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Psychoanalytic Approaches toLiterature

(1) Structure of the Mind, ChildDevelopment & Love

(2) Dream and Sexual Symbols

(3) Lacans Views of Desire & SplitIdentity

(4) Psychological Disorders

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Outline

Q & A on Family Relations

Subjectivity, Repression and Sublimation

Interpretation of Dreams Examples of Dreams

Freuds, Language, Some Paintings

from the textbook

Other types of Dreams

Sexual Symbols

Literature and Psychoanalysis

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Q & A: more examples offamily relationships

How is the story of Peter Pan psychoanalyzed?Does that influence your appreciation of thisfairy tale? (157-60)

What does the excerpt from Sons and Loversshow about Paul? (156)

Do you have stories of Electra complex (154-55)

(hatred of the mother for the loss of penis and love forthe father)

Wish to imitate the mother; to be given a child by herfather, to bear him a child.

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Peter Pan

Wendys last night at the female-dominatednursery (a space for play) before being socialized asa dominated woman;

Peter (the boy who refused to grow up, ) nevergrows up, recognizing sexual attraction only in theform of mothering;

Family drama in the childrens world Peter, mother and father to the lost boys; Nana the dog as a mother

Effacement of the real fathers: Mr. Darling;

Captain Hook

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Peter PanContext andAfterwards The deleted and ignored: p. 160Peters coming back to

Ws daughter (Jane) with a dagger; the Lost Boysitshomosexual environment

Finding Neverlandand J.M. Barries relations with The

Llewelyn Davies family (all boys) When copying the will informally for Sylvia's family, Barrieinserted himself in an additional paragraph: Sylvia had written thatshe would like Mary Hodgson, the boys' nurse, to continue takingcare of them, and that perhaps "Jenny" (Mary's sister) could comehelp; Barrie wrote "Jimmy" (Sylvia's nickname for him) instead of

"Jenny The boysOne (George) was killed in action in World War I.

Michael, with whom Barrie corresponded daily, drowned at aknown danger-spot at Oxford, one month short of his 21stbirthday.possibly a suicide pact with his friend and possible loverRupert Erroll Victor Buxton. ".(source)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Barriehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Barrie

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Subjectivity: (Liberal) Humanism(since Renaissance)

Opposed religious dogmatism and scientism Affirms the human (but not the divine or the

natural) The individual (over the social and its structure) Rational consciousness (over the unconscious) Freedom (over determinism) Self-knowledge (over knowledge of others or the

world) Individual experience (over objective knowledge) Subjectivity = human self

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Subjectivity: Modern Viewssplit or conflictual subjects

I think, therefore I am (textbook p. 140)

Freud: I express and repress my

desires, therefore I am. Lacan: I am where I dont think; I think

where I am not.

Marxism: I work, therefore I am not(alienation); I shop, therefore I am?

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Subjectivity: Modern Views (2)

Subject as being subjected (p. 140)

Located in time, space and structures ofrights and obligations;

Constructed by culture, language and desire:even desire is culturally instigated (e.g. Kaja

Silverman) Constructed through language because

language offers us subject positions(e.g. ChrisWeedon) split between thespeaking subject and spoken subject

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Repression and Sublimation

Repression: (Addition to textbook 147-48) (clip 16:00)

Two kinds: primal repression (which establishes theunconscious), secondary repression

Separates ideas from energy with ideas banished to the unconscious (ascodes),

andenergy repressed, converted into another affect,orinto anxiety)

The return of the repressed (assymptoms): when

repression is not successful. examples of symptoms (alsocoded): Freudian slips,

jokes, and dreams.

Sublimationde-sexualizes the love-object, sublimate

instincts into higher cultural pursuits

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The dream-work . . .

Dreams-- the royal road to theunconscious.

Transforms the 'latent' content of the dream,the. 'forbidden' dream-thoughts into the'manifest' dream stories.

Such transformation (or disguise, i.e.

condensation and displacement, secondaryrevision) allows the desires to be expressedwithout being stopped by the censor.

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3 kinds of Dreamas wish fulfillment

1st: wish fulfillments---the disguiseis successfuland the dream proceeds undisturbed,

2nd: anxiety dreams --the disguise is absent orinsufficient; the forbidden wish emerges, causesanxiety, and the dreamer wakes up

3rd: content is disturbing but the feeling is not --

the wish is particularly well disguised by amisalliance of content and feeling. (e.g.dreaming of a family members death)

(later) nightmares the revisiting of our

traumatic moments

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Dream Language

Four elements: (clip 18:30)

Condensation (of image, persons and words)--e.g. the joke Erring Dirty Laundry in ourtextbook (sordid+sorted)

displacement, --e.g. switches a person'shatred of Mr. Appleby to that of a rotting apple.

