cannot bear the burden.
MORELL [incredulously, raising his head and voice with comic abruptness] Do you mean me, Candida?
CANDIDA [smiles a little] Let us sit and talk comfortably over it like three friends. [To Morell] Sit down, dear. [Morell, quite lost, takes the chair from the fireside: the children's chair] Bring me that chair, Eugene. [She indicates the easy chair. He fetches it silently, even with something like cold strength, and places it next Morell, a little behind him. She sits down. He takes the visitor's chair himself, and sits, inscrutable. When they are all settled she begins, throwing a spell of quietness on them by her calm, sane, tender tone]. You remember what you told me about yourself, Eugene; how nobody has cared for you since your old nurse died: how those clever fashionable sisters and successful brothers of yours were your mother's and father's pets: how miserable you were at Eton: how your father is trying to starve you into returning to Oxford: how you have had to live without comfort or welcome or refuge: always lonely, and nearly always disliked and misunderstood, poor boy! 
MARCHBANKS [faithful to the nobility of his lot] I had my books. I had Nature. And at last I met you.
CANDIDA. Never mind that just at present. Now I want you to look at this other boy here: my boy! Spoiled from his cradle. We go once a fortnight to see his parents. You should come with us, Eugene, to see the pictures of the hero of that household. James as a baby! The most wonderful of all babies. James holding his first school prize, won at the ripe age of eight! James as the captain of his eleven! James in his first frock coat! James under all sorts of glorious circumstances! You know how strong he is (I hope he didn't hurt you): how clever he is: how happy. [With deepening gravity] Ask James's mother and his three sisters what it cost to save James the trouble of doing anything but be strong and clever and happy. Ask me what it costs to be James's mother and three sisters and wife and mother to his children all in one. Ask Prossy and Maria how troublesome the house is even when we have no visitors to help us to slice the onions. Ask the tradesmen who want to worry James and spoil his beautiful sermons who it is that puts them off. When there is money to give, he gives it: when there is money to refuse, I refuse it. I build a castle of comfort and indulgence and love for him, and stand sentinel always to keep the little vulgar cares out. I make him master here, though he does not know it, and could not tell you a moment ago how it came to be so. [With sweet irony]
And when he thought I might go away with you, his only anxiety was--what should become of me! And to tempt me to stay he offered me [leaning forward to stroke his hair caressingly at each phrase] his strength for my defence! His industry for my livelihood! His dignity for my position! His--[relenting] ah, I am mixing up your beautiful cadences and spoiling them, am I not, darling? [She lays her cheek fondly against his].
MORELL [quite overcome, kneeling beside her chair and embracing her with boyish ingenuousness] It's all true, every word. What I am you have made me with the labor of your hands and the love of your heart. You are my wife, my mother, my sisters: you are the sum of all loving care to me.
CANDIDA [in his arms, smiling, to Eugene] Am I your mother and sisters to you, Eugene?
MARCHBANKS [rising with a fierce gesture of disgust] Ah, never. Out, then into the night with me!

 This scene provides an amusing composite picture of the Feeling Triad: Candida's Two pride in the control her loving attention to others gives her over their lives; Morell's Three lack of awareness of his feelings and especially of his dependency on his wife; and Marchbanks's Four capacity for suffering, which is ultimately a kind of strength.

The Two's History
 Twos as children feel ambivalent toward the protective figure in their lives. Usually the father takes this role in a child's life, but in some cases the mother is the primary provider of structure, guidance, and discipline. Because Twos have mixed feelings about their protector, they develop qualities of the protector's complementary opposite: the motherly, loving, nurturing figure. Their reasoning runs something like this: If I can make others--especially the protective figure--love me and depend on me, maybe I will be safe. Winning the protector's affection thus becomes the template for the Two's approach to relationships in later life.

The World According to Garp
  John Irving's novel The World According to Garp describes the life and times of Garp, the Two son of Jenny Fields, a feminist leader ahead of her time. Jenny, an Eight, is fiercely independent and unsentimental--her qualities as protective figure much stronger than her qualities as nurturing figure. A nurse in a veterans' hospital, she wants a child but not a husband. Her solution is to become pregnant by a dying, brain-damaged patient whose vocabulary consists of a single word: "Garp." She loses her job when her pregnancy becomes evident, takes a job as nurse in a boys' school, and names her son "T. S. [for Technical Sergeant] Garp."
 Garp's story, a sexual comedy of errors, is filled with love, violence, and death. Even as a child, Garp shows a Two's exceptional compassion for others' suffering, When Garp's English teacher is tormented by his students over his foul breath, Garp refuses to participate in this public humiliation:
 

      "G-G-Garp?" stuttered Mr. Tinch, bending close to the boy--who smelled the terrible truth in Senior Honors English Composition. Garp knew he would win the annual creative writing prize. The sole judge was always Tinch. And if he could just pass third-year math, which he was taking for the second time, he would respectably graduate and make his mother very happy.
      "Do I have b-b-bad breath, Garp?" Tinch asked.
      "'Good' and 'bad' are matters of opinion, sir," Garp said.
      "In your opinion, G-G-Garp?" Tinch said.
      "In my opinion," Garp said, without batting an eye, "you've got the best breath of any teacher at this school." And he looked hard across the classroom at Benny Potter from New York--a born wise-ass, even Garp would agree--and he stared Benny's grin off Benny's face because Garp's eyes said to Benny that Garp would break Benny's neck if he made a peep.
      And Tinch said, "Thank you, Garp," who won the writing prize, despite the note submitted with his last paper.

Mr. Tinch: I lied in class because I didn't want those other assholes to laugh at you. You should know, however, that your breath really is pretty bad. Sorry.
        T.S. Garp

      "You know w-w-what?" Tinch asked Garp when they were alone together, talking about Garp's last story.
      "What?" Garp said.
      "There's nothing I can d-d-do about my breath," Tinch said. "I think it's because I'm d-d-dying," he said, with a twinkle, "I'm r-r-rotting from the inside out!" But Garp was not amused and he watched for news of Tinch for years after his graduation, relieved that the old gentleman did not appear to have anything terminal. (pp. 66-67)

     Garp's instinctive kindness to Tinch is typical of Twos. The Two emotional responsiveness to others' suffering is also clear in the following scene, in which the adult Garp empathizes with the predicament of a young girl who has been raped:
 

      Garp had been running in the city park when he found the girl, a naked ten-year-old running ahead of him on the bridle path. When she realized he was gaining on her, she fell down and covered her face, then covered her crotch, then tried to hide her insubstantial breasts. It was a cold day, late fall, and Garp saw the blood on the child's thighs and her frightened, swollen eyes. She screamed and screamed at him.
      "What happened to you?" he asked, though he knew very well. He looked all around them, but there was no one there. She hugged her raw knees to her chest and screamed. "I won't hurt you," Garp said. "I want to help you." But the child wailed even louder. My God, of course! Garp thought: the terrible molester had probably said those very words to her, not long ago.  "Where did he go?" Garp asked her. Then he changed his tone, trying to convince her he was on her side. "I'll kill him for you," he told her. She stared quietly at him, her head shaking and shaking, her fingers pinching and pinching the tight skin on her arms. "Please," Garp said, "Can you tell me where your clothes are?" He had nothing to give her to wear except his sweaty T-shirt. He was dressed in his running shorts, his running shoes. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head and felt instantly cold; the girl cried out, awfully loud, and hid her face. "No, don't be frightened, it's for you to put on," Garp told her. He let the T-shirt drop on her but she writhed out from under it and kicked at it; then she opened her mouth very wide and bit her own fist. . . .
      Garp began to cry. The sky was gray, dead leaves were all around them, and when Garp began to wail aloud, the girl picked up his T-shirt and covered herself with it. They were in this queer position to each other--the child crouched under Garp's T-shirt, cringing at Garp's feet with Garp crying over her--when the mounted park police, a twosome, rode up the bridle path and spotted the apparent child molester with his victim. (p. 141)

      Garp becomes a writer and marries Helen, a practical, scholarly, independent woman who in some ways resembles his mother; they produce a son, for whom Garp becomes the primary nurturing figure. 
Garp has the strong sexual appetite that is characteristic of Twos, and he becomes involved in a number of extra-marital liaisons. After having sex with Cindy, his son's baby sitter,  Garp returns home, fearful that the campus police may have seen him throwing away the remainder of his packet of condoms.
 

