Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Psychoanalysis in fiction'

This thesis explores the importance of tolerating and facilitating uncertainty as it is recognised by British Independent and Kfeinian psychoanalysis and contemporary British magic realist fiction. In Part I, I offer some theoretical investigations, arguing that postmodem and some psychoanalytic discourses, namely Lacanian psychostructuralism, remarkably fail to address the challenges facing subjects in late- twentieth, early twenty-first century consumer culture. In their inability to tolerate paradoxes and uncertainty, these discourses objectify the subject, through processes of depersonalisation, derealisation and desubjectification. To redress these problems, I offer the work of British psychoanalysts, specifically, that of D. W. Winnicott and Melanie Klein and her followers. These perspectives, I argue, better serve the contemporary subject by recognising the importance of paradox and helping develop facilitating environments for the realisation of creative experience. In Part II, I examine how the play of paradox is fostered in contemporary British magic realist fiction. Specifically, I look at how these narrative strategies attempt to move away from the vicissitudes of internal and external, certainty and uncertainty, reason and unreason, to negotiate a Winnicottian third, potential space. The conceptualisation of such a space, I believe, offers a place from which we can begin to dialogue, to draw ourselves out of the oppositional dialectics that have plagued the bourgeois subject. I believe that in the novels of writers such as Jeanette Winterson, Joanne Harris, John Fowles, John Murray and, most especially, Angela Carter, we can find alternatives to bourgeois conceptions of reason and rationality, alternatives that are not based on the paranoid-schizoid, primitive processes and depersonalisation necessitated by the Enlightenment and capitalism but instead upon, in Kleinian terms, depressive ambivalence and the recognition of whole-objects.

This thesis offers a new interpretation of Patrick White's novels, using Object Relations psychology. Object Relations psychology differs from Freudian psychology in that it shifts the focus of attention from notions of the Oedipal conflict and repression to issues of nurturing and relationships. This study charts the development of the Whitean protagonist across a selection of novels. The focus of my thesis is White's developing protagonist, and no attempt is made to offer a psychological profile of Patrick White himself. The thesis first surveys a representative sampling of existing critical material. It then defines the theoretical framework of the study and, finally, it applies this framework to the novels.

This essay provides an analysis of the novel When Nietzsche Wept written by Irvin D. Yalom. The novel takes place during the late eighteen hundred century in Vienna and throughout this essay I explore how Yalom has created a setting, where he has placed some of most prominent philosophers of this time in his fictional world in order to educate the reader about the birth of psychoanalysis and give an alternative version to how it emerged. I argue that Yalom manages to implement different original theories in connection to psychoanalysis to show how the ideas circulating at that point in history contributed to the development of psychoanalysis. The essay compares the original theories of Freud, Breuer and Nietzsche to those brought forward by the characters and illustrates the similarities in order to support Yalom´s alternative version. In conclusion, this essay demonstrates how Yalom has created an alternative version of the development of psychoanalysis by blending original theories with fictive events in order to show how psychoanalysis was a zeitgeist of its time and had more than one founding father.

According to Pierre Nora, “[m]emory and history, far from being synonymous, appear now to be in fundamental opposition”. Drawing on theories of memory and psychoanalysis, my thesis examines the role of memory as a narrative of the past in late twentieth-century and twenty-first-century Scottish literature. I challenge Nora’s supposition that memory and history are fundamentally opposed and I argue that modern Scottish literature uses a variety of forms of memory to interrogate traditional forms of history. In my Introduction, I set the paradigms for my investigation of memory. I examine the perceived paradox in Scottish literature between memory and history as appropriate ways to depict the past. Tracing the origins of this debate to the work of Walter Scott, I argue that he sets the precedent for writers of modernity, where the concerns are amplified in late twentieth and twenty-first century literature and criticism. While literary criticism, such as the work of Cairns Craig and Eleanor Bell, studies the trope of history, Scottish fiction, such as the writing of Alasdair Gray, James Robertson, and John Burnside, asserts the position of memory as a useful way of studying the past. Chapter One examines the transmission of memory. Using George Mackay Brown’s Greenvoe, I consider the implications of three methods of transferring memory. Mrs McKee’s refusal to disclose her experience indicates a refusal to mourn loss and to transmit memory. Skarf’s revision of historical narratives indicates a desire to share experience. The Mystery of the Ancient Horsemen demonstrates the use of ritual in the preservation and the communication of the past for future generations. Chapter Two studies the Gothic fiction of Emma Tennant and Elspeth Barker. I examine sensory experience as indicative of the interior and non-linear structure of memory. I argue that the refusal to accept personal and familial loss reveals problematic forms of memory. Chapter Three traces unacknowledged memory in Alice Thompson’s Pharos. I use Nicolas Abraham’s theory of the transgenerational phantom to consider the effects of this undisclosed memory. I argue that the past and its deliberate suppression haunt future generations. Chapter Four considers the use of nostalgia as a form of memory. I investigate the perceptions and definitions of nostalgia, particularly its use as a representation of the Scottish national past. Using Neil Gunn’s Highland River, I identify nostalgia’s diverse functions. I examine nostalgia as a way in which, through the Scottish diaspora, memory is transferred and exhibited beyond national boundaries. Chapter Five builds on the previous chapter and extends the analysis of the ways nostalgia functions. I study nostalgia’s manifestations in the diasporic Scottish-Canadian literature of Sara Jeanette Duncan, John Buchan, Eric McCormack, and Alastair MacLeod.

This thesis is a process of writing characters using a cyclical methodology to turn the writer into a reader of their own work, then back into a writer again. The components of this thesis both practice and propose writing as research and develop a concept of character that is ‘relational’. Taking Donald Barthelme’s assertion, ‘Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how,’ this thesis is attentive to the uncertainty of process: a process that has accreted knowledge in the form of characters and methods. Making People Up is chronologically structured in order to make visible how its form was discovered through practice. The first component is a book of character studies You are of vital importance written in the first year of the PhD. This is followed by a reflective manuscript of essays which use a method of redescription to render a generative moment between the completion of one book and the beginning of the next. The third component is a second book Social Script which is a character study and a conclusion to the thesis. Building on Adam Phillips’ assertion, ‘Being misrepresented is simply being presented with a version of ourselves – an invention – that we cannot agree with. But we are daunted by other people making us up, by the number of people we seem to be,’ this thesis starts from the premise that in the everyday we make each other up and then goes on to use the form of the character study to explore unresolvable tensions around this process. Building four parallel propositions: that character is fiction; that a relational concept of character is a critique of the extent to which we can know each other; that constituting the writer as a reader of their own characters renders a generative moment and critical reflection; that oscillating the proximity to and distance from a character provokes you, the reader, to imagine character as a relationally contingent concept. The thesis will draw on key concepts by Christopher Bollas and Adam Phillips, literary discourse on character, reader-response criticism and a selection of literary and artistic works that have informed this process of writing characters. Research Questions: 1. Does a relational concept of character critique claims to ‘know’ each other? 2. Does replacing interpretation with redescription make a reflective methodology critical and generative? 3. What kind of narrative structure will constitute a ‘relational’ character study?

