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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Masochism in literature'
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1
Fantina, Richard. "Machismo and masochism in Ernest Hemingway." FIU Digital Commons, 2001. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3249.
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The thesis seeks to contribute to the body of knowledge in literary gender studies by probing the conflicting views of masculinity found in the work of Ernest Hemingway. The major texts, The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), Death in the Afternoon (1932), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Garden of Eden (1986), demonstrate a pattern which can be identified with elements often referred to as "androgynous." Masochism, as a core component of this "androgyny," will be isolated and explored. Drawing upon both psychoanalytical and literary commentators, this study locates Hemingway's work within a tradition of literary masochism. Recent scholars differ as to the potential social benefits of this tradition. Although Hemingway employs certain themes and devices associated with literary masochism, this study argues that one should not associate these with a progressive view of gender. Hemingway's commitment to a more traditional concept of masculinity outweighs the subversive, socio-sexual implications of his "androgyny."
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Sato, Kanshi Hiroko. "Masochism and decadent literature : Jean Lorrain and Joséphin Péladan." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2009. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/1219/.
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This study explores the masochistic aspects of Decadent literature, which to date have been relatively neglected, or have received only sporadic attention as merely the passive forms of sadism, or sadomasochism (Mario Praz). As Jennifer Birkett suggests, Decadent sensibility and sexuality have arguably less affinity with Sade than Sacher-Masoch. Following Birkett, and utilising Gilles Deleuze’s idea of the independence of masochism from sadism and description of the distinctive aesthetic features of masochistic texts, I investigate masochistic formations in French Decadent texts; the work of Jean Lorrain and of Joséphin Péladan. This study also involves a review of relevant writings by Freud and post-Freudian psychoanalysts (Leo Bersani and Kaja Silverman); an engagement with current literary-critical scholarship in Decadence (Emily Apter, Charles Bernheimer, Bram Dijkstra and Rita Felski), and in Sacher-Masoch (Nick Mansfield, John K. Noyes, and Anita Phillips), and his influence on Decadent writers.
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Schlipphacke, Heidi M. "The daughter's symptom : female masochism in literary works by G.E. Lessing, Sophie von La Roche, Ingeborg Bachmann and Elfriede Jelinek /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9937.
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Phillips, Anita. "Masochism and literature, with reference to selected literary texts from Sacher-Masoch to Duras." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 1995. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1685.
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The introductory section of the thesis puts forward a view of the usefulness of the concept of masochism in studying literature, arguing that the tendency has been inadequately formulated by psychoanalytic theory. It refers to debates within gay studies, feminism, psychoanalysis and literary studies to contextualise the argument of the thesis. The first chapter analyses Freud's key essay on masochism, 'The Economic Problem of Masochism' (1924) and appraises other theoretical contributions which have discussed the relation of masochism to artistic creativity. It goes on to critique the feminist view of women's masochism as reflecting patriarchal relations, and examines Jungian perspectives which focus on the notion of an imitatio Christi. Chapter two contrasts a Christian view of suffering with that of psychoanalysis. It examines Simone Weil's life and ideas in the light of a sublimatory or moral masochism, and looks at the 'agonic' thought of Unamuno. The historical moment at which the term masochism was coined is the focus of the opening part of chapter three. Sacher-Masoch's novel Venus in Furs is analysed, referring to Deleuze's commentary which emphasises the death instinct. Sacher-Masoch's untranslated novel, Die Seelenfängerin, is also discussed. Chapter four deals with Michel Leiris's L'age d'homme, analysing the central themes of masculinity, the risk inherent in literary creativity and the sacred element in masochistic self-exposures. The final chapter on works by Marguerite Duras examines a novella, L'homme assis dans le couloir, describing the process of reading as a form of masochistic introjection. It then looks at La douleur to focus on a masochistic, feminine rite of passage. A discussion of La maladie de la mort locates a shattered solitude within masochistic desire. The thesis concludes by proposing a more nuanced dialogue between psychoanalysis and literature, by emphasising the importance of an exploratory women's writing, and suggesting the need for a more consciously masochistic body politic.
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Hennessee, David. "Male masochistic fantasy in Carlyle, Tennyson, Dickens, and Swinburne /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9452.