      But no one saw him, no one found him out. Even Helen, already asleep, would not have found the smell of sex peculiar; after all, only hours before, he had legitimately acquired the odor. Even so, Garp showered, and slipped cleanly into his own safe bed; he curled against Helen, who murmured some affection; instinctively, she thrust one long thigh over his hip. When he failed to respond, she forced her buttocks back against him. Garp's throat ached at her trust, and at his love for her. He felt fondly the slight swell of Helen's pregnancy. . . . Although he'd agreed with Helen that it would be nice to have a girl, Garp hoped for another boy.
      Why? he thought. He recalled the girl in the park, his image of the tongueless Ellen James, his own mother's difficult decisions. He felt fortunate to be with Helen; she had her own ambitions and he could not manipulate her. But he remembered the Kärntnerstrasse whores, and Cushie Percy (who would die making a baby). And now--her scent still on him, or at least on his mind, although he had washed--the plundered Little Squab Bones. . . .
      Garp didn't want a daughter because of men. Because of bad men, certainly; but even, he thought, because of men like me. (pp. 150-151)

      Garp eyed Walt's uneaten pasta as if it were a personal insult. "Why do I bother?" he said. "The child eats nothing."
      They finished their meal in silence. Helen knew Garp was thinking up a story to tell Walt after dinner. She knew Garp did this to calm himself whenever he was worried about the children--as if the act of imagining a good story for children was a way to keep children safe forever.
      With the children Garp was instinctively generous, loyal as an animal, the most affectionate of fathers; he understood Duncan and Walt deeply and separately. Yet, Helen felt sure, he saw nothing of how his anxiety for the children made the children anxious--tense, even immature. On the one hand he treated them as grownups, but on the other hand he was so protective of them that he was not allowing them to grow up. He did not accept that Duncan was ten, that Walt was five; sometimes the children seemed fixed, as three-year-olds, in his mind.
      Helen listened to the story Garp made up for Walt with her usual interest and concern. Like many of the stories Garp told the children, it began as a story for the children and ended up as a story Garp seemed to have made up for Garp. You would think that the children of a writer would have more stories read to them than other children, but Garp preferred that his children listen only to his stories. (p. 187)

Helen, a One, obviously understands Garp better than he understands himself. Twos prefer to focus on others' needs, and soul-searching generally makes them uncomfortable.
      When Garp learns that his wife is having an affair with one of her university students, he responds with characteristic Two histrionics:
 

      When Helen touched him, he said, "Don't touch me," and went on crying. Helen shut the bedroom door.
      "Oh, don't," she pleaded. He isn't worth this; he wasn't anything. I just enjoyed him," she tried to explain, but Garp shook his head violently and threw his pants at her. He was still only half dressed--an attitude that was perhaps, Helen realized, the most compromising for men: when they were not one thing and also not another. A woman half dressed seemed to have some power, but a man was simply not as handsome as when he was naked, and not as secure as when he was clothed. "Please get dressed," she whispered to him, and handed him back his pants. He took them, he pulled them on; and went on crying.
      "I'll do just what you want," she said.
      "You won't see him again?" he said to her.
      "No, not once," she said. "Not ever again."
      "Walt has a cold," Garp said. "He shouldn't even be going out, but it's not too bad for him at a movie. And we won't be late," he added to her. "Go see if he's dressed warmly enough." She did.
      He opened her top drawer, where her lingerie was, and pulled the drawer from the dresser; he pushed his face into the wonderful silkiness and scent of her clothes--like a bear holding a great trough of food in his forepaws, and then losing himself in it. When Helen came back into the room and caught him at this, it was almost as if she'd caught him masturbating. Embarrassed, he brought the drawer down across his knee and cracked it; her underwear flew about. He raised the cracked drawer over his head and smacked it down against the edge of the dresser, snapping what felt like the spine of an animal about the size of the drawer. Helen ran from the room and he finished dressing. (pp. 256-257)

     Still seething about Helen's affair, Garp takes his sons to a movie, having secured her promise that she will use the time he is away to break off with her lover. Sitting in the movie, Garp frets about his son Walt's fever and his wife's infidelity.
 

      "You should relax, Dad," Duncan suggested, shaking his head. Oh, I should, Garp knew; but he couldn't. He thought of Walt, and what a perfect little ass he had, and strong little legs, and how sweet his sweat smelled when he'd been running and his hair was damp behind his ears. A body that perfect should not be sick, he thought. I  should have let Helen go out on this miserable night; I should have made her call that twerp from her office--and tell him to put it in his ear, Garp thought. Or in a light socket And turn on the juice!
      I should have called that candy-ass myself, Garp thought. I should have visited him in the middle of the night. When Garp walked up the aisle to see if they had a phone in the lobby, he heard Walt still coughing.
      If she hasn't already gotten in touch with him, Garp thought, I'll tell her not to keep trying. I'll tell her it's my turn. He was at that point in his feelings toward Helen where he felt betrayed but at the same time honestly loved and important to her; he had not had time enough to ponder how betrayed he felt--or how much, truly, she had been trying to keep him in her mind. It was a delicate point, between hating her and loving her terribly--also, he was not without sympathy for whatever she'd wanted; after all, he knew, the shoe on the other foot had also been worn (and was certainly thinner). It even seemed unfair, to Garp, that Helen, who had always meant so well, had been caught like this; she was a good woman and she certainly deserved better luck. But when Helen did not answer the phone, this point of delicacy in Garp's feelings toward her quite suddenly escaped him. He felt only rage, and only betrayal.  (pp. 263-264)

     Garp's blind fury here reflects the Two's connecting point to Eight.. He insists on leaving in the middle of the movie, drives home in the middle of a blinding sleet storm, and accidentally hits his wife's lover's car in his home driveway as Helen and her lover are in the car making love. The accident kills Walt and seriously injures everyone else. 

Levels of Health
      Twos at all levels of health seek to win love through serving and helping others. But only the healthiest Twos have sufficient insight into their own personality dynamics to understand that giving-to-get is at the root of their altruism. 
      The psychological defense mechanism characteristic of Two is repression, a banishing of one's own needs from awareness. Because average Twos are out of touch with their personal needs and desires, they unconsciously seek to align themselves with people who can fill those needs. But Twos delude themselves that they are the ones filling the needs of others, and their ability to serve others becomes a source of pride. Average Twos are continually in search of reassurance that they are loved and valued.
      In literature we see a wide range of average Twos: Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, Garp in The World According to Garp, the title character in Jane Austen's Emma, Molly Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses, Dora in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, Amanda in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, Shakespeare's King Lear and Cleopatra, Will Ladislaw in George Eliot's Middlemarch, Emile Zola's Nana, Sophie in William Styron's Sophie's Choice, the second Mrs. De Winter in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, Tereza in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Hana in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Molina in Manuel Puig's The Kiss of the Spider Woman, Norman in Ronald Harwood's The Dresser, and the title character in Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
      When Twos are healthy, they are altruistic, loving and nurturing of others without any expectation that others will reciprocate. They are deeply humble people whose take their greatest satisfaction in seeing others' suffering reduced. Unlike average Twos, they are in touch with their own feelings and have an ability to nurture themselves as well as others. 
      Healthy Twos in literature include Sidney Carton in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Esther in Dickens's Bleak House, Flora Poste in Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm, Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the title characters in Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara and Candida, Mr. Darcey in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Ramsay in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Kate Gulden in Anna Quindlen's One True Thing, and the black minister in Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country. 
      Unhealthy Twos become aggressive and manipulative, demanding from others the love they feel they have earned by their selfless devotion. Twos at this level are bitter at what they see as others' ingratitude, and they may use their own illnesses--often psychosomatic in origin--as evidence of their self-sacrifice. When Twos deteriorate to this degree, they become so unlovable they actually drive away the love they crave. In extreme pathology, Twos may become stalkers.
      Examples of unhealthy Twos in literature are Gregors Werle in Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck, the Captain in August Strindberg's The Father, Annie in Stephen King's Misery, Paula in Roddy Doyle's The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Dave in Alice Adams's Medicine Men, and Baby Kochamma in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. 

