By: Joyanta Dangar Abstract: The Spire (1964) is a novel about Jocelin, Dean of an English cathedral in the fourteenth century, who thinks that God has selected him to build a spire on his cathedral and carries it out to an impending disaster, despite his mason’s warning that the cathedral is built without adequate foundations.Continue reading “Religion and Trauma in William Golding’s The Spire”
Category Archives: Volume 24 (2020)
Narcissism and The Absent Mother in Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night
By: Nancy Gerber Abstract: Tender is the Night inscribes themes of mental breakdown, narcissism, and death.Through the lens of Modern Psychoanalytic theory, developed by Hyman Spotnitz, andthe False Self theory of D.W. Winnicott, the essay examines Dick Diver’s psychologicalunraveling, which involves a descent from a position of power and adulation into shame,and disgrace. In contrastContinue reading “Narcissism and The Absent Mother in Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night”
Prince Hal and the Body Falstaff: Theatre as Psychic Space in Shakespeare’s 1&2 Henry IV
By: Elise Denbo Abstract: Aligning psychoanalytic and embodiment approaches, this paper focuses on 1&2Henry IV using Julia Kristeva’s concept of the imaginary father, a ‘maternal-paternal conglomerate,’ as a third space within primary-narcissism. While Hal’s ‘education’ has been analyzed in relation to dualities of order and disorder, few, if any have considered Falstaff as an intrapsychicContinue reading “Prince Hal and the Body Falstaff: Theatre as Psychic Space in Shakespeare’s 1&2 Henry IV”
Lying Through One’s Nose: On Masculine Sexuality and Deception in Collodi’s Pinocchio
By: Shirley Sharon-Zisser Abstract: This article considers Carlo Collodi’s classic, The Adventures of Pinocchio, in terms of Lacanian psychoanalysis and the theoretical developments of French psychoanalyst Michèle Montrelay. While offering a Lacanian account of Pinocchio’s tribulations, its major purpose is not to add to the store of usually anodyne psychoanalytic mappings of Collodi’s plot, butContinue reading “Lying Through One’s Nose: On Masculine Sexuality and Deception in Collodi’s Pinocchio”
“And the dead return”: Klein and the “Uncanny” in Schnitzler’s “Flowers” and Dream Story
By: Nicolette David Abstract: This article proposes a Kleinian re-working of Freud’s “The Uncanny” through an exploration of Arthur Schnitzler’s “Flowers” and Dream Story, works in which female figures appear to return from the dead to persecute the living. It argues that these women may be seen to be animated by Melanie Klein’s insights intoContinue reading ““And the dead return”: Klein and the “Uncanny” in Schnitzler’s “Flowers” and Dream Story”
Pygmalion: Shaw’s Psychic Flight from Rosmersholm
By: Frank Stringfellow Abstract: Тhis intertextual, psychoanalytic study shows that, on the basis of deep-structural similarities between Ibsen’s Rosmersholm and Shaw’s Pygmalion, Pygmalion appears to be an unconscious rewriting of Rosmersholm, with Shaw turning Ibsen’s tragedy of repression into his own comedy of repression. Ibsen’s play, which shows the failure of repression/sublimation to contain eroticContinue reading “Pygmalion: Shaw’s Psychic Flight from Rosmersholm”