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Sherwood, Elizabeth A. "Sublime Surrender: Constructing My Self and Navigating Patriarchy Using My Vampire Boyfriend." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1322597159.
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Straw, Mark Christopher. "The damaged male and the contemporary American war film : masochism, ethics, and spectatorship." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2011. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/1711/.
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This thesis is about the depiction of the damaged male in contemporary American war films in the period 1990 to 2010. All the films in this thesis deploy complex strategies but induce simple and readily accessible pleasures in order to mask, disavow or displace the operations of US imperialism. It is my argument that the premier emotive trope for emblematising and offering up the damaged male as spectacle and political tool is the American war film. I also argue that masochistic subjectivity (and spectatorship) is exploited in these films, sometimes through using it as a radical transformative tool in order to uncover the contradictions and abuses in US imperial power, but mostly through utilizing its distinct narrative and aesthetic qualities in order to make available to spectators the pleasures of consuming these images, and also to portray the damaged male as a seductive and desirable subjectivity to adopt. The contemporary war film offers up fantasies of imperilled male psychologies and then projects these traumatic (or “weak”/“victimised”) states into the white domestic and suburban space of the US. Accordingly this enables identification with the damaged male, and all his attendant narratives of dispossession, innocence, and victimhood, and then doubles and reinforces this identification by threatening the sanctity and security of the US homeland. My argument builds towards addressing ethical questions of spectatorial passivity and culpability that surround our engagement with global media, and mass visual culture in the context of war. I ultimately identify ethical spectatorship of contemporary war films as bolstering a neo-liberal project advancing the “turn to the self”, and hence audiences could unwittingly be engaged in shoring up white male ethno-centricity and the attendant forces of US cultural and geopolitical imperialism.
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McCleese, Nicole L. "The Unconsoled a masochistic imagining of narrative and nation /." Diss., Connect to online resource - MSU authorized users, 2007.
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Hudnell, William Jason. "A Series of Humiliations." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1364826168.
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Arbelius, Karin. "För sakens skull : Det omöjliga mötet i Rut Hillarps roman Sindhia - en lacansk läsning." Thesis, Södertörn University College, School of Gender, Culture and History, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-475.
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This essay examines the love affair between the two main characters of Rut Hillarp’s novel Sindhia. It draws attention to the schism between the Surrealist version of love as an extatic-religious fusion of the sexes – that in a way marks the relationship – and the yet remarkable coolness between the two lovers.
With the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, I will show how the man and the woman project their unrealistic individual fantasies on each other, thus rendering impossible the Surrealist Meeting, with its road to an absolute reality. The Surrealist "l’amour fou", I will argue, is trapped in the ritualized "l’amor interruptus"; a lacanian term for a certain kind of love that wishes to conceal the fact that desire will never find its object. It does so by pretending that the object would be found if only love had been consummated (thus the reason love is never consummated, since, as Lacan puts it, the object, or the Thing, is never to be found).
I will, in brief, argue that the love affair depicted in the novel in different ways tries to deal with the “lack-of-being” that marks the subject according to Lacan; the absolute distance to the desirable Thing.
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Guillaume, Clément. "Le Développement du moi et le procédé thérapeutique dans les œuvres de Chrétien de Troyes." PDXScholar, 2013. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/989.
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While we can easily acknowledge that many aspects the texts written by Chrétien de Troyes have been studied and discussed through the centuries, it is always possible to apply a new reading to the author's work. Like many authors of the same time period, the author of Le Conte du graal and LeChevalier de la charrette was not only writing for the audience of his time but was also openly targeting an audience set in a different century and social context. This timeless aspect of Chrétien's work is part of what makes his texts intricate and still relevant to this day. It also allows us to understand the impact they had by the time they were written as well as the long lasting interest that has been keeping them current throughout eight centuries. While the courteous aspect of these texts seems to be mostly relevant to the audience of a certain time period it is possible for us to conduct a psychoanalytical reading of Chrétien's work in order to appreciate the long- lasting qualities of these tales almost eight hundred years later. By using the drive theory established by Freud along with the work of Lacan based on search for the I, studies which were both established during the twentieth century, we will analyze the untold motivations of the quest and define the relationship between the knight and his physical and inner journey. In this study we will consistently question these motivations. In order to understand them we will first discuss the implications of the quest in a set medieval context which will then lead us to look at this behavior outside of this timeframe in order to focus on the psychological elements of these texts.