Recent advancements in voice-interactive technology such as Apple's Siri application, IBM's Watson, and Google's Now are not just the products of innovative computer scientists; they have been directly influenced by fictional technology. Computer scientists and programmers have openly drawn inspiration from Science Fiction texts such as Gene Roddenberry's television show Star Trek and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey in order to create more effective voice-interactive programs. Such comparisons between present-day technology and past Science Fiction (hereafter, Sci-Fi) texts are even more apt than computer scientists seem to have intended; not only are Watson, Siri, and Now real-world versions of fictional computers, but each of them also hides the ways in which the computer is implicitly embodied and gendered by its voice. Real and fictional computers alike are generally voiced by a human: the Star Trek computer by Majel Barrett; Hal-9000 by Douglas Rain; and Watson by Jeff Woodman. Mysteriously, both Apple and Google have worked hard to hide the vocal origins of Siri and Now respectively. But the question remains: why do these programs even have gendered voices? In particular, why is Siri--the digital equivalent of a secretary--female? And why hide their voices' corporeal origins? Aside from technological inspiration, how have the underlying ideological gender assumptions in Sci-Fi texts like 2001 and Star Trek influenced the creation of such programs? What does the fact of the shift from Sci-Fi representations to scientific innovation reveal about the perpetuation of ideological assumptions about gender roles? How do other representations of computer voices confirm or problematize the gendering of computer voices? In this dissertation, I seek to answer these questions by examining the historical, theoretical, and aesthetic trace of the computer voice from Star Trek in 1966 to Siri in 2013. The voice-interactive computer, I argue, may be understood as a paradoxically acousmatic character: a disembodied voice that is simultaneously embodied through non-humanoid computer-objects. Through psychoanalytic interpretations, historical contextualizations, and transtextual considerations, I show how representations of acousmatic computers are positioned within narrative texts as gendered subjects, playing out particular gender roles that are situated within each text's historical context. I attend to the textual problem of location in Sci-Fi by dividing the analyses into two categories: extra-terrestrial and terrestrial. This division is important in understanding the roles of voice-interactive computers, as spaceships provide a uniquely different environment than terrestrial structures such as houses, office buildings, or prisons. Further, spaceships always already imply a womb-like habitat, a mothership that controls and maintains all aspects of the life forms within it; terrestrial computers, on the other hand, tend to connote varying gendered subjectivities and anxieties within historical contexts of technological innovation and cultural change. In this first part, I focus on extra-terrestrial voice-interactive computers in Star Trek (Paramount, 1966-1969), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Dark Star (John Carpenter, 1974), Quark (NBC, 1977-1978), Star Trek: The Next Generation (Paramount, 1987-1994), and Moon (Duncan Jones, 2010). In the second part, I examine terrestrial computers; these computers may be further divided into two, gendered subsections of masculine and feminine functions. The texts featuring masculine-voiced computers tend to act as the son to their programmer/creator fathers or, conversely, as all-knowing fathers, thereby reinforcing patriarchal rule. These films, Colossus: The Forbin Project (Joseph Sargent, 1970), THX 1138 (George Lucas, 1971), Rollerball (Norman Jewison, 1975), and Demon Seed (Donald Cammell, 1977), narrativize cultural and business struggles in the 1970s surrounding militarization and corporatization. I then examine the films of the early 1980s, TRON (Steven Lisberger, 1982) and Electric Dreams (Steven Barron, 1984), that express a rapidly-changing cultural conception of computers, set in narratives of homosocial struggle. And finally, I discuss computers in the 1990s and 2000s that serve in domestic roles, particularly those texts that feature domestic spaces run by female-voiced computers or, literally, house-wives. These texts, Fortress (Stuart Gordon, 1992), Smart House (LeVar Burton, 1999), and Eureka (SyFy, 2006-2012), position computers as replacements for human women who are absent from the home. Additionally, I examine two texts that feature male servants--Demon Seed (an anomaly among representations of domestic servitude) and Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008). I then return to Siri by examining representations of her programming, voice, and body in popular culture. By thus exploring the representations of gendered acousmatic computers within the context of computer history and changing gender norms, I self-reflexively examine how artificial intelligence may be presented in a gendered context, and how this may reflect changing notions of gender in digital culture.

Bakalauro darbo objektas – beprotybė Syvlijos Plath ir Virginijos Woolf romanuose. Darbo tikslas – išnagrinėti romanus psichoanalitiniu aspektu ir charakterizuoti personažų beprotybę. Tikslui pasiekti buvo iškelti šie uždaviniai: 1) ištirti beprotybės sąvoką literatūroje; 2) išnagrinėti beprotybės sąvoką psichoanalitinėje teorijoje; 3) išnagrinėti romanus psichoanalitiniu aspektu ir charakterizuoti juose vaizduojamą beprotybę. Bakalauro darbo metodologiją sudaro: 1) beprotybės literatūroje bei psichoanalizėje teorinės medžiagos tyrimas; 2) psichoanalitinė kritika kaip pagrindinis analizės metodas ir psichoanalitinis beprotybės romanuose konceptualizavimas; 3) tarpdiscipliniškumas kaip psichoanalitinio diskurso bei teorijos naudojimo literatūroje pagrindas, kuriuo remiantis pritaikomas Julijos Thompson Klein „kryžminio-apvaisinimo“ metodas. Šiame darbe beprotybė yra nagrinėjama literatūriniu (teorijos) ir psichoanalitiniu aspektu pasitelkiant Jaqueso Lakano teorijas bei sąvokas. Psichoanalitinei analizei buvo pasirinkti Silvijos Plath „Stiklo gaubtas“ (1963) ir Virginijos Woolf „Ponia Dalolvei“ (1925) romanai.
Madness in novels by Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf is the object of the Bachelor Thesis. Sources of the research are S. Plath’s novel The Bell Jar and V. Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway. The aim of the present research is to carry out psychoanalytical research of the novels in order to characterize madness. In order to achieve the aim the following objectives have been set: 1) to investigate the concept of madness in fiction; 2) to explore the psychoanalytic approach theory of psychoanalysis and madness; 3) to perform a psychoanalytic research of the novels in relation to madness. The methodology applied in the present Thesis included: 1) theoretical analysis in order to research views on madness both form literary and psychoanalytical aspects; 2) psychoanalytical criticism as the main method of analysis and psychoanalytic conceptualization of madness; 3) interdiciplinarity that enabled incorporation of psychoanalytic theories into the analysis employing the Cross-Fertilization method presented by Julie Thompson Klein. In the Bachelor Thesis madness is investigated both from the literary (theory) standpoint and from the aspect of psychoanalysis by incorporating concepts and theories coined by Jaques Lacan. For practical analysis, S. Plath’s “The Bell Jar” (1963) and V. Woolf’s “Mrs Dalloway” (1925) were chosen. In the course of the research the scientific literature in relation to madness in fiction, psychoanalysis and madness in psychoanalysis of J. Lacan, were studied and... [to full text]

Mad Pursuits: Therapeutic Narration in Postwar American Fiction examines three mid-century American novels—J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963)—in relation to the rise and popularization of psychoanalytic theory in America. The study historicizes these landmark novels as representing and interrogating postwar America’s confidence in the therapeutic capacity of narrative to redress psychological problems. Drawing on key concepts from narrative theory and the multidisciplinary field of narrative and identity studies, I argue that these texts develop a multi-layered, formal problematization of therapeutic narration: the narrativization of the self through modes of interpretation based on character action and development. The study, thus, investigates how the texts both critique the purported effectiveness of being healed through narrative means, as well as how they problematize their society’s investment in this method. I propose that the novels ultimately explore submerged possibilities for realizing what I call fugitive selves by creating self-representations that negotiate and exceed the confines of the paradigmatic models of plot and character of the period. In Chapter One, I argue that the ego and pop psychological movements during the postwar era encouraged the American public to define and realize psychological health, success and happiness through narrativized means. I show in Chapter Two how careful differentiation between narrative levels of interpretation in The Bell Jar reveals the novel’s complication of the self created in narrative, with and against the socio-cultural scripts and therapeutic assumptions of the period. Chapter Three concentrates on The Catcher in the Rye’s various methods of de-composing the narrative identity of the subject created through developmental and therapeutic narration. In the final chapter, I read Invisible Man as a satire of postwar psychoanalytic theory and method specifically concerning racialized narrative identities, and as a reflection on a method of enduring psychological illness. The Conclusion brings together several argumentative strands running throughout the dissertation regarding what the novels contrastively reveal about the perils, and even the possibilities, inherent in the narrativizing of the self in early postwar America.