Two's Place in Society
      Twos are found in all lines of work, but they are especially visible in the helping professions. Nurses, massage therapists, physical therapists, dental aides and other professional caregivers are often Twos, as are nannies, teachers of young children, and school principals. Restaurant waitstaff, maitre d's, and chefs are also frequently of this temperament. Twos often choose careers as flight attendants, secretaries, telephone operators, retail salespeople and managers, beauticians, talent agents and personal managers. 
      Their strong orientation toward people also leads many Twos into careers in show business as actors, singers, dancers, celebrity interviewers, and hosts of children's television shows. Celebrity spouses are often people of this point.
Twos of both sexes commonly devote a great deal of energy and attention to nurturing their families, and for many the central "career" is that of homemaker.

Two's Stress and Security Points
     The emotional compass of the Two is relatively wide, having connections with both sides of the Enneagram diagram, but with only two of the triads. Two's natural character arc is between the Eight and Four connecting points. It is notable that Twos have qualities of all three of the categories described by Karen Horney: the aggressive, at Eight; the withdrawn, at Four; and the compliant--moving toward others--at their core point.
      The basic tension for Twos between a confrontative power grab at the Eight stress point and self awareness at the Four security point reflects a primary concern with the "I-Thou" issue: Where are the appropriate boundaries between the self and the other? Lack of appreciation by others for Two's helpfulness may result in a hysterical and invasive confrontation, at Eight, as we saw with Garp in relation to his wife's love affair. Without continual assurance that others love and need them, Twos' basic self-concept is threatened, even in a character as healthy as Candida. However, if Twos are seen as lovable, they gain confidence at their Four security point to explore their own deepest feelings. 
The fact that Twos have no interior line touching the head triad has of course no relation to their intelligence; it simply means that thinking is not Twos' first priority.

The Wings of Two
      The contrast between the One wing and the Three wing is strong, with One's dutifulness reinforcing the Two's caretaking aspect, while Three's need to present a successful image emphasizes the self-serving motivation that is ever-present beneath the Two's stance of helpfulness.
      Twos with a One wing tend to be more emotionally controlled and tense than Twos with a Three Wing. Preoccupied with what is right and proper, they are more likely to devote themselves to fostering others' growth and healing. 
      Garp's One wing is visible in his anxiety about his children, his conscience over his infidelities, and his attention to keeping his household uncluttered. His preoccupation with the social usefulness of his writing is also a mark of the average Two with a One wing.
      Holden Caulfield, who also has a One wing, is rigid in his judgments of others' cruelty and uncompromising in his desire to find a profession that is compatible with an ethical life. The One-ish black-and-white thinking he exhibits is a factor in his nervous breakdown. 
      Twos with a Three wing tend to be more seductive, playful, and conscious of the image they present to the world. Both Two and Three are "image" points, defining themselves through the feedback they get from others, so Twos with a Three wing need more admiration and validation from the world than Twos with a One wing, who are more in touch with an inner compass. 
      Although Candida is a Two with a Three wing, her high level of health shows in her generosity to others and her lack of expectation of any quid-pro-quo. Only when her husband treats her with extreme insensitivity does she remind him how much he actually depends on her. 

To The Lighthouse
      Mrs. Ramsay, the protagonist of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, offers an example of a healthy Two with a One wing. A 50-year-old mother of eight and wife of a professor of literature, she is in Scotland for the summer with her family and assorted house guests. Typically, she is the glue that holds together this disparate group, and she continually focuses on serving them: feeding them, making them feel valued, using her superb social skills to encourage appropriate romantic matches. 
      The Two's focus on helping others is visible in Mrs. Ramsay's discussion with her husband about sailing to the nearby Lighthouse the following day. When he argues that the weather looks unpromising, she is distressed about disappointing her six-year-old son, James:
 

      'But it may be fine--I expect it will be fine,' said Mrs. Ramsay, making some little twist of the reddish-brown stocking she was knitting, impatiently. If she finished it to-night, if they did go to the Lighthouse after all, it was to be given to the Lighthouse keeper for his little boy, who was threatened with a tuberculous hip; together with a pile of old magazines, and some tobacco, indeed whatever she could find lying about, not really wanted, but only littering the room, to give those poor fellows who must be bored to death sitting all day with nothing to do but polish the lamp and trim the wick and rake about on their scrap of garden, something to amuse them. For how would you like to be shut up for a whole month at a time, and possibly more in stormy weather, upon a rock the size of a tennis lawn? she would ask; and to have no letters or newspapers, and to see nobody; if you were married, not to see your wife, not to know how your children were--if they were ill, if they had fallen down and broken their legs or arms; to see the same dreary waves breaking week after week, and then a dreadful storm coming, and the windows covered with spray, and birds dashed against the lamp, and the whole place rocking, and not be able to put your nose out of doors for fear of being swept into the sea? How would you like that? she asked, addressing herself particularly to her daughters. So she added, rather differently, one must take them whatever comforts one can. (pp. 4-5)

Mrs. Ramsay's Two empathy is evident in her vivid imagining of the lighthouse keepers' situation. Her focus on helping them allows her to push aside her own feelings, especially her impatience with her husband--which, if admitted, might threaten the serenity of their relationship. Her response shows the repression that is the Two's characteristic defense mechanism.
      In later passages we see Mrs. Ramsay's understanding of what her husband needs from her: in particular, reassurance about the value of his scholarly work:
 

      It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius, first of all, and then to be taken within the circle of life, warmed and soothed, to have his senses restored to him, his barrenness made fertile, and all the rooms of the house made full of life--the drawing-room; behind the drawing-room the kitchen; above the kitchen the bedrooms; and beyond them the nurseries; they must be furnished, they must be filled with life.
      Charles Tansley thought him the greatest metaphysician of the time, she said. But he must have more than that. He must have sympathy. He must be assured that he too lived in the heart of life; was needed; not here only, but all over the world. Flashing her needles, confident, upright, she created drawing-room and kitchen, set them all aglow; bade him take his ease there, go in and out, enjoy himself. She laughed, she knitted. Standing between her knees, very stiff, James felt all her strength flaring up to be drunk and quenched by the beak of brass, the arid scimitar of the male, which smote mercilessly, again and again, demanding sympathy. 
      He was a failure, he repeated. Well, look then, feel then. Flashing her needles, glancing round about her, out of the window, into the room, at James himself, she assured him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by her laugh, her poise, her competence (as a nurse carrying a light across a dark room assures a fractious child) that it was real; the house was full; the garden blowing. If he put implicit faith in her, nothing should hurt him; however deep he buried himself or climbed high, not for a second should he find himself without her. So boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent. (p. 42)