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Nathanson, Shelby. "Bite Me: Sadomasochistic Gender Relations in Contemporary Vampire Literature." Honors in the Major Thesis, University of Central Florida, 2014. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETH/id/1629.
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While the term sadomasochism might conjure cursory images of whips, chains, and leather-clad fetishists, this thesis delves deeper into sadomasochistic theory to analyze dynamics of power and powerlessness represented by a chosen sample of literary relationships. Using two contemporary works of vampire literature—Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series—I examine how power is structured by and between male and female characters (and vampires and humans), and particularly emphasize the patriarchal messages these works' regressive sexual politics engender. Psychoanalysis and feminist theory are employed to support my overarching argument following the gendered dynamics of male sadism and female masochism (and vampire sadism and human masochism), as this dyad reflects men's and women's "normalized" roles of power and powerlessness, respectively, in today's society. Sadomasochistic relationships as depicted in this literature are created through mutual contracts or, what I refer to as, sociocultural sadomasochism to reflect the gendered power imbalances inherent in patriarchy. By concluding with readers' responses to these franchises, this thesis further attempts to determine why such unequal and oppressive relationships are desirable. Since vampires as Gothic figures embody what specific cultures dread yet desire, this literature possesses frightening implications—gender roles are conservative and masculinity is privileged in fiction and, by extension, in twenty-first-century American culture.B.A.
Bachelors
English
Arts and Humanities
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Morrissey, Colleen. "Struck: The Victorian Female Novelist and Male Pain." The Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1524145187359308.
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Garland, Bridget Renee. "Trapped in Bluebeard's Chamber: Rose Terry Cooke and Nineteenth-Century "Desperate Housewives."." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2005. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1039.
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Often overlooked in the study of nineteenth-century American literature, the New England writer Rose Terry Cooke elicited great popular appeal during the peak of her career. The admiration Cooke received from her readers and fellow writers compels one to question Cooke’s present-day obscurity. Cooke’s fiction and poetry seem inconsistent with the attitudes she express in her non-fiction, particularly concerning religion and women’s suffrage. She portrays women in miserable marriages, desperately looking for an escape. These “brides of Bluebeard” find different ways to cope with their predicament. While most never truly escape, many use (1) religious devotion, (2) masochism, and (3) homosocial relations as “coping mechanisms” in their plight. I identify each of these reactions to Bluebeard figures in Cooke’s writing in order to understand the contradictions in her works, for, like Cooke, these brides were products of their culture, torn between duty to self and duty to others.
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Rothhaas, Anne Hayley. "The Specter of Masochistic Mourning in Charlotte Brontë's Tales of Angria, The Professor, and Villette." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1372033971.
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Lohmüller, Torben. "Die verschlagene Lust : zur ästhetischen Subversion im Masochismus /." Heidelberg : Winter, 2006. http://deposit.d-nb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?id=2859223&prov=M&dok_var=1&dok_ext=htm.
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Lohmüller, Torben. "Die verschlagene Lust zur ästhetischen Subversion im Masochismus." Heidelberg Winter, 2005. http://deposit.d-nb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?id=2859223&prov=M&dok_var=1&dok_ext=htm.
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Leskau, Linda [Verfasser]. "Sadismus und Masochismus : Zur Subversion der Sexualwissenschaft im Frühwerk Alfred Döblins / Linda Leskau." Göttingen : Böhlau Verlag Köln, 2020. http://www.v-r.de/.
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Sousa, Rafaella Lemos dos Reis. "Glauco Mattoso: escrita e transgressão." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2010. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=2826.