O exame da narrativa ficcional permite a abordagem, para além do universo da teoria literária, de questões discursivas que refletem índices históricos, sociológicos e antropológicos, dentre os quais a construção da identidade de gênero. Neste sentido, o instrumental psicanalítico favorece a análise do sistema de referentes que constitui a feminilidade. Interessa, aqui, refletir acerca da feminilidade contemporânea inserida no contexto português do período ditatorial e construída discursivamente no período pós-revolucionário. Tal feminilidade apresenta-se avessa, muitas vezes, aos valores sedimentados no pensamento ocidental judaicocristão, que atribuem à mulher uma posição inferior, passiva e no limite castrada. Ao enfocar personagens femininas presentes em alguns exemplares da prosa portuguesa das últimas três décadas, pretende-se localizar um outro paradigma, que corre à margem dos padrões sociais vigentes: o da mulher libertária, independente, ativa, enfim, que rompe o compromisso com as regras da família, sociedade e religião. Cabe observar que quatro das personagens ora abordadas são discursivamente constituídas a partir de uma perspectiva masculina, tanto do ponto de vista do foco narrativo, quanto do ponto de vista autoral. O contraponto se dá com a escolha de uma personagem feminina fruto da perspectiva autoral feminina. Para a realização da abordagem proposta, são percorridos cinco romances, a saber: Balada da Praia dos cães e Alexandra Alpha, de José Cardoso Pires, Vícios e Virtudes e Pedro e Paula, de Helder Macedo e A Costa dos Murmúrios, de Lidia Jorge.
The investigation of fictional narrative leads to an approach beyond the universe of literary theory, discursive issues representing historical, sociological and anthropological insights, among which the genre identity may be cited. In this way, the psychoanalytical tools enable the analysis of the referring systems which constitute the femininity. This work reflects upon the contemporaneous femininity which has been inserted in the Portuguese context within the dictatorship period, and built up discursively in a post-revolutionary era. Most times this femininity proves itself to be contrary to the moral values established by the western Jewish Christian thoughts; such values set women mostly to an inferior, passive, submissive and castrated position. By focusing on female characters in the Portuguese prose from the last three decades, another paradigm is brought up, mainly sideways to the imposed common social patterns: the libertarian, active and independent woman is brought to life, the one who breaks away from rules imposed by family, society and religion. It is relevant to observe that four of such characters are discursively constituted from a male perspective, within the narrative and authorial focus. The counterpoint is set in the choice of a female character, based on a feminine authorial perspective. For this proposed approach to take place, five novels have been fully taken into consideration: Ballad of Dogs Beach and Alexandra Alpha, from José Cardoso Pires, Virtue and Vices and Peter and Paula, by Helder Macedo and The Murmuring Coast, by Lidia Jorge.

O presente trabalho busca explorar como a dimensão do traumático incide na literatura contemporânea, mais especificamente, na literatura de um escritor nova-iorquino, Paul Auster. Supomos que as modalidades de subjetivação de determinado período histórico podem ser investigadas a partir de objetos estéticos culturais particulares, ou, pelo menos, que determinadas obras podem servir como uma espécie de testemunho e de historiografia dos sofrimentos de uma época. Esboçamos possíveis ressonâncias entre o plano geral da cultura e da história e o das qualidades específicas e expressivas de uma obra determinada, o que abre espaço para um diálogo entre esses domínios. Com isso, contudo, não se espera privilegiar o que é externo à obra em detrimento dela, e muito menos explicar a literatura pelo recurso a teorias e sistemas de compreensão prévios. Ao contrário, partimos de uma leitura próxima e imanente às obras para realizar ensaios a partir de três livros de Paul Auster: A invenção da solidão, O livro das ilusões e Noite do oráculo. Tais leituras seguiram uma espécie de ética da hospitalidade enquanto ética da leitura. Seguindo de perto as obras, e instalando-se nelas como num regime de habitação, fomos abrindo pontos de contato e comunicação entre as obras, bem como com outras dimensões da história, principalmente no que concerne a aspectos traumáticos e catastróficos. Os ensaios aventam a hipótese de que os livros de Paul Auster escolhidos demonstram, em seu aspecto mais formal, aspectos importantes do que veio a ser conhecido, na psicanálise, como compulsão à repetição. Além disso, a transmissão de aspectos indigestos e traumáticos transgeracionais, por via de criptas psíquicas, pode ser observada na própria autobiografia de Paul Auster, notadamente, A Invenção da solidão. As vicissitudes e destinos do trauma em sua dimensão transgeracional e individual são articuladas com o plano da cultura e com outros pensadores. Propomos, também, uma modalidade de leitura reparadora, em contraposição a uma leitura paranoica, para responder à complexidade e às ambiguidades das obras selecionadas
The present thesis aims to explore how the dimension of the traumatic concurs in contemporary literature, particularly in the one by New Yorker writer Paul Auster. It is supposed that the forms of subjectivity in a certain historical period can be searched into on the basis of particular cultural aesthetic objects. Or, at least, certain pieces of work can render as some sort of witness, as well as historiography of suffering in a particular era. It has been possible to outline some resonances between the general cultural and historical level ground and the one of expressive and specific qualities in a certain work, which opens space for a dialog between these domains. Nevertheless it is not expected neither to grant a privilege to what is external to the piece of work to its detriment, nor to explain literature from the theories and systems of previous comprehension. To the contrary, a close and immanent reading has been made, in order to make an assay, out of three of Paul Austers books: The invention of solitude, The book of illusions and Oracle Night. Such reading has followed some kind of hospitality ethics whereas reading ethics. Accompanying closely these works, and settling down on them as in a habitation regime, points of communication were opened between them, as well as with other dimensions of history, mainly to what concerns traumatic and catastrophic aspects. The assays suggest the hypothesis that these chosen Austers books demonstrate, in their formal aspect, important features of what has become known in Psychoanalysis as compulsion of repeating. Furthermore, the transmission of transgenerational indigestive and traumatic aspects, through psychic crypts, can be observed in Austers autobiography The invention of solitude. The vicissitudes and destinies of trauma on its transgenerational and individual dimensions are articulated with the cultural level ground and with other authors. It is also proposed a modality of repairing reading, in opposition to a paranoid reading, to respond to the complexity and ambiguity of the selected works

À l’encontre des études qui plaquent des concepts psychanalytiques sur des pré-textes, c’est-à-dire des textes transformés en matériaux d’analyse, nous nous proposons de suivre la trajectoire du récit de fiction (romans, contes, nouvelles...) dans l’invention de la notion d’inconscient. Dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, l’inconscient fait une apparition décisive sous le masque des mots (« profondeur », « automate », « à son insu », « idée fixe »...), des sujets (le rêve, l’hypnose, l’hystérie…), des personnages (en proie à des troubles de la personnalité, de la volonté, de la mémoire) et de la voix narrative qui les énonce. Le verrou que l’histoire littéraire impose aux écrivains, regroupés en courants qui s’incarneraient dans des manifestes, cède sous la poussée d’une notion ou d’une intuition d’autant plus difficile à saisir qu’elle est protéiforme. Tous s’interrogent sur les abîmes de la création artistique, le langage involontaire du corps, la dualité du « moi », apportant une pierre sans savoir pour quel monument. De Flaubert à Zola en passant par Huysmans, Barbey d’Aurevilly, les Goncourt, Bourget, Maupassant, Dujardin et bien d’autres, nous cherchons comment le récit de fiction dialogue avec les savoirs (psycho-physiologie, médecine, philosophie, biologie…) mais constitue aussi son arsenal symbolique, son dispositif herméneutique, devenant ainsi un acteur épistémologique à part entière. À rebours de discours prétendant à l’objectivité scientifique, la littérature s’implique avec le lecteur dans l’écriture de l’inconscient – qu’elle découvre moins qu’elle ne l’invente, qu’elle décrit moins qu’elle ne le construit, avec une liberté qui ne va pas sans ambiguïtés
Unlike a set of studies which tack psychoanalytical concepts onto pre-texts, i.e .texts transformed into material for analysis, we study the specific contribution of fiction (novels, tales, short stories, narrative forms…) to the invention of the concept of unconscious. In the second half of the 19th century, the unconscious makes a crucial appearance behind the mask of words (“depth”, “automatic”, “without knowledge”, “obsession”…), topics (dreams, hypnosis, hysteria…), characters (facing personality, behavior or memory disorders…) and narrative voices. Literary history has always gathered writers in “literary movements” embodied in “manifestos”; yet this categorisation collapses under the pressure of this notion or intuition, more difficult to grasp as it proves to be protean. All of them wonder about the depths of artistic creation, the unintended language of the body, the duality or little reality of “ego”; all of them throw a stone without knowing the monument at which they are aiming. From Flaubert to Zola and Huysmans, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Goncourt, Bourget, Maupassant, Dujardin – just to name a few –, we investigate how fiction dialogues with various knowledges (psychophysiology, medicine, philosophy, biology…) and, along with science, how fiction may develop its symbolic arsenal, its hermeneutic register and becomes an epistemological player in its own right. Again, we investigate how literature, in opposition to the speeches skillful with scientific neutrality, operates freely, but not free of ambiguities. Indeed, it involves with reader in the writing of an unconscious not so much described but rather constructed, not so much discovered but rather invented

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-258) Presents readings of six novels which depict something of the nature of war trauma. Collectively, the novels suggest that the attempt to narrativise war trauma is inherently problematic. Traces the disjunctions between narrative and war trauma which ensure that war trauma remains an elusive and private phenomonen; the gulf between private experience and public discourse haunts each of the novels.

