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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._Barrie7/30/2019 2007f Freud Dream
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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.html7/30/2019 2007f Freud Dream
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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.html7/30/2019 2007f Freud Dream
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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.shtml7/30/2019 2007f Freud Dream
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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.html7/30/2019 2007f Freud Dream
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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