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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoO trabalho consiste em um exame da produção poética de Glauco Mattoso, tendo como horizonte a noção de transgressão e utilizando como corpus sua produção de sonetos e o Jornal Dobrabil. Com uma produção iniciada na década de 1970, o autor é um dos escritores mais prolíficos do cenário literário brasileiro contemporâneo, levantando questões referentes à perversão formal, à crítica do poder autoritário e à criação ficcional da persona autoral por meio da escrita de si. Acreditamos que, por sua técnica apurada e sua vasta produção, trata-se de um autor que merece um estudo acadêmico aprofundado, buscando o diálogo entre seus temas e as questões culturais que se apresentam ao pensamento contemporâneo
The work consists of an exam of Glauco Mattosos literary production, based on the idea of transgression and analyzing the authors sonnet production and Jornal Dobrabil. His production started in the 70s and, since them, Glauco has proved to be one of the most prolific writers in contemporary Brazilian literary scenario, raising issues that relate to formal perversion, power critiquing and fictional self construction. We believe that, due to his technique and wide production, Glauco deserves some deep academic study, creating a dialogue between his themes and cultural questions that are presented to contemporary thought
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Clot, Jean. "Theodor Fontane. L’acte littéraire ou la réponse de Narcisse." Thesis, Paris 4, 2011. http://www.theses.fr/2011PA040010.
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Le présent travail propose une interprétation psychanalytique de l’œuvre de l’écrivain réaliste allemand Theodor Fontane (1819 1898). À la lumière de la théorie freudienne et des thèses de Béla Grunberger sur le narcissisme, nous montrons ce que sont les ressorts et les enjeux inconscients de la création littéraire, chez cet auteur, laquelle, dans son principe, reproduit le schème de la position fantasmatique régressive que ménageait la grande passion ludique de l’enfant, le jeu de cache cache selon un mode spécifique. Partant du constat de la structure obsessionnelle des romans, notre étude met en évidence, dans un premier livre, l’existence, « sous » la fable sociale récurrente de la liaison amoureuse illicite, sanctionnée (adultère et relations équivalentes), d’un singulier scénario s’articulant autour de la dynamique du « pseudo Œdipe », que décrit Grunberger (procédure d’évitement, à des fins de régression), et du mécanisme de la défense masochique. L’analyse de ce « mythe personnel » (Mauron), comme situation dramatique interne, nous amène à dégager les traits particuliers des éléments constitutifs de la personnalité psychique de Fontane (imagos et instances), puis à établir la genèse de sa position « pseudo œdipienne » et à faire ressortir le rapport qui la lie au processus de création (« rétablissement narcissique »). Les résultats acquis sont passés au révélateur de la vie de l’écrivain. Dans un second livre, nous nous penchons, tour à tour, sur les divers aspects essentiels de l’œuvre, réexaminés sous le nouvel éclairage apporté : fonctionnalité de l’ambivalence, conception du réalisme « poétique » (transfigurateur), recherche de la conciliation des principes contraires, écriture comme la pratique d’un jeu de cache cache (questions du dialogisme, de la stratégie narrative, du symbolisme). La dernière partie est consacrée à l’étude de la problématique cardinale de la régression narcissique, à laquelle tout mène, ici : instrumentalisation du complexe de la faute et de la sanction, à visée autodestructrice, dans une tension vers la mort fantasmée comme le retour à l’état de félicité du séjour au sein originelThis study offers a psychoanalytical interpretation of the works of Theodor Fontane (1819 1898), the German realist writer. In the light of the Freudian theory and of Béla Grunberger’s theses on narcissism, we show the unconscious motivations which gave rise to this author’s literary creation and what is at stake in this process for him. The act of writing is based here on the principle of reproducing the scheme of the fantastical regressive position which was generated by Fontane’s strong passion as a child for the game of hide and seek, which he played in his own specific way. Considering the obsessive structure of his novels, in our first book we demonstrate the existence — “beneath” the ever present social dictum of the forbidden love affair that is always to be punished (adultery and similar relationships) — of a particular scenario revolving around the dynamic of the “pseudo Oedipus”, as described by Grunberger (avoidance procedure aiming at regression) and the mechanism of masochistic defense. The analysis of this “personal myth” (Mauron), as an inner dramatic situation, leads us, first, to unearth the specific features of the elements which make up Fontane’s psychic personality (imagoes and agencies), and then to establish the genesis of his “pseudo oedipal” position and to highlight its link with the creative process (“narcissistic restoration”). Our results are substantiated through the writers’s biography. In the second book we deal with the essential aspects of Fontane’s work, which we re examine thanks to what we have brought to light: the functionality of ambivalence, the conception of transfigurating “poetic” realism, the attempt to reconcile opposite principles and writing as a game of hide and seek (dialogism, narrative strategy, symbolism). The last part of our study is devoted to the cardinal issue of narcissistic regression to which everything leads: mainly the instrumentation of the complex of guilt and retribution with a self destructing aim in a tropism towards death fantasized as a return to the original state of bliss in the womb
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Donnelly, EJ. "The inward turn : reading masochism in Latin literature." Thesis, 2019. https://eprints.utas.edu.au/31699/1/Donnelly_whole_thesis.pdf.