This thesis argues that the short fiction of Elizabeth Bowen is acutely preoccupied with reading emotion. Despite the growth of Bowen criticism, her stories remain understudied and this project proposes that their marginal status corresponds to this preoccupation. Through a close engagement with the literary representations of emotion at work in selected Bowen's stories, read alongside Bowen criticism, short story theory, and work on emotion, however, I show how her stories not only anticipate, but radically disrupt, current emotion theory. Recent theorisations of, and research on, emotion and affect across the disciplines tend to rely on the readability of emotion, emphasising the interpretation of specific emotions and reviving practices of affective criticism. Yet Bowen‟s short fiction foregrounds emotion‟s textuality: rather than allow us to read emotion „in‟ literature, I argue that her stories theorise the literariness of emotion. The project begins by suggesting a correspondence between her stories‟ engagement with emotion and their status, both within her literary oeuvre and in Bowen scholarship, to suggest that the complexity of her short fiction is often under-represented by occluding the deconstructions emotion mobilises. This enables us to map critical debates amongst Bowen scholars about the radicality of Bowen‟s fiction onto wider narratives about emotion and critical resistances to its textuality. I go on to undertake close readings of selected stories to show how Bowen‟s short fiction destabilises, rather than reinforces, the geographies of subjectivity, reality, time, and materiality to which emotion is presumed to belong. This project extends Bowen criticism that observes the ways her work anticipates psychoanalytical and Derridean readings, but through its focus on the short story it offers the second focused study of Bowen‟s short fiction, and the first study of her short fiction to be informed by critical emotion theory. Not only does this thesis carve out a new territory within Bowen scholarship, but it offers a timely contribution to problems in thinking emotion and affect in literary criticism and theory. More broadly, it is my hope that my reading of Bowen demonstrates the necessity of attending to the textuality of emotion in the reading and theorisation of emotion across the disciplines.

Critical Design uses designed artifacts as a critique of consumer culture. However, the complex nature of these artifacts prompted designers to focus on the artifact and present it in an informative, but relatively isolated fashion.The theoretical framework for this thesis is drawn from a similar, yet more recent, design criterion called Design Fiction. The artifacts of Design Fiction are called Diegetic Prototypes: fictional prototypes that function in the social sphere of a film’s structure. This research develops a method for analyzing and creating artifacts, in reference to psychoanalysis theories on the human psyche and perception of objects. It then explores scenarios for presenting these artifacts as diegetic prototypes by exploring and integrating the disciplines of systems/parametric design, digital fabrication, music, animation and film. The scenarios function as micro-narratives. These micro-narratives created through the prototypes will inform the larger narrative structure of the film.

Le présent travail s'attache à envisager le thème de la réconciliation avec le passé à l'ère postmoderne chez Graham Swift. Il s'agit d'envisager ce dernier thème en relation d'une part avec les métamorphoses des personnages (un des sens à donner aux métamorphoses de l'histoire dans mon titre) et d'autre part avec celles de l'histoire et du temps. Les aléas psychanalytiques de l'identité, les rapports de l'être à l'histoire et au temps sont analysés. S'il n'est pas vraiment question de statuer sur la réussite d'une telle réconciliation, on examinera ses stratégies et notamment quelques uns de ses versants narratifs. L'échelle individuelle est envisagée dans son aspect métonymique
This work examines how Graham Swift's works tackle the issue of a potential reconciliation with the past. Reconciliation will be analysed together with the character's metamorphoses over time (one of the meaning that has to be given to the metamorphoses of history in my thesis's title) and the fictional transformations of time and history. The psychoanalytic evolutions of identities and the relationships of the characters with time and history will be studied. If it is difficult to precisely assess the success of reconciliation, we will focus on some of its underlying strategies and narrative treatments. The individual level will serve as a model for the collective level

Partant de la définition que donne Patrick Brantlinger du gothique impérial victorien, ce travail aborde la manière dont l’Egypte, à travers le prisme de l’archéologie, est devenue un objet littéraire dans les dernières années du XIXe siècle. À mi-chemin entre science et aventure impériale, l’archéologie – et, plus particulièrement, l’égyptologie – est vite devenue un motif gothique, comme en témoignent les nombreux romans et nouvelles qui composent le genre de la mummy fiction. En examinant les écrits de Bram Stoker, Henry Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle et Sax Rohmer, entre autres, cette thèse considère la manière dont le motif archéologique a parcouru différents genres populaires, depuis le roman d’aventures jusqu’au fantastique, avant d’être approprié par le roman policier. L’étude de ces textes révèle combien l’histoire antique de l’Egypte, liée à un imaginaire magique, fascinait autant qu’elle effrayait dans la mesure où elle semblait ébranler les certitudes de la science moderne. Dans le même temps, l’histoire politique contemporaine de l’Egypte – et son statut ambigu au sein de l’Empire britannique – générait également une certaine angoisse, qu’alimentait la crainte du déclin et de la dégénérescence de l’Empire et de la civilisation britannique. La représentation fictionnelle de l’antiquité égyptienne – et de la figure de la momie en particulier – traduit la peur grandissante avec laquelle les Britanniques considéraient un Empire qui, à la manière des momies égyptiennes, menaçait de se soulever et de se venger du colonisateur. C’est ainsi que l’archéologie peut être lue comme une métaphore des relations et des angoisses impériales tandis que la momie incarne ce que l’on peut interpréter comme un refoulé impérial arraché aux profondeurs de l’inconscient collectif britannique au moment même où Freud développait les méthodes de la psychanalyse
Taking Patrick Brantlinger’s definition of late-Victorian imperial Gothic as a starting point, this dissertation considers how Egypt became a literary object in the late nineteenth century through the prism of archaeology. Pertaining as much to science as to imperial adventure, archaeology – and Egyptology in particular – soon entered fiction as a Gothic trope, as is evinced by the great number of novels and short stories that form the genre of mummy fiction. By focussing on texts by Bram Stoker, Henry Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle and Sax Rohmer, among others, this work examines how the archaeological motif travelled through various popular genres, from the adventure novel to the fantastic, before being taken up by writers of detective fiction. The study of these texts reveals that Egypt’s ancient history, full of magical potential, was an object of fascination as well as fear insofar as it seemed to shatter the certainties of modern science. Meanwhile, the modern political history of Egypt – and its ambiguous position within the British Empire – also engendered a certain anxiety, fuelled by a more general concern about the decline and degeneration of the Empire and British civilisation. The depiction of Egyptian antiquity in fiction – and the figure of the mummy in particular – conveys the growing unease with which the British viewed an Empire which, quite like Egyptian mummies, threatened to rise and wreak its revenge upon the coloniser. Thus, archaeology came to stand for a metaphor of imperial relations and anxieties while the mummy embodied what can be read as an imperial repressed excavated from the depths of the collective British subconscious at the time when Freud was developing the method of psychoanalysis