      Filled with her words, like a child who drops off satisfied, he said, at last, looking at her with humble gratitude, restored, renewed, that he would take a turn; he would watch the children playing cricket. He went.
      Immediately, Mrs. Ramsay seemed to fold herself together, one petal closed in another, and the whole fabric fell in exhaustion upon itself, so that she had only strength enough to move her finger, in exquisite abandonment to exhaustion, across the page of Grimm's fairy story, while there throbbed through her, like the pulse in a spring which has expanded to its full width and now gently ceases to beat, the rapture of successful creation.
      Every throb of this pulse seemed, as he walked away, to enclose her and her husband, and to give to each that solace which two different notes, one high, one low, struck together, seem to give each other as they combine. Yet, as the resonance died, and she turned to the Fairy Tale again, Mrs. Ramsay felt not only exhausted in body (afterwards, not at the time, she always felt this) but also there tinged her physical fatigue some faintly disagreeable sensation with another origin. Not that, as she read aloud the story of the Fisherman's Wife, she knew precisely what it came from; nor did she let herself put into words her dissatisfaction when she realized, at the turn of the page when she stopped and heard dully, ominously, a wave fall, how it came from this: she did not like, even for a second, to feel finer than her husband; and further, could not bear not being entirely sure, when she spoke to him, of the truth of what she said. Universities and people wanting him, lectures and books and their being of the highest importance--all that she did not doubt for a moment; but it was their relation, and his coming to her like that, openly, so that any one could see, that discomposed her; for then people said he depended on her, when they must know that of the two he was infinitely the more important, and what she gave the world, in comparison with what he gave, negligible. But then again, it was the other thing too--not being able to tell him the truth, being afraid, for instance, about the greenhouse room and the expense it would be, fifty pounds perhaps, to mend it; and then about his books, to be afraid that he might guess, what she a little suspected, that his last book was not quite his best book (she gathered that from William Bankes); and then to hide small daily things, and the children seeing it, and the burden it laid on them--all this diminished the entire joy, the pure joy, of the two notes sounding together, and let the sound die on her ear now with a dismal flatness. (pp. 43-45)

       At the end of a particularly convivial dinner party, Mrs. Ramsay takes pleasure in the thought that the experience she has created for her guests will ensure her own immortality, in a sense. She sees her party as part of the social fabric that will find its continuity through others such as the newly engaged Paul and Minta. Even though Mrs. Ramsay has a sense of her own impending death, she feels no fear about it:

 
      Yes, that was done then, accomplished; and as with all things done, became solemn. Now one thought of it, cleared of chatter and emotion, it seemed always to have been, only was shown now, and so being shown struck everything into stability. They would, she thought, going on again, however long they lived, come back to this night; this moon; this wind; this house: and to her too. It flattered her, where she was most susceptible of flattery, to think how, wound about in their hearts, however long they lived she would be woven; and this, and this, and this, she thought, going upstairs, laughing, but affectionately, at the sofa on the landing (her mother's) at the rocking chair (her father's); at the map of the Hebrides. All that would be revived again in the lives of Paul and Minta; 'the Rayleys'--she tried the new name over; and she felt, with her hand on the nursery door, that community of feeling with other people which emotion gives as if the walls of partition had become so thin that practically (the feeling was one of relief and happiness) it was all one stream, and chairs, tables, maps, were hers, were theirs, it did not matter whose, and Paul and Minta would carry it on when she was dead. (pp. 129-130)

       Mrs. Ramsay's joy in the universal connectedness of all human beings and her consciousness of having a place in the social fabric even beyond her physical life is a mark of the highest level of health in all Enneagram styles, though each style experiences this awareness in its distinctive way. 

Antony and Cleopatra
   Shakespeare's Cleopatra offers a classic example of a Two with a Three wing: seductive, passionate, capricious--one moment vain and shallow, the next deeply loving and generous. Antony and Cleopatra tells the story of the ill-fated love affair between the Queen of Egypt and Antony, a rebellious Roman soldier. Antony, an Eight, and Cleopatra are not only lovers but also allies, and at a crucial moment during a sea battle with the Roman fleet the ship carrying Cleopatra retreats. Antony, fearful for her safety, follows her, abandoning the battle and thereby losing it. Cleopatra, aware of his rage, hopes to rekindle his love by sending word that she has killed herself. But her false report, coupled with Antony's shame at having fled the battle, provokes him instead to suicide. After his death Cleopatra takes her own life rather than be led in triumph by the victorious Caesar.
       Early in the play Shakespeare shows us the volatility of this pairing of Two and Eight. We see the lovers continually jockeying for control of the relationship:
 

CLEOPATRA. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
ANTONY. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.
CLEOPATRA. I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved.
ANTONY. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
  [Enter an Attendant.]
ATTENDANT. News, my good lord, from Rome.
ANTONY.   Grates me: the sum
CLEOPATRA. Nay, hear them, Antony:
Fulvia [Antony's wife] perchance is angry; or, who knows
If the scarce-bearded Caesaar have not sent
His powerful mandate to you, 'Do this, or this:
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;
Perform't, or else we damn thee.'
ANTONY.    How, my love!
CLEOPATRA. Perchance! Nay, and most like'
You must not stay here longer, your dismission
Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony. . . .
Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's queen,
Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine
Is Caesar's homager; else so thy cheek pays shame
When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!
ANTONY. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space. . . .
CLEOPATRA.   Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony
Will be himself. (I, i, 18-43)

This mixture of sexual and power games that we see throughout the first half of the play turns deadly when Antony discovers in the heat of battle that he cannot depend on Cleopatra's support. 
      Cleopatra's Two manipulativeness, combined with her Three wing's deceit, is evident in the following passage, which shows the calculation behind her efforts to fascinate her lover:
 

CLEOPATRA. Where is he?
CHARMIAN.   I did not see him since.
CLEOPATRA. See where he is, who's with him, what he does:
I did not send you: if you find him sad,
Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
That I am sudden sick: quick, and return.
      [Exit Alexas]
CHARMIAN. Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,
You do not hold the method to enforce
The like from him.
CLEOPATRA.   What should I do, I do not?
CHARMIAN. In each thing give him way, cross him in nothing.
CLEOPATRA. Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose him. (I, iii, 1-10)

      When a messenger comes to tell her that Antony, for political reasons, has married Octavia, Caesar's sister, Cleopatra flies into a rage and assaults the messenger:
 

MESSENGER; Madam, he's married to Octavia.
CLEOPATRA. The most infectious pestilence upon thee! 
[Strikes him down]
MESSENGER. Good madam, patience.
CLEOPATRA.  What say you? Hence.
      [Strikes him again]
Horrible villain! Or I'll spurn thine eyes
Like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head:
      [She hales him up and down]
Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine,
Smarting in lingering pickle.
MESSENGER.  Gracious madam,
I that do bring the news made not the match.
CLEOPATRA. Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,
And make thy fortunes proud: the blow thou hadst
Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;
And I will boot thee with what gift beside
Thy modesty can beg.
MESSENGER.  He's married, madam.
CLEOPATRA. Rogue, thou hast lived too long.
      [Draws a knife]
MESSENGER.  Nay, then I'll run. (II, v, 60-74)

The above passage shows the Two moving to her Eight stress point. The average-level Two with a Three wing, thwarted in love, is apt to indulge in rages. 
      Prevented by Caesar's men from stabbing herself with a dagger after Antony's death, Cleopatra ultimately succeeds in taking her life by arranging for poisonous snakes to be brought to her in a basket of figs. At the end of the play, Shakespeare gives this volatile and sometimes treacherous woman tragic stature in the face of death:
 

CLEOPATRA. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me: now no more
The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:
Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear
Antony call; I see him rouse himself
To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
To excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:
Now to that name my courage prove my title! (V, ii, 282-290)

Even in the process of taking her life, Cleopatra imagines her lover praising her for her nobility, exemplifying the Two's massive need for appreciation. The arc of Cleopatra's character--from shallow sexual gamesmanship, hysterical rages, and political power plays to a final dignified embrace of Death as a lover--shows the emotional range of the Two with a Three wing. In her suicide she becomes at last truly queenly, moving to her Four security point and making her end one of beauty and poetry.