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This thesis examines the masochistic persona in literature. Beginning with the Marquis de Sade’s representation of masochism in Justine, it identifies three key tropes that make up the masochistic character: control, choice, and responsibility. These tropes are then applied to three classical texts: the Satyricon, the Lesbia poems of Catullus, and Seneca’s Thyestes. The first section of this dissertation establishes the masochistic identities of these three characters: Encolpius is the masochistic victim of his own passive and submissive nature; Catullus’ masochism manifests out of a distortion of his love for Lesbia; and Thyestes labours under masochistic delusion, as he is lured home to Argos by his desire for wealth.
After establishing the masochistic identity of these three characters, the second section analyses the impact that masochists have upon narrative. Both Justine and Encolpius are first-person, intradiegetic narrators, and as such their masochism directly affects the narrative. They interpret and relay information in an unreliable way, which is coloured by their individual masochistic characteristics. Catullus’ narrative is similarly biased as a result of his masochism. His perception of his relationship with Lesbia is that she holds all the power, and that he is powerless; the reader has no access to Lesbia’s voice, or to any other information that may mediate Catullus’ perspective. Finally, Thyestes’ masochism means that his narrative – framed as it is in a mimetic, dramatic form – does not have the power to become unreliable, because his passivity and masochistic delusion make him an unpersuasive character. Ultimately, this thesis illustrates that masochistic characters have a pervasive impact on the development of a text’s narrative: by their nature masochists vacillate, and so they effectively prolong narratives, move them laterally, and, by their self-reflexive victimisation bring about critical shifts in the narrative.
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Mustamäki, Piia J. "Redefining political theatre masochism and the problem of identity." 2008. http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.2/rucore10001600001.ETD.17360.
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King, EL. "More than skin deep : masochism in Japanese women's writing 1960-2005." Thesis, 2012. https://eprints.utas.edu.au/15925/1/front-king-2012.pdf.
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This thesis investigates the use of masochistic imagery and masochistic scenarios in the narratives of Kōno Taeko, Yamada Eimi and Kanehara Hitomi, and also in the visual imagery of ‘ladies’ comic’ artist, Watanabe Yayoi. The textual production of these women is examined against the background of the social, economic and cultural conditions at the time of publication. Without making claims to any kind of teleological development, I argue that there is a chronological genealogy that connects the work of the women listed above through the different eras in which they were writing. Kōno is a key writer from the late Post-war/pre-Bubble period of the 1960s to 1970s;1 Yamada invokes the heady ‘Bubble jidai’ years of the 1980s and early 1990s;2 while Kanehara is a product of the so called ‘Lost Decade’ of the 1990s and the early 2000s.3 While all three also produced a considerable body of narrative and essay material outside the times identified above, it was during these periods that each author produced what are arguably their representative works. The chapter on ladies’ comics overlaps chronologically with the discussion on Yamada Eimi in that it loosely covers the period from the early 1980s, when the first manga of this genre was published, to the early 2000s.
In addition to textual analysis chapters on the works of Kōno, Yamada, Kanehara and Watanabe and, occasionally, their contemporaries, the thesis examines theories of masochism as found in both Japan and the west. While avoiding a closed understanding of the term – which can alter according to the social context – I argue that masochism is not simply pleasure in pain, but pleasure in the expectation of pain. It is this expectation that is the key to the pleasure of the masochistic experience. I further demonstrate that, contrary to popular interpretation, in the relationship between the masochist and their chosen consort/partner/torturer, it is the masochist who very often holds the balance of power.
While providing an overview of the contribution made to understandings of masochism by Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Sigmund Freud and Theodor Reik, I draw principally on Gilles Deleuze, in particular his essay “Coldness and Cruelty,” to demonstrate that masochism can be a personal choice made by women in order to resist the social expectations and restraints placed on them.