Simone de Beauvoir's fiction is still a largely unexplored field. This thesis offers new readings of her whole fictional corpus, using as critical lenses Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis in an ironically polemical move : vehemently anti-Freudian at the beginning of her career, Beauvoir denied the validity of his theories. Revealingly, however, her fiction tells a different tale. It is this untold Beauvoirean story I set out to tell in my study, which unfolds on three levels of critical interpretation. Firstly, using her own autobiographical admissions I examine her resolute resistance to psychoanalysis and offer possible reasons for her initial violent disavowal of its concepts. Secondly, I trace her explicit engagement with psychoanalysis as a clinical discipline through a chronological examination of her fiction, and, finally, I employ psychoanalytic literary theory as a magnifying optic onto her entire fictional output, thus offering new interpretations of her most underread texts. My conclusions are as follows : Beauvoir's resistance to psychoanalysis in fact stemmed from her own experience; by denying its value, she could also deny her own vulnerability, since the deep psychological damage caused by her unhappy childhood was still present in the strata of her own unconscious. Secondly, the thematic development of her fiction parallels the gradual acceptance of psychoanalysis as a valid clinical discipline following her self-analysis throughout her autobiographical creations - in her final two works, childhood and madness are laced together in a potent thematic explosion of her own articulated neuroses. And finally, the obsessive textual patternings betray her own repressed fears : throughout every fictional text, Oedipal triangles, fragmented identity and psychological breakdown play against each other against the backdrop of the symbiotic lure of idealised love. I thus hope to prove the relevance psychoanalysis has with regard to Beauvoir, despite her professed resistance to it.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Humanities, Department of English, 2007.
Bibliography: p. 239-289.
Introduction -- Fantastic metamorphosis as childhood 'otherness' -- The metamorphic growth of wings : deviant development and adolescent hybridity -- Tenors of maturation: developing powers and changing identities -- Changing representations of werewolves: ideologies of racial and ethnic otherness -- The desire for transcendence: jouissance in selkie narratives -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Appendix: "The great Silkie of Sule Skerry": three versions.
My central thesis is that fantastic motifs work on a metaphorical level to encapsulate and express ideologies that have frequently been naturalised as 'truths'. I develop a theory of motif metaphors in order to examine the ideologies generated by the fantastic motif of metamorphosis in a range of contemporary children's and young adult fantasy texts. Although fantastic metamorphosis is an exceptionally prevalent and powerful motif in children's and young adult fantasy literature, symbolising important ideas about change and otherness in relation to childhood, adolescence, and maturation, and conveying important ideologies about the world in which we live, it has been little analysed in children's literature criticism. The detailed analyses of particular metamorphosis motif metaphors in this study expand and refine our academic understanding of the metamorphosis figure and consequently provide insight into the underlying principles and particular forms of a variety of significant ideologies.
By examining several principal metamorphosis motif metaphors I investigate how a number of specific cultural beliefs are constructed and represented in contemporary children's and young adult fantasy literature. I particularly focus upon metamorphosis as a metaphor for childhood otherness; adolescent hybridity and deviant development; maturation as a process of self-change and physical empowerment; racial and ethnic difference and otherness; and desire and jouissance. I apply a range of pertinent cultural theories to explore these motif metaphors fully, drawing on the interpretive frameworks most appropriate to the concepts under consideration. I thus employ general psychoanalytic theories of embodiment, development, language, subjectivity, projection, and abjection; poststructuralist, social constructionist, and sociological theories; and wide-ranging literary theories, philosophical theories, gender and feminist theories, race and ethnicity theories, developmental theories, and theories of fantasy and animality. The use of such theories allows for incisive explorations of the explicit and implicit ideologies metaphorically conveyed by the motif of metamorphosis in different fantasy texts.
In this study, I present a number of specific analyses that enhance our knowledge of the motif of fantastic metamorphosis and of significant cultural ideologies. In doing so, I provide a model for a new and precise approach to the analysis of fantasy literature.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
[12], 294 p

Aquesta tesi investiga la construcció i desenvolupament dels personatges femenins a l´obra de Doris Lessing, considerant especialment la relació personal que estableixen amb el concepte de maternitat. El capítol 1 ofereix una revisió dels diferents enfocaments existents sobre l’escriptura de Doris Lessing, i també un repàs al seu context cultural i teòric, parant atenció a la psicoanàlisi i el feminisme i especialment, dins d´aquests camps d´estudi, a la psicoanàlisi Junguiana i Lacaniana i al feminisme post-Lacanià. A més, també planteja la qüestió de la figura materna a la novel·la postmoderna i el lloc que hi ocupa. El cos de l’estudi analitza cinc personatges representatius del cànon de Lessing, que daten de diferents períodes de la seva carrera. Cada figura ocupa un capítol separat de la tesi, que es centra en el seu desenvolupament intern: així, el capítol 2 examina la Mary Turner (The Grass is Singing, 1950); el capítol 3, l’Anna Wulf (The Golden Notebook, 1962); el capítol 4, la Kate Brown (The Summer Before the Dark, 1973); el capítol 5, la Harriet Lovatt (The Fifth Child, 1988); i el capítol 6, l’Emily McVeagh (Alfred and Emily, 2008). Es proposa una lectura Junguiana tot analitzant el procés d’individuació que els personatges proven d´assolir per tal d’adquirir una identitat plena. Amb aquest objectiu, es descriuen i s’interpreten diferents conjunts d’arquetips Junguians presents en les novel·les segons el paper que juguen en l’evolució de les protagonistes. Cal afegir que s’examinen altres conceptes psicoanalítics fonamentals, tals com la influència Lacaniana subjacent que s’evidencia en la recreació de l’estadi del mirall, o en la importància de nocions com “l’abjecció” de Julia Kristeva. Alguns motius textuals com els somnis, els records, les fantasies i la imaginació dels personatges resulten centrals per a la discussió. En l’última secció, després de l’anàlisi de les cinc novel·les, s’estableix un fil conductor entre elles pel que fa a la construcció de la identitat. A més, queda justificat l´ús de les teories psicoanalítiques de Jung i (en menor mesura) Lacan com a base per a una lectura, ja que permet aclarir aquest procés de construcció i evolució. D’altra banda, aquest marc teòric permet treure conclusions sobre les diferents reinterpretacions de l’arquetip de la mare per part de Lessing i, com a conseqüència, sobre el lloc que la maternitat ocupa a la literatura contemporània. Finalment, el concepte de circularitat es treballa especialment, a diferents nivells: primer, com a estructura que conforma cadascuna de les novel·les pel que fa a la forma i al contingut, com a mode de creació artística associada al mite i als símbols, o com a patró general de tota l’obra de Lessing.
The present thesis investigates the construction and development of Doris Lessing’s female characters, taking into account their personal relationship with their potential motherhood. Chapter 1 offers a review of the different approaches to the writing of Doris Lessing, as well as an overview of its cultural and theoretical background, focusing on psychoanalysis and feminism, and, most especially, on Jungian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and post-Lacanian feminism. In addition, the question of the mother figure in the postmodern novel and the place it occupies is also raised. The body of the study analyses five representative characters of Lessing’s canon, dating from different stages in her career. Each figure occupies a separate chapter in the thesis, which focuses on internal development: chapter 2 examines Mary Turner (The Grass is Singing, 1950); chapter 3, Anna Wulf (The Golden Notebook, 1962); chapter4, Kate Brown (The Summer Before the Dark, 1973); chapter 5, Harriet Lovatt (The Fifth Child, 1988); and chapter 6, Emily McVeagh (Alfred and Emily, 2008). A Jungian reading is offered by analysing the individuation process they are trying to undergo as characters trying to achieve a full identity. In order to do so, different sets of Jungian archetypes present in the novels are outlined and interpreted according to their role in the evolution of the protagonists. Moreover, other prevalent psychoanalytic concepts are examined, such as the underlying Lacanian influence made evident by the recreation of the mirror stage, or the importance of such notions as Kristevan “abjection”. Some textual details as dreams, memories, fantasies and imagination of the characters are central to the discussion. In the last section, after the analysis of the five novels, a common thread is established among them in terms of identity building. Moreover, the psychoanalytic theories of Jung and (to a lesser degree) Lacan as a basis for a reading is justified as they clarify this process of construction and development. In addition, this theoretical framework allows for conclusions on Lessing’s different reinterpretations of the mother archetype, and, subsequently, the place of motherhood in contemporary literature is reinterpreted according to Lessing’s work. Finally, special mention is made to circularity, at different levels; namely: as the structure that underlies each of the novels either formally or conceptually, as a mode of artistic creation associated with myth and symbol, and as the general pattern of Lessing’s entire career.

