The Passion of Curiosity Bienvenue sur le site d'ORACLE 1. Observatoire Réunionnais des Arts, des Civilisations et des Lettres dans leur Environnement 1.4. Revue ALIZES 1.4.13. Alizés n°23 The Passion of Curiosity This essay will attempt to stage an encounter between literature and psychoanalysis; the ground of this encounter will be Henry James’s story, “The Jolly Corner” and Sigmund Freud’s discussion of a particular mode of negation—“disavowal”—which results in what he calls a “splitting of the ego.” Spencer Brydon, the exile who has returned to his home, experiences one aspect of James’s concern with the “global.” Motivated by a “passion of… curiosity” concerning what he would have become had he remained in the United States, he searches for his alter ego in his family’s home, the “jolly corner;” their encounter, however, does not at all reveal to him what he had expected (724). The profoundly enigmatic character of Brydon’s relation with the alter ego can show how the mechanism of disavowal creates within consciousness a series of logical contradictions, each of which will be embodied in an aspect of the fantasmatic scenario of castration enacted within the text.
Freud’s psychoanalytic theories deal with the three-part psyche (Barry 97). He claims that the human mind contains the ego, the super-ego and the id; three parts that struggle to catch our attention. Lacan, similarly, acknowledges a struggle in the mind between seeking pleasure and doing good (Lacan 23). The character of Dorian Gray may be used as a prime example to explain the Freudian concepts of the ego, the super-ego and the id (Barry 97). In The Picture of Dorian Gray,
Deep Semantics Of Imagery In The Color Purple Apart from its endless potential to engender thought which it shares with philosophy, literature is ‘a category of labour’ (Ricoeur, 1981: 136). It is a structured totality irreducible to the sentences that constitute it so that the first problem it presents as a work is that of understanding (Thompson 1984: 178). Reading a literary text is, therefore, quite different from reading other texts; here, the exercise involves a back and forth movement. The critic observes the clues offered by the text and the validity of his construction is through the logic of probability (Aristotle). In Ricoeur’s deep semantics, metaphor is indispensable for it opens a wide range of possible relations a word can enter into.
Freud’s belief in the “id” (or, the set of uncoordinated, instinctual trends of the psyche), the “ego” (the more organized, realistic part of the psyche), and the “superego” (the socially-constructed, appropriate conscience) formed the first foundation for psychoanalysis in early 20th century psychology and, thus, in literary criticism. Freud asserted that people’s behavior is primarily affected by their unconscious: “The notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware” (Lin 21-22). The tragic story of Gustav von Aschenbach, therefore, cannot be understood completely without a deeper digging into the mentality of the artist and a questioning as to why he collapses both morally and psychologically by the final chapter of the novella. Jacques Lacan took Freud’s work one step further in the late 20th century and argued that the human subject becomes an
Analyzing socially critical themes in Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The Stranger by Albert Camus Word Count: 1469 Cultural and social criticism is a common characteristic of 20th century literature. Conveying critical notions through fiction, allows for artistic amalgamation of the real with the imaginary and of history with fabrication – rendering intertextuality and providing the reader with room for interpretation. Chronicle of a death foretold, a Latin-American blend of literary genres, critiques a culture within which murder is both, tolerated, condemned and arbitrarily judged. The Outsider, a French existential novel of the interwar period examines social bias regarding nonconformists. Despite fundamentally different literary styles, intents and origins, both works reveal postmodern influences adapted to the author’s respective cultures.
b. Purpose of the Study: This study aims to examine how Freudian concepts are applicable on the story Little Red Riding Hood. And how the psychoanalytic investigation allows for a broad range of abstract and creative possibilities beyond that which is strictly in the text. c. Significance of the Study: Although there are numerous approaches employed in understanding literature, the psychoanalytic interpretation most significantly attempts to utilize the symbolic mysteries of a work. The fascinating aspect of the psychoanalytic investigation is that it searches for a purpose beyond that which is strictly in the text.
Analyse a text connected with your degree subject by applying the ideas of either: (a) Marx AND Althusser, or (b) Freud AND Lacan Repression according to psychoanalytical theory is the pushing down or holding back on one’s desires (wishes or even feelings) from the conscious mind. In this essay I will be applying this branch of theory to the novel ‘A room with a view’ and the characters in them. Language and imagery will be used to support or be used to disagree with the theories and ideas of Freud and Lacan. In the novel there is a strong opposition between society and sexuality, and in psychoanalytical terms can be read as being conscious and unconscious. This is in seen in the main protagonist of Lucy where she struggles to find middle ground for her desires and social acceptability.
Postmodernism: Reading Absurdity In Donald Barthelme's "The Glass Mountain" In Jeremy Hawthorn's Concise Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory, Hawthorne says "...postmodernism gave great prominence to fragmentation, [blurring genres], and collages as features of twentieth-century art and literature...and postmodernists use fragmentations to liberate from the embrace of fixed systems of belief." (Barry, 80-81).1 In "The Glass Mountain," Donald Barthelme used fragmentations, blurring genres, and collages which were three obvious characteristics of literary postmodernism to write people liberate from the embrace of the fixed system and belief. Paradoxically, when seeing people liberate from fixed system and belief, readers also could see the absurdity of the society simultaneously. Barthelme had said "fragmentation are the only forms [he] trusts" (Whinsnant, Engl 4300); thus, the using of fragmentation was the most obvious reasons that made "The Glass Mountain" a postmodern short fiction. Not only could readers see Batrthelme numbered each fragmentation, but readers also found the peculiarity of the short fiction's structure which readers did not see before.
It also examines the social sphere in which the author moved, the psychological background of the author, the books and theories that may have influenced the author, and any other factors which influenced the work of art. New Historicism acknowledges that any criticism of a work is necessarily tinged with the critic’s beliefs, social structure, and so on. Most New Historicists may begin a critical reading of a novel by explaining themselves, their backgrounds, and their prejudices. Both the work and the reader are corrupted by everything that has influenced them. New Historicism thus represents a significant change from previous critical theories like New Criticism, because its main focus is to look at things outside of the work, instead of reading the text as a thing apart from the author.
‘Every age manipulates an established genre in its own ways and for its own purposes’ Write an essay in which you evaluate the extent to which this is true in TWO prescribed texts AND at least TWO texts of your choosing. The famous literary theorist Jonathan Culler once defined genre as a “style or category” of painting, novel or film that is governed by a particular set of “conventions and expectations”. In literature, crime fiction is a genre in which the cause of a mysterious happening, often a crime, is gradually revealed by a hero or heroine. This is usually accomplished through a combination of intelligence or ingenuity, or at times just sheer luck. Through the employment of various characteristics such as a ‘lone sleuth’, a ‘detailed and plausible setting’, and ‘crimes to be solved’, it has allowed the genre to explore universal themes of corruption, justice, the search for ‘truth, and the antithetical concepts of order and disorder.