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Sampaio, Mafalda Margarida Basto. "A Vénus das peles : Um olhar psicanalítico sobre o masoquismo." Master's thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10400.12/3639.
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Dissertação de mestrado apresentada ao ISPA - Instituto SuperirorO presente trabalho aborda a obra literária A Vénus das Peles de Leopold Sacher-Masoch. Trata-se de uma narrativa que tem como objetivo entrelaçar a teoria psicanalítica com algumas das principais temáticas presentes na obra estudada. O trabalho proposto encontra-se composto por duas partes. Na primeira parte, poder-se-á verificar uma introdução aos temas abordados, seguida de uma reflexão sobre a relevância da arte, particularmente da literatura, em comunhão com a psicanálise e, posteriormente, algumas considerações teóricas sobre a perversão e o masoquismo, à luz dos constructos psicanalíticos, ao longo dos tempos. A segunda parte, refere-se à apresentação da obra A Vénus das Peles bem como do seu criador, Leopold Sacher-Masoch. De seguida, dizendo respeito à parte mais multidimensional do trabalho realizado, dar-se-á a exploração de alguns dos pontos que consideramos como centrais na obra, com o apoio da revisão teórica e da reflexão subjetiva sobre a mesma, proporcionando forma ao sentir e ao deambular intrapsíquico. Confirmamos, em última análise, que as suspeitas criadas em torno da vida e obra de Sacher-Masoch, possuem fundamento, na medida em que as teorias formuladas sobre o seu funcionamento, predominantemente masoquista, se impõem.
ABSTRACT------The following essay addresses the literary work written by the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch: ‘Venus in Furs’. This essay at its core has the goal to reconcile the psychoanalytic theory with some of the main themes broached in Sacher- Masoch’s book. The essay is composed by two segments. The first segment is characterized by an introduction to the broached themes followed by a reflexion upon the relevance of the artistic medium, in particular the literary medium in communion with psychoanalysis, this will be followed by some theoretical conjectures about perversion and masochism in connection with the psychoanalytic constructs throughout the times. The second segment pertains to the author Leopold von Sacher-Machoch and his literary work ‘Venus in Furs’. This segment explores the multidimensional side of this essay, a great deal of focus will be given to the points considered to be the most relevant in Sacher-Masoch’s book. This will be supported by a theoretical revision and subjective reflexion upon the literary piece thus allowing the intrapsychic feel and exploration to take shape. Ultimately we are able to ascertain that the suspicions created around the life and work of Sacher-Masoch are founded. The grounds for such a statement can be found in the theories formulated with basis on his psyche, wich undeniably was predominantly masochistic.
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Linden, Maya. "Anatomy of the upper body." Thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/78096.
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The exegesis portion of my thesis examines representations of feminine masochism in 20th-century literature by women with respect to the ways in which feminist literary analysts have critiqued these novels in an often moral fashion. In my re-readings of three such texts, via an exploration of conflicts in contemporary feminism, I question whether the feminist critique of literature should necessarily presume or seek an affirmative feminist narrative in female-authored works. The creative texts I examine include Susanna Moore’s In the Cut, several works by Marguerite Duras, and Anne Carson’s verse narrative, The Beauty of the Husband. My dissertation provides an example of other, more expansive ways in which these texts might be read that extends into a contribution to the debate between the aesthetic and the moral appraisal of creative arts, and a questioning of whether morality has a place in literature at all. In this way, I not only provide alternative ways of reading these narratives, but also present a reading practice that is relevant to an understanding of my own creative work. My discussion draws from a broad range of theoretical writings on the ethics of reading
and the expression of masochism, from Roland Barthes, to Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze, Mikhail Bakhtin and Milan Kundera, to Muarice Blanchot, Leo Bersani and Derek Attridge as well as psychoanalytic propositions put forth by Lacan and Freud. Inevitably, my research also engages with the depth of feminist writing on sexuality and violence, including that by Teresa de Lauretis, Jane Gallop, Jessica Benjamin, Maria Marcus, Renata Salacle and Linda Ruth Williams. My creative work takes the form of a novella, Anatomy of the Upper Body. It is a psychological thriller set in contemporary Melbourne that centres contemporary women’s negotiations of heterosexual desire as its topic. My protagonist, Nina, is at once informed, vulnerable, and ambivalent in her expressions of heterosexuality. In the masochistic temptations she experiences, she is a character who is representative of those transgressive literary femininities that occupy an uneasy third position between the worlds of fiction and theoretical inquiry. The interrelatedness of theory and fiction in the novel itself is an attempt to interrupt and interrogate prevailing modes of literary interpretation, just as the depiction of a confoundingly contradictory female character may be seen as a challenge to notions of condoned femininity. The overarching aim of this dissertation is to provide an investigation of the function of morality in literature, and to support readings of transgressive fiction by female writers, not as true representations of the feminine psyche or ‘what women want’, but as imagined spaces that allow the reader to explore a myriad of subject positions, those that exist outside of social reality, those that may differ from our own.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2011
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Dupuis-Plamondon, Thierry. "Dramaturgie de la scène primitive et passion postcourtoise : le couple Judith et Holopherne dans L’âge d’homme et L’Afrique fantôme de Michel Leiris." Thèse, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1866/11974.