This text is an investigative study that, under the interpretative lens of psychoanalysis method, puts in question the concepts of psychoanalytic interpretation and psychic reality, which is made from an analogy established between the creation movements in Nelson Rodrigues Literature and those from the psychoanalytic productions. The reading of A vida como ela é..., series of tales written by Nelson Rodrigues to Última Hora newspaper, between 1951 and 1961, turned out to be a strong theoretical and affective experience. When he produces, Nelson creates realities and a particular form of man the Brazilian. He presents tragedies and dramas, to which, untangles the ululant obvious which sustain them. In this sense, I deducted that he would fulfill, with methodological rigour, the interpretative method demands by disrupting the course, as proposed by Fabio Herrman, which means the creation of a meaning that goes beyond the established routinely. Shocked by the possibility of a writer/artist fulfilling the demands of the psychoanalytic method, I presumed if Nelson Rodrigues was not an exemplary psychoanalyst. In the face of this agony and the position taken to see/read Nelson Rodrigues production as psychoanalytic, I needed dialogues with Science, Arts, in a deeper way with Literature, to illuminate the field and place of Psychoanalysis in my universe, and answer the nodal points which were imposed to the investigation: what Nelson Rodrigues produces of knowledge about the human condition can be equivalent to the knowledge coming from the psychoanalytic lens?; what is the difference between the analytical process and the creative writers process, considering the fictional character which unfold from them?; and Would Nelson Rodrigues be a psychoanalyst to be followed on the basis of his creation way and the disruption promoted by his action? More than an exercise of theoretical construction, this investigation, organized in narratives which store the seal of processed search way, which is, questioner and interpretative or as I call investicrativa, brings the movement of particular reinvention to Psychoanalysis. Looking to the keyhole, I encountered the character of mistake and uncertainness which constitutes life and also the psychoanalytic art. Facing the uncertain, it was necessary to be tragic and artist to dare a draft of my invention as a psychoanalyst and, from this place, produce a man and reality, in the transferencial dialogue with Nelson Rodrigues in A Carta, in the theories articulated in O Texto, or yet, in the appropriation of a clinical case through the tale A Deprimida, path which made it possible for me the suspension and expression of desire. In this way, two points are apprehended in this investigation, which ratify the analogy between Psychoanalysis and Literature, as suggested in Theory of the analogous, once both create meanings, not real, but possibilities of meanings, and the place that writing assumes in both fields.
Trata-se de um estudo investigativo que, sob a lente interpretante do método psicanalítico, coloca em questão os conceitos de interpretação psicanalítica e realidade psíquica, a partir de uma analogia estabelecida entre os movimentos de criação na Literatura de Nelson Rodrigues e aqueles oriundos das produções psicanalíticas. A leitura de A vida como ela é..., série de contos escrita por Nelson Rodrigues, para o jornal Última Hora, entre os anos de 1951 e 1961, caracterizou-se como uma forte experiência teoricafetiva. Ao produzir, Nelson, cria realidades e uma forma particular de homem o brasileiro. Apresenta tragédias e dramas, para os quais, destrincha o óbvio ululante que as sustentam. Neste sentido deduzi que ele cumpriria, com rigor metodológico, as exigências do método interpretativo por ruptura de campo, tal como propõe Fabio Herrmann, a saber, a criação de um sentido, para além ou aquém, do já estabelecido rotineiramente. Estremecido pela possibilidade de um escritor/artista atender as exigências do método psicanalítico, hipotetizei se não seria Nelson Rodrigues um psicanalista exemplar. Diante desta agonia sentida e da postura assumida de ver/ler a produção rodrigueana como psicanalítica, necessitei de diálogos com a Ciência, Arte, de modo aprofundado com a Literatura, para iluminar o próprio campo e lugar da Psicanálise no meu universo, e, responder as questões nodais que à investigação se impunham: o que Nelson Rodrigues produz de saber sobre a condição humana pode ser equivalente ao saber advindo da chamada lente psicanalítica?; qual é a diferenciação entre o fazer analítico e o dos escritores criativos, tendo-se em vista o caráter ficcional que deles se desdobra?; e seria Nelson Rodrigues um psicanalista, a ser seguido, com base na sua forma de criar e pela ruptura que sua ação promove? Mais que o exercício de uma construção teórica, esta investigação, organizada em narrativas que guardam o selo da forma de busca processada, qual seja, interrogante-interpretante ou investicrativa, traz o movimento de reinvenção particular à Psicanálise. Ao olhar pelo buraco da fechadura deparei-me com o caráter do engano e da incerteza que constitui tanto a vida, como o próprio ofício psicanalítico. Diante do incerto foi preciso ser trágico e artista para ousar um esboço de minha invenção como psicanalista e, desse lugar, produzir homem e realidade, seja no diálogo transferencial com Nelson Rodrigues presente em A Carta, nas prototeorias articuladas em O Texto, ou ainda, na apropriação de um caso clínico por meio do conto A Deprimida, via que me possibilitou suspensão e expressão do desejo. Dessa forma, apreende-se nesta investigação dois pontos que ratificam a analogia entre Psicanálise e Literatura, como proposto pela Teoria do Análogo, quer seja por ambas criarem sentidos, não de verdade, mas de possibilidades de sentidos, ou pelo lugar que a escrita assume nesses dois campos.
Mestre em Psicologia Aplicada

The present thesis considers the function of law in the political from the perspective of psychoanalysis, a discipline which foregrounds the subject. Drawing from the Lacanian contributions to psychoanalytic theory, I begin by assessing the validity of the Oedipal hypothesis for the purposes of understanding the dynamics of collective life. My analysis of civilisation in psychoanalytic terms will expose the subject as the seat of 'certain key phenomena which, despite their deeply intimate character, play themselves out in the field of law, in the confines of the institution, or again in the political realm: essentially, culpability, belief and love. I will argue that, although these phenomena irretrievably obstruct the rational unfolding of discourse, they also impel the precipitation of the subject's attachment to the political, and permit the consolidation thereof through the medium of transference. Yet, and in contradistinction to other strands of psychoanalytic jurisprudence, in this work psychoanalysis will be used neither as an hermeneutic tool nor as an analogical model. Indeed, my purpose is to evidence the existence of a certain continuity between the unconscious as discourse and the political order. This continuity between the unconscious and the political will be presented in terms of the logic of exception, which structures the subject's relation to language, and which Lacan identified as the structural core of the Oedipus complex. I will then apply Lacan's hypothesis of the exceptional structure of discourse to the theories of three political thinkers, chosen for the distinctness of their approach: Legendre, Bentham and Foucault. Finally, I will argue for the dispensability of the function of the Ideal, parasitic occupier of what should remain the structurally `empty' place of exception.