Symbolization, or consideration ofrepresentibility,

secondary revision

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Examples of Dreams (1) Freudsown dreamwish fulfillment

clip 11: 30Irmas dream (against Otto andIrma) dream as a wish fulfillment;

interpretation by free association (e.g. Irma,connected with his daughter and his otherpatient)

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Examples of Dreams (2)Language

A Businessman dreamed that his alarm clocksaid $6.30, but not 6:30 time is money

A graduate students dream ofovereatingwhile outlining his PhD dissertation foodfor thought.

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Examples of Dreams (3)

Henri Rousseau, The Dream (1910)

Who is the dreamer and what is it about?

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Examples of Dreams (3)

Dream by Henry Rousseauabout the dreamprocess Wish fulfillment of the woman reclining on a divan.

Displacement: from a French drawing room to ajungle;

Condensation: day and night; the piper (human andnon-humanlike a satyr),

Sexual symbols: flowers, serpent, birds. The painting is an illustration, but not a replica of

dream (Cf. Adams 133-34)

http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/psychoanalysis/dream.htmlhttp://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/psychoanalysis/dream.html

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Examples of Dreams (4)

Dream by Henry Rousseausecondary revision (1914) Yadwigha, falling into sweet sleep,

heard in a lovely dreamthe sounds of a musette

played by a kind enchanter.While the moon shoneon the flowers, the verdant trees,the wild snakes lent an earto the instrument's gay airs.

Yadwigha is no fantasy--she was a real friend ofRousseau's. To most male painters of his era, women werewives, lovers, prostitutes, models and muses, but rarelyclose friends. Rousseau, however, was known as anexception. (source)

( S. Plath Yadwigha, on a Red Couch, Among Lillies

http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/psychoanalysis/dream.htmlhttp://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DREAMROU.HTMhttp://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/yad.htmlhttp://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/yad.htmlhttp://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DREAMROU.HTMhttp://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/psychoanalysis/dream.html

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Examples of Dreams (5)

Textbookexcerpt from The Wanderground (pp.151)

remember room

Re-structuring the condensed but disparateimages: sandlewood and wine + candle spilling over

telephone bill, steak, car and heat

Wires

Man on the side , brassiere Jim, Rosie, nursinghome

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Other types of Dreams &Interpretation

Does every dream have its latent content? Foreboding dreams

Dreams related ones physical condition Dreams as fulfillment of our conscious wishes

Interpretation:

REM (38:02) : Rapid Eye movement (the more REM

we have, the more dream we have, and the longer wesleep.)

Ask the Dream Doctorhttp://www.dreamdoctor.com/index.shtml

http://www.dreamdoctor.com/index.shtmlhttp://www.dreamdoctor.com/index.shtml

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Sexual symbols:

Frued's notion of symbolism: the wholeworld can be absorbed narcissistically, the

sexual drives can attach themselves toanything the senses perceive.

Examples: Rene Margritte

http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/psychoanalysis/margritte.htmlhttp://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/psychoanalysis/margritte.html

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Sexual symbols: examples

Usually interpreted in their contexts (chap 3: 54) The hat as the symbol of a man (of the male

genitals): a woman dreams of wearing such a hat(the middle piece of which is bent upwards, while the

side pieces hang downwards [here the descriptionhesitates]) and feeling cheerful and confident Representation of the genitals by buildings, stairs,

and shafts. (He is taking a walk with his father in aplace ... one can see the Rotunda (), in

front of which there is a small vestibule to which thereis attached a captive balloon; the balloon, however,seems rather limp. His father asks him what this is allfor; he is surprised at it, but he explains it to his father.

The male organ symbolised by persons and the

female by a landscape. (No Problem)

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Literature and Psychoanalysis

Artist as daydreamer (chap 3 55)

Is literary work like a patient in front of literary

critics as analysts? (Cf. textbook 144-46)

Its hard to tell how much control an authorhas over his/her work; whether it ismanipulated dream or fantasy. (Cf. 153)

The reader/critics themselves can bepatient/texts.

Psycho-analyzing a text or its author cannot

exhaust their meanings or values.

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Next Week

Jacque Lacan -- Identity as Split and in Lack,

Desire as Displacement (Reader: chap 3 pp.

61-67; chap 4 pp. 161-76) Elizabeth Bishop's 3 poems

Ref. at YouTube In the Village

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SJEylT-4GI