Subtypes of Two
      All Twos focus on gaining the love and gratitude of others, though their strategies for doing this vary with their individual subtype. 
     Individuals of the Self-Preservation subtype, which Oscar Ichazo characterizes as "me-first," feel entitled to special treatment because of all they have done for others. There is a childish, tender quality to this subtype, especially in the average levels. These are the classic caretaker Twos, who project their own needs onto others and then feel resentful if they do not receive special privileges in return. The "giving to get" motivation is particularly evident in this variant.
      Examples of this subtype in literature include Shakespeare's King Lear, Aroon in Molly Keane's Good Behaviour, Little Dora in David Copperfield and Baby Kochamma in The God of Small Things. 

King Lear
      Shakespeare's King Lear offers a powerful example of the Self-Preservation subtype. When we first meet Lear, he is about to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, but before giving each one her portion he demands to know how much she loves him:
 

LEAR:   Tell me, my daughters
(Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state),
Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,
Our eldest-born, speak first. (I, 1, 50-57)

The two older daughters, Goneril and Regan, are profuse in their expressions of love, but the youngest, Cordelia, is unable to voice her feelings to her father's satisfaction. 
 

LEAR. How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA.   Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me. I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honor you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
LEAR. But goes thy heart with this?
CORDELIA.  Ay, my good lord.
LEAR. So  young, and so untender?
CORDELIA. So young, my lord and true. 
LEAR. Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower!
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. (I, 1, 96-118)

Lear's anger at Cordelia's refusal to emulate her sisters' hypocrisy is a typical reaction for a low-average level Self-Preservation Two. His motive for giving away his kingdom--getting love and praise from his daughters--is transparent, and his anger may be partly based on his game having been called by Cordelia. Being a One, she is just the person to do this. We see Lear's hot temper in his quick move to Eight, the Two's stress point. 
      After Cordelia has been cast out and Kent, one of Lear's loyal followers, banished for defending Cordelia's loyalty, the two older daughters band together to deal with their father. Regan, his younger daughter, comments, "'Tis the infirmity of his age, yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself." (I, i, 295-296) 
     Twos typically know themselves "slenderly," repressing their own needs while focusing on having their worth acclaimed by others. Denied the special treatment he feels he deserves, Lear, like other average and unhealthy individuals of this subtype, behaves like a spoiled child. 
      His tirades increase in intensity as he realizes that his two older daughters, now in control of the kingdom, are unsympathetic with his demands. Cut to the quick by their ingratitude, he vows vengeance:
 

LEAR: I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall--I will do such things--
What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep.
No, I'll not weep.
      Storm and tempest
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I'll weep. O Fool, I shall go mad! (II, iv, 270-285)

In the next scene, doing battle with his own colossal pride, Lear does indeed descend into madness: rushing out onto the heath in the midst of the storm, stripping off his clothes, trying to out-shout the tempest in his helpless rage. 
      Yet even in the midst of his despair and oncoming madness, Lear shows typical Two empathy for his jester, concerned about the boy's misery in the midst of the storm:
 

LEAR.    My wits begin to turn.
Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold?
I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.
Poor Fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee. (III, iii, 67-73)

In this extremity, Lear is still aware of his common bond with another human being--in contrast to the pride that formerly prevented him from acknowledging his own needs. This is a turning point in the play, and we sense that Lear may ultimately find his way through his madness to a new humility and humanity. 
      Cordelia, meanwhile, has landed on English shores with an army, having learned of her father's plight. Lear, ashamed, is at first reluctant to confront the daughter he treated so badly. When he is finally brought to her, her loving attitude overwhelms him, and he kneels before her:
 

CORDELIA.   O, look upon me, sir,
And hold your hand in benediction o'er me.
You must not kneel.
 LEAR.    Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you and know this man,
Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is, and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments, nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.
CORDELIA.  And so I am, I am.
LEAR. Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not.
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause, they have not.
CORDELIA.   No cause, no cause.
(IV, vii, 57-75)

      Cordelia wants an accounting from her sisters for their treatment of Lear, but he wants only to enjoy his loving relationship with her. Now at his Four security point, he is far from his former desire--at his Eight stress point--for vengeance on Goneril and Regan. 
 

CORDELIA . Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?
LEAR. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news . . . . (V, ii, 7-14)

The Two, grateful and humble, now wants only to stay with authentic feeling and relationship, jettisoning all other considerations.
     But Lear's moment of joy is not destined to last. The enemy forces having overwhelmed Cordelia's camp, father and daughter are taken away to prison. Even though her army eventually wins the day, the order that has been given for Cordelia's execution is fulfilled before it can be rescinded. As Lear re-enters the scene with the dead Cordelia in his arms, his anguish fulfills his own prediction of heartbreak early in the play. But it is a transformed man whose colossal grief we now witness. The suffering is ultimately too much for him, and he is mercifully released in death.
 

LEAR. And my poor fool is hanged: no, no, no life?
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never.
Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her. Look, her lips, 
Look there, look there.  He dies.
(V, iii, 307-313)

It is significant for Lear as a Two that, with almost his last breath, he asks for and receives help from another person, to release a button on his clothing. His simple "Thank you, sir" implies his respect for his helper and marks the completion of an archetypal Two character arc from pride to humility through his enduring of the terrible suffering and madness that seem to burn away his Two limitations of vision. Throughout King Lear, which many regard as Shakespeare's greatest play, the theme of seeing and blindness is explored, and this theme has its culmination in Lear's final lines, when, freed from his pride, he finally sees the world with new eyes.

Good Behaviour
      We find a strong example of a female Self-Preservation Two in Molly Keane's novel Good Behaviour. The main portion of the story takes place in Ireland from the eve of the first World War through the 1920s. Aroon, a daughter of country gentry, recalls her childhood and adolescence in the venerable country house called Temple Alice. The story is presented as a comedy of manners, and Aroon in some ways resembles Jane Austen's Emma--both Twos and both often mistaken about the motives of others. However, in contrast to the elegant and charming Emma, whom I'll be discussing under Social subtypes, Aroon is overweight, unattractive, and extremely needy. 
       In the course of the story, Aroon becomes infatuated with Richard, a close friend of her brother Hubert, never realizing that Richard and Hubert are lovers. After Hubert is killed in an accident, Aroon continues to fantasize about Richard, ignoring clear implications that he is homosexual. 
      Twos are adept at repressing not only their own hunger for love but also any information that might contradict their self-image as both loving and beloved. Aroon fails to recognize that her adored father has carried on love affairs with many women, including two on the household staff. Aroon's bitterness toward her unloving and critical mother leads her to cruel behaviors that the reader comes to understand in the course of the story.
      In the first scene of the book--which takes place chronologically at the end of the story--we see Aroon serving her elderly, bedridden mother a rabbit mousse she has personally prepared, ignoring her mother's long-established repugnance for rabbit. The mother takes one whiff of the dish and dies. Rose, their servant, accuses Aroon of deliberately bringing on her mother's death:
 