Cette thèse est l’étude d’une sélection d’œuvres littéraires mexicaines et françaises concernant les évènements historiques de l’Intervention française au Mexique (1862-1867) et du Second Empire Mexicain (1864-1867). Ces œuvres s’étalent entre le XIXe et le XXIe siècle et ont été sélectionnés pour leurs réflexions poétiques et politiques exemplaires et d’autre part parce qu’elles ont contribuées à la construction d’une iconographie culturelle et identitaire mexicaine. Les genres romanesque et théâtral ont été sélectionnés pour pouvoir établir une étude comparative diachronique. Le choix des œuvres et des auteurs a été établi en fonction du traitement de l’Intervention française et de leur importance. Les œuvres analysées correspondent au sous-genre du roman-feuilleton du XIXe siècle avec, pour la littérature française, Benito Vázquez (1869) de Lucien Biart et Doña Flor (1877) de Gustave Aimard et, pour la littérature mexicaine, Clemencia (1869) de Manuel Altamirano et El Cerro de las Campanas (1868) de Juan Mateos. Les pièces de théâtre Corona de Sombra (1943) de Rodolfo Usigli et Charlotte et Maximilien (1945) de Maurice Rostand sont traitées de manière comparative et la pièce El Tuerto es Rey (1970) de Carlos Fuentes est analysée de manière complémentaire. Quant aux manifestations littéraires historiques plus contemporaines, nous incluons Noticias del Imperio (1987) de Fernando del Paso et Yo, el francés de Jean Meyer (2002). Cet ensemble propose une analyse comparative, linguistique, sémiotique et littéraire des œuvres citées. Il invite à une réflexion approfondie sur l’interprétation que la littérature ou l’égo-histoire ont proposé de ce conflit, un conflit armé et politique dont la mémoire a traversé l’histoire et les productions littéraires mexicaines et françaises
In this doctoral dissertation, we are studying a selection of both Mexican and French literary works related to the historic events of the Second French Intervention in Mexico (1862-1867) and of the Second Mexican Empire (1864-1867). This body of works has been published between the XIXth and the XXIth century and has been selected, both because their poetic and political thoughts are emblematic of this period and because they have contributed to the construction of a Mexican cultural and identity iconography. We have decided to select the fiction and theatrical genres, to carry out a comparative and diachronic analysis. The decision of which literary works and authors to include has been made based on how both the French Intervention and the way it has been depicted in literature, have been dealt with in particular in each literary work and each author we considered to studied. The studied novels belong to the sub-genre of serialized fiction in the XIXth century with, on the French side, Benito Vázquez (1869) by Lucien Biart and Doña Flor (1877) by Gustave Aimard and, on the Mexican side, Clemencia (1869) by Manuel Altamirano and El Cerro de las Campanas (1868) by Juan Mateos. As far as theatre plays are concerned, we have carried out a comparative study of both Corona de Sombra (1943) by Rodolfo Usigli and Charlotte et Maximilien (1945) by Maurice Rostand. We have completed our analysis with a complementary study of El Tuerto es Rey (1970) by Carlos Fuentes. Regarding more contemporaneous historic and literary creations, we chose to include Noticias del Imperio (1987) by Fernando del Paso and Yo, el francés by Jean Meyer (2002). This corpus allows to carry out a comparative, linguistic, semiotic and literary analysis of afore-mentioned works. Such analysis calls for a thorough reflection on the interpretation of conflict, an armed and political conflict which influenced both History and Mexican and French literary productions

Le classicisme hollywoodien permet d’explorer la variété des sens que revêt au cinéma le concept de réalité à partir de fragments de réalité matérielle enregistrés, du réalisme ontologique qui s’y attache, de la réalité diégétique qui constitue l’univers des films, et de la réalité philosophique, qui renvoie le spectateur à son être propre par le partage de l’expérience de personnages auxquels il s’identifie. Par l’instrumentalisation de ces réalités relatives, Hollywood crée une nouvelle forme de récit qu’alimenteront la littérature, les mythes et la psychanalyse, participant à la diffusion d’un fonds culturel commun à tous les Américains. Parce que la réalité cinématographique n’est pas ce que croit le spectateur, elle a naturellement partie liée avec le rêve et le fantasme, justifiant une réflexion sur leurs interrelations et sur la dynamique de transformation de l’art cinématographique qui se joue dans ces interrelations.Les mondes hollywoodiens, soumis à l’ imaginaire et au désir des cinéastes, n’ont que l’apparence du nôtre, jusqu’aux mondes intérieurs dont les portes nous seront ouvertes par Hollywood à travers la représentation des rêves, créant une hybridité entre réalité, rêve et fantasme. Mais un doute se créera chez le spectateur à qui on aura fait croire au rêve et au fantasme autant qu’à la réalité, et ce doute mettra en péril la « suspension d’incrédulité » qui avait fait le succès d’Hollywood et contribuera à la fin du classicisme, le rêve ayant contaminé la fiction
Through classical Hollywood cinema, one can explore the broad variety of meanings that the concept of reality has in cinema: fragments of recorded reality material, the ontological realism that is attached to it, the narrative reality that constitutes the universe of films, and the philosophical reality that transports the viewer back to his own self by sharing the experience of characters with whom he identifies. Through the instrumentalisation of these relative realities, Hollywood creates a new form of narrative that nourishes literature, myths and psychoanalysis, and help spread a common cultural background to all Americans. Because cinematographic reality is not what the audience believes it is, it is naturally linked with dream and fantasy, justifying thoughts on their inter-relationships and on the dynamics of the transformation of cinematographic art that is played out in these inter-relationships.Subjects of the imagination and desire of filmmakers, the worlds created by Hollywood merely have the appearance of our world. This even encompasses inner worlds, whose doors will be opened to us through the representation of dreams, creating a hybridity between reality, dream and fantasy. But a doubt will be created in the spectator, who has been made to believe equally in dreams, fantasy and reality, and this doubt will jeopardize the "suspension of disbelief" that has made Hollywood successful, ultimately contributing to the end of classicism; the dream having contaminated fiction

La présente thèse a pour but de ressortir l'implicite de l'œuvre de Tierno Monénembo. Elle se structure autour de trois axes principaux ; le premier étudie les instances narratives ; le deuxième porte sur les principaux actants du récit ; le troisième axe permet d'élaborer la genèse du mythe personnel de l'écrivain à travers l'exil. L'analyse psychocritique de l'œuvre de Monénembo se veut être aussi une étude portant sur la psychologie des personnages, elle tâche de mettre en exergue le malaise identitaire des personnages et celui de l'exilé en somme, face à des traumatismes sociopolitiques, les personnages éprouvent la nostalgie du royaume de l'enfance. Cette structure récurrente dans l'œuvre est la résultante d'un passé troublant. Celui-ci se traduit dans le discours des narrateurs. Ces derniers s'inspirent en général de l'univers familial ou de celui du pays natal " mal sorti " du joug colonial français

[Truncated abstract] This thesis argues that the non-representation and under-representation of mothering in contemporary Australian literature reflects a much wider cultural practice of silencing the mother-as-subject position and female experiences as a whole. The thesis encourages women writers to pay more attention to the subjective experiences of mothering, so that women’s writing, in particular writing on those aspects of women’s lives that are silenced, of which motherhood is one, can begin to refigure motherhood discourses. This thesis examines mother-as-subject from three perspectives: mothering as a corporeal experience, mothering as a psychological experience, and the articulations and silences of mothering-as-subject. It engages with feminist, postmodern and fictocritical theories in its discussion of motherhood as a discourse through these perspectives. In particular, the thesis employs the theoretical works of postmodern feminists Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva in this discussion . . . A fictional narrative also runs through the critical discussion on motherhood. This narrative, Catherine’s Story, gives a personal and immediate voice to the mother-as-subject perspective. In keeping with the nature of fictocriticism, strict textual boundaries between criticism and fiction are blurred. The two modes of writing interact and in the process inform and critique each other.

Dissertation--Uppsala, 1997.
Bibliogr. p. 371-406. Résumé en anglais sous le titre : "Tree : an attempt at a Lacanian reading of Walter Ljungquist's narratives, with special regard to the Jerk Dandelin series"

Cette thèse est consacrée à l'étude d'un chef-d'uvre de la littérature fantastique : Dracula, roman que Bram Stoker avait écrit à la fin du XIXème siècle et qui n'a jamais cessé de faire rêver les générations. Doté de pouvoirs extraordinaires, Dracula apparaît comme une énigme à déchiffrer. A travers le fantastique, nous nous proposons de découvrir la véritable signification de cet être étrange et de préciser la place et le rôle de l'archétype initiatique dans le roman. Dans une première partie notre objectif est d'étudier l'émergence du phénomène fantastique et du personnage du vampire, en suivant sa naissance dans la littérature, et en retrouvant ses origines dans la mythologie et l'histoire. La deuxième partie est consacrée au fantastique dans Dracula. Elle met en lumière l'espace, les personnages, l'image et les pouvoirs surnaturels du vampire. Dans la troisième et dernière partie, il s'agit d'analyser l'approche psychanalytique du fantastique dans le roman en mettant en valeur l'image érotique, le problème du mal et les différents conflits psychanalytiques présents dans Dracula
This thesis is devoted to the study of the master piece from the Fantastic literature: Dracula, a novel that Bram Stoker wrote around the end of the XIXth century and that has relentlessly inspired mankind one generation after the other. Gifted with extraordinary powers, Dracula emerged as an enigma that required deciphering. Across the Fantastic, we attempt to discover the real implications of this mysterious being and to point out the position and role of the initiating archetype in the novel. The aim of the first part of the thesis is to study the emergence of the Fantastic phenomenon and of the vampire character through following its birth trail across the literature and tracking its origins in mythology and history. The second part deals with the Fantastic aspect of the novel. It highlights the setting, the characters in addition to portraying the image and the supernatural powers of the vampire. The third and last part deals with the analysis of the psychoanalytical approach of the Fantastic within the novel through appreciating the erotic image, the problem of evil and the different psychoanalytical conflicts present within Dracula