Full textAbstract:
Ce mémoire propose une réflexion psychanalytique à partir de L'Âge d'homme et de L'Afrique fantôme de Michel Leiris. Il y est montré que la notion freudienne de scène primitive sert de paradigme à l'écriture autobiographique de cet auteur.
Cette étude commence par approfondir les récits de rêves dans ces textes. Il s'agit d'emprunter la voie royale vers l'inconscient. Le moi du narrateur adopte une position masochiste devant des femmes phalliques dont il s'éprend. C'est ce qui le fait basculer dans la passion postcourtoise, notion développée par Paul-Laurent Assoun. La Dame se substitue à l'objet perdu et se présente comme une Judith meurtrière. Les nombreuses identifications du narrateur avec des personnages légendaires nous permettent de transposer son existence à l'intérieur d'une mythologie personnelle. L'analyse de ces fantaisies d'identification avec des modèles masculins révèle le sadisme de son surmoi.
À Gondar, l'auteur tombe amoureux d'Emawayish, une sorcière éthiopienne, qui devient son double idéal de Lucrèce et Judith. Cette relation amoureuse répète inconsciemment la structure du complexe d'Œdipe. L'Âge d'homme apparaît comme une recherche du corps maternel et l'écriture autobiographique devient le moyen de remédier au sentiment mélancolique de perte d'objet d'amour.This thesis is a psychoanalytical development based on the books L'Âge d'homme and L'Afrique fantôme by the French writer Michel Leiris. The purpose is to show that the Freudian notion of primitive scene is used as a paradigm for self-exploration and analysis through autobiographical writing. This study begins by detailing the stories of dreams retold by the author in his works. Thus, Leiris is traveling on the royal road that will take him to his unconscious mind. The ego of the narrator adopts a masochist approach to the phallic women he falls in love with. He then shifts to what is called « postcourtoise passion », a concept developed by Paul-Laurent Assoun. The Lady (La Dame) replaces the « lost object » and is transformed into the murderous Judith. The many identifications of the narrator with legendary figures allow us to read his existence through his personal mythology. Upon analysis, these identity fantasies of the author with male models are an indication of the sadism of his superego. In Gondar, the author falls in love with Emawayish, an Ethiopian sorceress who becomes the perfect double of Lucrèce and Judith. This love relationship unconsciously reveals the structure of the Oedipus complex. L’Âge d’homme can be seen as the quest of a man for the maternal body. The experience of self-exploration and analysis writing can be seen as the means to cure the melancholy generated by the loss of the loved object.
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Baďurová, Jana. "Povídková tvorba Kóno Taeko." Master's thesis, 2013. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-323787.
Full textAbstract:
(in English): The topic of this work is the characteristics of the short stories by Kono Taeko. At first I am presenting the methodology - psychoanalysis. Then, I'm describing her life for better understanding of the use of some typical features. Especially the war and the tuberculosis had influence on her work. Subsequently I present possible interpretation of her stories in term of Shintoism (effort to purify) and Buddhism (achievement of liberation). In interpersonal relations Kono Taeko deals mainly with man- woman relationships and her attitude can be considered feminist. In the most comprehensive chapter concerning masochism I am trying to prove with Freud's theory "The child is being beaten" that her work is masochistic. In the end I am generalizing my findings. This work contains Czech translations of examples of her work and contains 68 pages.