". . . Madam's better off the way she is this red raw minute. She's tired from you--tired to death. Death is right. We're all killed from you and it's a pity it's not yourself lying there and your toes cocked for the grave and not a word more about you, God damn you!"
 Yes, she stood there across the bed saying these obscene, unbelievable things. Of course she loved Mummie, all servants did. Of course she was overwrought. I know all that--and she is ignorant to a degree, I allow for that too. Although there was a shocking force in what she said to me, it was beyond all sense or reasons. It was so entirely and dreadfully false that it could not touch me. I felt as tall as a tree standing above all that passionate flood of words. I was determined to be kind to Rose. And understanding. And generous. I am her employer, I thought. I shall raise her wages quite substantially. She will never be able to resist me then, because she is greedy. I can afford to be kind to Rose. She will learn to lean on me. There is nobody in the world who needs me now and I must be kind to somebody. . . . 
All my life so far I have done everything for the best reasons and the most unselfish motives. I have lived for the people dearest to me, and I am at a loss to know why their lives have been at times so perplexingly unhappy. I have given them so much, I have given them everything, all I know how to give--Papa, Hubert, Richard, Mummie. At fifty-seven my brain is fairly bright, brighter than ever I sometimes think, and I have a cast-iron memory. (pp. 8-11)

The Two's pride in her own kindness is unshakable, even as she is behaving with appalling cruelty and insensitivity. Aroon's assessment of her own acuteness is a joke--she understands nothing, and age has not increased her perceptiveness. This is the Two at her most self-deluded.
      The remainder of the novel shows us the events that led up to this climactic scene, and by the end of the story we understand why Aroon behaved as she did. Throughout her life, we see that Aroon has been unloved and unlovable, continually misunderstanding others' motives and assuaging her neediness through stuffing herself with food. Always a "big" girl, she becomes in the end gargantuan, and her fixation on food as a self-comforting mechanism is typical of Self-Preservation Twos. 
      Aroon is deprived of emotional warmth from the beginning of her life, and the only people who seem truly to care for her, her brother and her father, both die. Just before her brother's death in a car accident, his lover, Richard, comes into Aroon's bedroom one night. He kisses her--no more--and makes a good deal of noise in leaving, to be sure her father hears him--thus warding off the father's suspicion that Richard and his son are lovers. Around this incident Aroon builds a fantasy of romance, repressing all subsequent evidence that Richard is homosexual. 
      Aroon's father suffers a stroke but lives on for many years, cared for by Rose, one of the servants, who clearly is providing him with sexual comforts-- though Aroon, being sexually inexperienced, fails to pick up on this. After her father dies--in the midst of a sexual encounter with Rose--Aroon heads back to her room, leaving Rose to lay out the body:
 

 Out again in the dark corridor, alone with the thought of my cold bed, I felt a sick shivering go through me. I thought what a crash there would be if I fell, and I almost wished for a disturbance that would bring me some pity. But there was no such thing. Only good behaviour about Death. So I sat down on the floor before I fell down and waited for the weakness to pass over. Sitting there I felt my grief for Papa and my lost love for Richard as joining together. Only Papa had known that we were lovers. Now half my despair was my own secret. No one could take it from me, or lessen it, or tell of it. My great body had been blessed by love. True. It was true. Some merciless shaft had been ready to pierce me with denial. I must run from it, and keep that truth whole for myself. I could hear Rose stirring busily, sure-footed, behind Papa's door, and the idea that soon she might be going to the bathroom for water got me onto my feet.
(p. 215)

Here we see Aroon moving to her Four security point, holding on to her fantasies about Richard as her lover, longing for the illusory image she has created for herself.
      As plans are made for Aroon's father's funeral, Richard's father announces his intentions to attend, and Aroon is delegated to meet his boat-train. In the station she asks him for news of Richard and learns that he has gone back to Africa with a man who was one of his schoolmates. Trying hard to keep her repressions from surfacing, Aroon drinks too much at the station, passes out, and misses her father's funeral. Everyone is shocked at her bad behavior. However, with the reading of her father's will, all is redeemed when she learns that her father has left the bulk of his estate to her.
 

 "Yes. Do you understand?--He's left everything to you." [the solicitor says]
 I wondered if I could go on breathing naturally, through the delight that lifted me. Twice over now this euphoria of love had elevated my whole body; I was its host. Then the vision changed; it was as though the face of my old world turned away from me--a globe revolving--I was looking into a changed world, where I was a changed person, where my love was recognised and requited. Through the long assuring breaths that followed my sobbing I drew in the truth: that Papa loved me the most. Explicit from the depths of my breathing, like weed anchored far under sea water, I knew a full tide was turning for me. Love and trust were present and whole as they had been once on a summer afternoon. Inexactly present, inexactly lost, the memory fled me as a seal slides into the water with absolute trust in its element. A disturbance on the water closes and there is nothing again. I particularly wanted Rose to hear it again. I was claiming what was mine--his love, his absolute love. I wanted them to understand that he had loved me most. . . . They [her mother and Rose] must be minding dreadfully. Empowered by Papa's love I would be kind to them. Now I had the mild, wonderful power to be kind. Or to reserve kindness. I looked at them with level, considerate eyes. (pp. 244-245) 

      At last Aroon feels the confirmation of her father's love, but so unhealthy is she that she cannot admit even to herself the vengeance she longs to take--and subsequently will take--on her disdainful mother and her mother's ally, Rose. The arc we see in this Self-Preservation Two--in contrast to Lear's "upward" arc toward self-understanding and humility--is a "downward" arc toward increasing self-delusion and pride.

      The Social Two, which Ichazo associates with "ambition," is familiar in literature. Typical Social Twos seek to enhance their position in society through making connections with others, matchmaking, and hosting social events. Popularity is a sign that they are loved, and they bask in being a key figure in their social network. Adept at social climbing, they maneuver to become indispensable to important people. In unhealthy versions, they can become classic co-dependents. 
      Social Two examples include Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse, Garp, Holden Caulfield, Jane Austen's Emma, Flora Poste in Cold Comfort Farm, Barbara in Major Barbara, Esther in Bleak House, Nana, Will Ladislaw in Middlemarch, and Amanda in The Glass Menagerie. 

Emma
  The title character in Jane Austen's Emma, a Two with a One wing, is an excellent example of the Social subtype. Emma's attempts to help others to romance invariably turn out badly. Sensitive to the feelings of others, she has little awareness of her own deepest feelings and desires. Although her manipulations cause distress to a number of characters, she does no permanent harm, and the book has the "happily ever after" ending common to many Two stories.
Near the beginning of the novel we see Emma, her father, and their friend and neighbor Mr Knightley, a One, in conversation about the recent marriage of Emma's governess. Emma's pride in her matchmaking ability is evident:
 

      'Dear Emma bears every thing so well,' said her father. 'But, Mr Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am sure she will miss her more than she thinks for.'
      Emma turned away her head, divided between tears and smiles.
      'It is impossible that Emma should not miss such a companion,' said Mr Knightley. 'We should not like her so well as we do, sir, if we could suppose it. But she knows how much the marriage is to Miss Taylor's advantage; she knows how very acceptable it must be at Miss Taylor's time of life to be settled in a home of her own, and how important to her to be secure of a comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow herself to feel so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor must be glad to have her so happily married.'
      'And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me,' said Emma, 'and a very considerable one--that I made the match myself. I made the match, you know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in the right, when so many people said Mr Weston would never marry again, may comfort me for any thing.'
      Mr Knightly shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, 'Ah! My dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretel things, for whatever you say always comes to pass. Pray do not make any more matches.'
      'I promise you to make none for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for other people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such success, you know! Every body said that Mr Weston would never marry again. Oh dear! no! . . . If I had not promoted Mr Weston's visits here, and given many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might not have come to anything after all. I think you must know Hartfield enough to comprehend that.' (pp. 10- 11) 

      Emma takes under her wing Harriet Smith, a Nine, an illegitimate girl whose simplicity and attractiveness interest Emma--and whose gratitude is especially appealing to a Two. Note that Harriet's social position and limited intelligence offer no threat to Emma, who--being a Social subtype--is keenly competitive for popularity in her circle of friends. 
 

 She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith's conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging--not inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk--and yet so far from pushing, shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming to pleasantly grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had been used to, that she must have good sense and deserve encouragement. Encouragement should be given. . . . She would notice her; she would improve her; she would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good society; she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking; highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure, and powers. (p. 19)

Emma encourages Harriet to turn down a proposal from a young farmer, and to believe that Mr Elton, the minister, is an appropriate match for her. Harriet is heartbroken when it turns out that Mr Elton had in mind a match with Emma, and Emma is stricken with remorse for her manipulations:
 

      The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think and be miserable.--It was a wretched business, indeed!--Such an overthrow of every thing she had been wishing for.--Such a development of every thing most unwelcome!--Such a blow for Harriet!--That was the worst of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or other; but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken--more in error--more disgraced by misjudgment, than she actually was, could the effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.
      'If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have borne any thing. He might have doubled his presumption to me--But poor Harriet!'
      How she could have been so deceived!--He protested that he had never thought seriously of Harriet--never! She looked back as well as she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed, and made every thing bend to it. His manners, however, must have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so misled. (p. 103)

Emma's One wing is evident in her self-accusations, but her Two pride characteristically reasserts itself. 
      Her basic competitiveness--and her lack of awareness of it--is visible in her instinctive dislike of the beautiful and accomplished Jane Fairfax. Her continual comparisons of Jane's musical gifts with her own--to her own detriment--shows the Two's link to the Four's characteristic envy.
 

Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer; Mr Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her. . . . 
      It was a dislike so little just--every imputed fault was so magnified by fancy, that she never saw Jane Fairfax the first time after any considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after two years' interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the highest value for elegance. . . . elegance, which whether of person or of mind, she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar, was distinction, and merit.
      In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with twofold complacency; the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. (pp. 125-126) 

      Knightly--who loves Emma and who, being a One, is determined to make her see the truth about herself--consistently offers her excellent advice, which she continually ignores, assuming with typical Two pride that she knows better. 
     After Emma has again tried to make a match for Harriet and has again ended up hurting her, she comes to understand with a shock that Harriet has set her sights on Mr Knightley. Suddenly Emma's own feelings for Mr Knightley become clear to her:
 

Why was it so much worse that Harriet should be in love with Mr Knightley, than with Frank Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet's having some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an arrow, that Mr Knightley must marry no one but herself!
      Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed her before. How improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been her conduct! What blindness, what madness, had led her on! It struck her with dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the world. (p. 308)

As Emma broods on the inappropriateness of the prospective match between Mr Knightley and Harriet, she finally becomes aware of the role her own pride has played in her life. Her One wing comes into play, and she lacerates herself for having brought about the whole situation through her own folly: 
 

 With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody's feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody's destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and she had not quite done nothing--for she had done mischief. (p. 312)

     Emma now regrets having slighted Jane Fairfax, a far more suitable friend, in embracing Harriet, to whom she could feel superior.
 

 Mrs. Weston's communications furnished Emma with more food for unpleasant reflection, by increasing her esteem and compassion, and her sense of past injustice towards Miss Fairfax. She bitterly regretted not having sought a closer acquaintance with her, and blushed for the envious feelings which had certainly been, in some measure, the cause. (p. 318)

     When Mr Knightley finally declares his feelings to Emma, we see that, even in the midst of her own happiness, she can still empathize with others' pain:
 

 While he spoke, Emma's mind was most busy, and, with all the wonderful velocity of thought, had been able--and yet without losing a word--to catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole; to see that Harriet's hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a delusion as any of her own--that Harriet was nothing; that she was every thing herself; that what she had been saying relative to Harriet had been all taken as the language of her own feelings; and that her agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all received as discouragement from herself.--And not only was there time for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness, there was time also to rejoice that Harriet's secret had not escaped her, and to resolve that it need not and should not.--It was all the service she could now render her poor friend. . . . Her way was clear, though not quite smooth.--She spoke then, on being so entreated.--What did she say?--Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does.--She said enough to show there need not be despair--and to invite him to say more himself. . . . (pp. 325-326)

Emma, the essence of the Social Two, understands how to behave appropriately even when her heart is overwhelmed. The reader feels that, through her sufferings, she has grown sufficiently to be worthy of the superb Mr Knightley. 

Medicine Men
      A less healthy version of the Social Two is Dave Jacobs, a character in Alice Adams's novel Medicine Men. When his lover, Molly, a One, develops a brain tumor, Dave, who is a physician, insists of overseeing her medical care. More sensitive to the medical hierarchy and his own place in it than he is to Molly, Dave overwhelms her with his sexual demands, insisting that sex is good for what ails her:
 

      Many women complain, with reason, of too little sex in their lives. . . . But Dave overdid it, so that Molly began to feel that he was engaged in some contest with himself. She was sure that he was counting: four times, not bad for a guy almost sixty. Try for five? But that was several too many times for Molly; she could not, was not thirsty anymore. . . .
      Invaded is actually what she felt with Dave. Assaulted. He almost never let her peacefully sleep; he kept waking her, prodding her, turning her over. And while he talked a lot about love, how much he loved her, how wonderful to find love twice in his lifetime, to Molly it did not feel like love but rather a form of aggression. She could have been anyone at all, Molly thought, and she often wondered, Why me?
      She complained, "You've got to let me sleep. This is crazy. You don't listen. I need more sleep, and I need to be sort of alone to sleep."
      "But you're so terribly attractive to me. Aren't you glad?"
      Actually she was not glad, but she did not feel that she could tell him that, and so she only repeated, "I've got to get more sleep. I'll never get well with no sleep."
      "Love is the greatest cure," he told her, sententiously. (pp. 58-59)

Like most unhealthy Twos, Dave has no idea how overwhelming he can appear to someone in an intimate relationship with him.
      Dave takes great pleasure in organizing Molly's medical appointments, using her, in a sense, to enhance his networking in the medical establishment. He takes pride in making himself the hero of the situation, with Molly playing a minor role:
 

 "So lucky I could get this appointment." Dave said this many more times than twice when they drove south, down the Peninsula toward Mt. Watson Hospital, and the famous, marvelous Dr. William Donovan. Molly, repeating those words back to herself, became interested in their order, which clearly put the emphasis on "I could get." On "I." Dave was to be the hero of this episode in her life, Molly clearly saw, and in a blurry way she wondered just what her own role was to be; she felt that if Dave was to be heroic she was not. (p. 97)

       When Molly finally confronts Dave about his refusal to explain such important issues as the side effects of her radiation treatments, he tries to make her feel guilty for failing to appreciate him sufficiently:
 

      "You're getting the best possible, state-of-the-art medical care. I've seen to that. You don't appreciate--"
      Dave never finished that sentence, at that time or later, ever; he never actually said, "You don't appreciate me. But that was a continual subtext, and of course he was right; Molly did not appreciate him, nor what he had done for her. From whatever motives--and whose are ever pure? He had gone and he continued to go to enormous trouble for her. He had taken her to the surgeon who had managed to "get it all," very likely had saved her life. Could another surgeon have done the same? This of course was something Molly would never know. And she tended to focus on the impurity of Dave's motives rather than the results of what he had actually done. She concentrated on his needs to control her, and to be with her, as well as his busy joy in a medical setting--and she thought much less of the fact that she was okay. She was well, or she would be well, once she got over the effects of radiation--whatever those effects were to be. (pp. 127-128)

      The Two's certainty about his own helpfulness, even when he is most off-base, is common to all subtypes. When Molly asks Dave a question about medical ethics, he leaps to erroneous conclusions and refuses to be deterred from his diatribe:
 