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Bégin, Marchand Jasmine. "Sadisme filial et vocation littéraire chez Marcel Proust." Thèse, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1866/9988.
Full textAbstract:
Dans la Recherche du temps perdu, toute relation filiale est une relation où le fils fait inévitablement souffrir sa mère en commettant, selon Proust, une forme de parricide. La lecture des œuvres pré-Recherche de l’auteur, telles la nouvelle « La confession d’une jeune fille » et l’article « Sentiments filiaux d’un parricide » permettent de comprendre cette relation ambigüe, au cœur de laquelle se trouve l’amour incommensurable que ressent le fils pour le parent, un amour si intense qu’il en est étouffant. Dans ces conditions, le parent en vient à symboliser aux yeux de l’enfant la Loi contre laquelle il doit se rebeller à coup de gestes de cruauté. Le fils, s’il est de ceux qui peuvent soutenir la vue de leurs crimes, entre alors dans un cercle vicieux : par sa cruauté, il tue – symboliquement ou réellement – le parent aimé et il en jouit. Suite à ce sadisme, il ressent une insupportable culpabilité qui le mène à une dévotion masochiste encore plus grande pour son parent. Or, par le personnage du narrateur de la Recherche du temps perdu, Proust démontre que la seule manière de se libérer de cette douloureuse culpabilité, c’est l’Art. Le crime ultime qu’est la création excuse les actes de cruauté antérieurs et les justifie même. C’est la seule manière de transformer la souffrance vécue (issue entre autres de la culpabilité d’avoir pris plaisir à faire souffrir un parent aimé) en idées universelles, en œuvre d’art.In A la recherche du temps perdu, every filial relationship is one where the son inevitably causes his mother suffering by committing, according to Proust, a form of parricide. The writings of Marcel Proust before la Recherche, such as the short story “A young girl’s confession” and the newspaper article “Filial sentiments of a parricide”, allow us to understand this ambiguous relationship, at the heart of which we can find the unmeasured love that the son feels for his parent, a love so intense that it soon becomes suffocating. Under these conditions, the parent comes to symbolize to the child “the moral Law” against which he must rebel, choosing cruelty as his weapon. The son, if he is one of those who can stand the sight of their own crimes, enters then in a vicious cycle: with his daily acts of cruelty, he kills – symbolically or in genuinely – the beloved parent, and he enjoys it. Following this act of sadism, he feels an unbearable guilt that leads him to an even greater masochistic devotion for his parent. Yet, through the character of the narrator of la Recherche, Proust demonstrates that there is indeed one way to free oneself from this painful guilt, and it is through Art. Creation, the ultimate crime, excuses and even justifies any previous acts of cruelty. It is the only way of transforming suffering (resulting among other things, from the guilt of having enjoyed causing a beloved parent any kind of suffering) into universal ideas, into art.
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Erwin, Chase Morgan. "Uncelebrated Stylists: Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford, and the Artist as Masochist." 2010. http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/702.
Full textAbstract:
This study presents an attempt to understand the political and aesthetic relationship between two of Modernism’s most enigmatic authors, Wyndham Lewis and Ford Madox Ford by examining their novelistic practice in light of their writings on politics and social criticism. A close look at the use of ironic distance, a hallmark feature in our understanding of modernist fiction, in Tarr (1918) and The Good Soldier (1915) reveals both authors conscious effort to distance themselves from their novel’s subjects, Fredric Tarr and John Dowell respectively. In light of both novels’ satirical element, a scathing attack on bourgeois narcissism caused by the wealthier class’ persistent attempts to identify with hollow and self serving social roles through the sham-aristocratic prestige created by England’s pre-war commodity culture, and the fact that both Fredric Tarr and John Dowell are artist figures that somehow resemble their creators, this project reinterprets Ford and Lewis’ ironic distance as an instance of self-distanciation. From this we can infer that both Ford and Lewis were invested in the modernist idea of impersonality, not just as a artistic or literary technique, but as the artist’s only means of escaping the narcissistic and slothful trap of modern subjectivity, and that, along with the production of modernist art, they saw a continual self-effacement as the price of authenticity, therefore inspiring in them the conviction to live as “uncelebrated stylists.”