[I]n a tired way, as she listened to Dave's rant, Molly recognized that literally nothing she could say would change his view. It was less a question of not believing her than of refusing to hear her. On and on he ranted, his anger fueled by years of righteous, obstinate fury at shrinks (they had no proof, they charged high fees, no specific results), plus all his current rage and frustration at the sheer, simple, and inexplicable fact that Molly would not love him. He sometimes suspected that she did not even like him very much. . . .  Listening, as she had to do--they were face-to-face, she on her sofa, he on the adjacent leather chair--Molly felt a heating of her blood, and quickening, tightening breath; pure rage is what she felt. The shrieking anger of an overpowered child. Though actually she was neither shrieking nor overpowered.
      She stood up. "Dave, now listen to me. Now listen. I don't want to hear this crazy stuff. You're just totally, absolutely wrong--" and, as his rant continued--"Dave, just shut up. SHUT UP! Dave, you have to go now. I'm tired. I don't want to see you. Dave, did you hear me? I'm through."
      Very ostentatiously, slowly, Dave looked at his watch, and only then he too stood up. "Lord, I'm running late," he said, as though she had not said anything at all.
      "Dave, good-bye."
      He smiled, with all his big strong bright teeth, and he said, "I'll call you later." (pp. 204-205)

An unhealthy Social Two with a Three wing--aggressive in the pursuit of success both in his medical world and in his social connections--can actually fail to hear words that threaten his self-image. Rather than suffer damage to his pride, Dave summons a virtually unassailable combination of defense mechanisms: the Two's repression and the Eight's outright denial. Dave's move to Eight rage under stress reveals the underlying power game he is playing and indicates that it is a game he will do anything to win.

      The Sexual subtype, which Ichazo associates with "aggression," is characterized by intense focus on emotional and physical intimacy in one-to-one relationships. The seductive Sexual Two wants to be deeply involved in the partner's life and keep him or her entranced through an impressive repertoire of manipulations and sexual games. If it appears that the object of the Two's affections is losing interest, the Sexual subtype will pursue the lover relentlessly. In unhealthy individuals, this subtype can be overwhelming and even dangerous to those fleeing their unwelcome attentions.
      Sexual Twos in literature include Shakespeare's Cleopatra, Jean Brodie in Muriel Spark's  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Norman in Ronald Harwood's The Dresser, Annie in Stephen King's Misery, Molina in Manuel Puig's The Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Zola's Nana. 

The Kiss of the Spider Woman
      Manuel Puig's novel The Kiss of the Spider Woman tells the story of two men sharing a cell in an Argentine prison: Molina, a gay window dresser who is a Sexual Two, and Valentin, a dedicated revolutionary who is a One. Molina is obsessed with the fantasy and romance of the movies, and he periodically recounts film stories in an effort to captivate his fellow prisoner. Much of the novel is told in segments of cinematic dialogue between the two men. 
     In the following passage, Molina describes his ideal man, a married waiter he met while dining in a restaurant. He describes to Valentin his dream of bringing the waiter to live with him:
 

 --That he might come to live with me, with my mom and me. And I'd help him, and make him study. And not bother about anything but him, the whole blessed day, getting everything all set for him, his clothes, buying his books, registering him for courses, and little by little I'd convince him that what he had to do was just one thing: never work again. And I'd pass along whatever small amount of money was needed to give the wife for child support, and make him not worry about anything at all, nothing except himself, until he got what he wanted and lost all that sadness of his for good, wouldn't that be marvelous? (p. 69)

Molina's aggressiveness in pursuing the object of his obsession is characteristic of the Sexual Two.
      When Molina explains his sexual orientation to the heterosexual Valentin, the Sexual Two's characteristic identification with the feminine becomes apparent:
 

 --Well, don't get the idea anything's strange, but if I'm nice to you . . . it's because I want to win your friendship, and, why not say it? . . . your affection. Same as I want to be good to my mom because she's a nice person, who never did anybody any harm, because I love her, because she's nice, and I want her to love me . . . And you too are a very nice person, very selfless, and you've risked your life for a very noble ideal . . . And don't be looking the other way, am I embarrassing you?
 --Yes, a little . . . But I'm looking at you, see? . . .
 --And because you're that way . . . I respect you, and I'm fond of you, and I want you to feel the same about me, too . . . Because, just look, my mom's affection for me is, well, it's the only good thing that's happened to me in my whole life, because she takes me for what I am, and loves me just that way, plain and simply. And that's like a gift from heaven, and the only thing that keeps me going, the only thing. (p. 203)

      Later it becomes clear that Molina is not only identified with the passive sexual role but also aroused by the danger involved. When Valentin suggests that he should have more self-respect than to submit to another male, Molina replies:
 

 --But if a man is . . . my husband, he has to give the orders, so he will feel right. That's the natural thing, because that makes him the . . . man of the house.
 --No, the man of the house and the woman of the house have to be equal with one another. If not, their relation becomes a form of exploitation.
 --But there's no kick to it.
 --Why?
 --Well, this is very intimate, but since you're asking about it . . . The kick is in the fact that when a man embraces you . . . you may feel a little bit 
frightened. (pp. 243-244)

Here we see the psychological dynamic behind the Two's preference for a dominant partner. This paradoxical combination of aggressiveness and a desire to serve is characteristic of many Twos, quite apart from their sexual orientation. This may help us understand why Two and Eight is a common combination in couples.

Ulysses
 Molly Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses is a classic Sexual Two. In the last section of the novel we see her ruminating about her intimacies with her husband and lovers and fantasizing about further sexual adventures. The sexual voraciousness of this subtype is especially evident in the following passage:
 

of course a woman wants to be embraced 20 times a day almost to make her look young no matter by who so long as to be in love or loved by somebody if the fellow you want isn't there sometimes by the Lord God I was thinking would I go around by the quays there some dark evening where nobodyd know me and pick up a sailor off the sea thatd be hot on for it and not care a pin whose I was only to do it off up in a gate somewhere or one of those wildlooking gipsies in Rathfarnham had their camp pitched near the Bloomfield laundry to try and steal our things if they could (p. 762)

      Throughout the long stream-of-consciousness monologue that ends Joyce's novel, Molly ruminates about sex. In the final passage of the book she remembers the sensuality and beauty of the day her husband proposed to her. 
 

the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldn't answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didn't know of . . . O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and the geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. (pp. 767-768)

Molly's link to her Four security point is clear in her sensuous appreciation of beauty, seen here in potent combination with the Sexual Two's characteristic manipulativeness.
      The focus on love that we see in Molly Bloom is common to all Twos, and individuals of this style often fail to understand their own neediness. The degree of self-delusion ranges from such unhealthy examples as Dave in Medicine Men and Aroon in Good Behaviour to the extraordinary self-awareness of Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse. In rare examples there may even be a transcendence of Enneagram style, such as we see in King Lear.
 

 CHAPTER TWO SOURCES

Adams, Alice, Medicine Men. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997)
Austen, Jane, Emma (London: The Zodiac Press, 1955) First published 1816
Irving, John, The World According to Garp. (NY: Ballantine, 1978)
Joyce, James, Ulysses. (New York: The Modern Library, 1934) First published 1914
Keane, Molly, Good Behaviour. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981)
Puig, Manuel, Kiss of the Spider Woman, trans. Thomas Colchie. (New York,
Alfred A. Knopf, 1979)
Salinger, J.D., The Catcher in the Rye. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951)
Shakespeare, William, Antony and Cleopatra. First performed 1606-7
Shakespeare, William, King Lear. First performed 1603-1606
Shaw, Bernard, Candida, in Selected Plays with Prefaces (New York: Dodd, 
 Mead, 1948) First produced 1895.
Woolf, Virginia, To the Lighthouse (NY: Alfred A. Knopf). First published 1927

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