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively in literature and artwork. The war veteran—returning home transformed by the harsh realities of military training and service, having seen humanity at its extremes, and interacting with a society apathetic toward his or her experiences—should engage in the act of storytelling. This act of sharing experiences and crafting-self subverts stereotypes. Storytelling, whether in a book read by millions, or in a single conversation with a close family member, should instruct civilians on the topic of human resiliency; it should instruct veterans on the topic of homecoming. But typically, veterans do not tell stories. Civilians create barriers to storytelling in the form of hollow platitudes—“thank you for your service” or “I can never understand what you’ve been through”—disconnected from the meaning of wartime service itself. The dissonance between veteran and civilian only becomes more complicated when one considers the implicit demands and expectations attached to patriotism. These often well-intentioned gestures and government programs fail to convey a message of appreciation because they refuse to convey a message of acceptance; the exceptional treatment of veterans by larger society implies also that they are insufficient, broken, or incomplete. So, many veterans chose conformity and silence, adopting one of two identities available to them: the forever pitied “Wounded Warrior” or the superficially praised “Hero.” These identities are not complete. They’re not even identities as much as they are collections of rumors, misrepresentations, and expectations of conformity. Once an individual veteran begins unconsciously performing the “Wounded Warrior” or “Hero” character, the number of potential outcomes available in that individual’s life is severely diminished. Society reinforces a feeling among veterans that they are “different.” This shared experience has resulted in commiseration, camaraderie, and also the proliferation of veterans’ creative communities. As storytellers, the members of these communities are restoring meaning to veteran-civilian discourse by privileging the nuanced experiences of the individual over stereotypes and emotionless rhetoric. They are instructing on the topics of war and homecoming, producing fictional and nonfictional representations of the veteran capable of competing with stereotypes, capable of reassimilation. The Introduction establishes the existence of veteran culture, deconstructs notions of there being a single or binary set of veteran identities, and critiques the social and cultural rhetoric used to maintain symbolic boundaries between veterans and civilians. It begins by establishing an approach rooted in interdisciplinary literary theory, taking veteran identity as its topic of consideration and the American unconscious as the text it seeks to examine, asking readers to suspend belief in patriotic rhetoric long enough to critically examine veteran identity as an apparatus used to sell war to each generation of new recruits. Patriotism, beyond the well-meaning gestures and entitlements afforded to veterans, also results in feelings of “difference,” in the veteran feeling apart from larger society. The inescapability of veteran “difference” is a trait which sets it apart from other cultures, and it is one bolstered by inaccurate and, at times, offensive portrayals of veterans in mass media and Hollywood films such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), First Blood (1982), or Taxi Driver (1976). To understand this inescapability the chapter engages with theories of race, discussing the Korean War veteran in Home (2012) and other works by Toni Morrison to directly and indirectly explore descriptions of “difference” by African Americans and “others” not in positions of power. From there, the chapter traces veteran identity back to the Italian renaissance, arguing that modern notions of veteran identity are founded upon fears of returning veterans causing chaos and disorder. At the same time, writers such as Sebastian Junger, who are intimately familiar with veteran culture, repeatedly emphasize the camaraderie and “tribal” bonds found among members of the military, and instead of creating symbolic categories in which veterans might exist exceptionally as “Heroes,” or pitied as “Wounded Warriors,” the chapter argues that the altruistic nature which leads recruits to war, their capabilities as leaders and educators, and the need of larger society for examples of human resiliency are more appropriate starting points for establishing veteran identity. The Introduction is followed by an independent “Example” section, a brief examination of a student veteran named “Bingo,” one who demonstrates an ability to challenge, even employ veteran stereotypes to maintain his right to self-definition. Bingo’s story, as told in a “spotlight” article meant to attract student veterans to a college campus, portrays the veteran as a “Wounded Warrior” who overcomes mental illness and the scars of war through education, emerging as an exceptional example—a “Hero”—that other student veterans can model by enrolling at the school. Bingo’s story sets the stage for close examinations of the “Hero” and the “Wounded Warrior” in the first and second chapters. Chapter One deconstructs notions of heroism, primarily the belief that all veterans are “Heroes.” The chapter examines military training and indoctrination, Medal of Honor award citations, and film examples such as All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Heroes for Sale (1933), Sergeant York (1941), and Top Gun (1986) to distinguish between actual feats of heroism and “Heroes” as they are presented in patriotic rhetoric. The chapter provides the Medal of Honor citations attached to awards presented to Donald Cook, Dakota Meyer, and Kyle Carpenter, examining the postwar lives of Meyer and Carpenter, identifying attempts by media and government officials to appropriate heroism—to steal the right to self-definition possessed by these men. Among these Medal of Honor recipients one finds two types of heroism: Sacrificing Heroes give something of themselves to protect others; Attacking Heroes make a difference during battle offensively. Enduring Heroes, the third type of heroism discussed in the chapter, are a new construct. Colloquially, and for all intents and purposes, an Enduring Hero is simply a veteran who enjoys praise and few questions. Importantly, veterans enjoy the “Hero Treatment” in exchange for silence and conforming to larger narratives which obfuscate past wars and pave the way for new ones. This chapter engages with theorists of gender—such as Jack Judith Halberstam, whose Female Masculinities (1998) anticipates the agency increasingly available to women through military service; like Leo Braudy, whose From Chivalry to Terrorism (2003) traces the historical relationship between war and gender before commenting on the evolution of military masculinity—to discuss the relationship between heroism and agency, begging a question: What do veterans have to lose from the perpetuation of stereotypes? This question frames a detailed examination of William A. Wellman’s film, Heroes for Sale (1933), in the chapter’s final section. This story of stolen valor and the Great Depression depicts the homecoming of a WWI veteran separated from his heroism. The example, when combined with a deeper understanding of the intersection between veteran identity and gender, illustrates not only the impact of stolen valor in the life of a legitimate hero, but it also comments on the destructive nature of appropriation, revealing the ways in which a veteran stereotypes rob service men and women of the right to draw upon memories of military service which complete with those stereotypes. The military “Hero” occupies a moral high ground, but most conceptions of military “Heroes” are socially constructed advertisements for war. Real heroes are much rarer. And, as the Medal of Honor recipients discussed in the chapter reveal, they, too, struggle with lifelong disabilities as well as constant attempts by society to appropriate their narratives. Chapter Two traces the evolution of the modern “Wounded Warrior” from depictions of cowardice in Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage (1895), to the denigration of World War I veterans afflicted with Shell Shock, to Kevin Powers’s Iraq War novel, The Yellow Birds (2012). As with “Heroes,” “Wounded Warriors” perform a stereotype in place of an authentic, individualized identity, and the chapter uses Walt Kowalski, the protagonist of Clint Eastwood’s film, Gran Torino (2008), as its major example. The chapter discusses “therapeutic culture,” Judith Butler’s work on identity-formation, and Eva Illouz’s examination of a culture obsessed with trauma to comment on veteran performances of victimhood. Butler’s attempts to conceive of new identities absent the influence of systems of definition rooted in the state, in particular, reveal power in the opposite of silence, begging another question: What do civilians have to gain from the perpetuation of veteran stereotypes? Largely, the chapter finds, the “Wounded Warrior” persists in the minds of civilians who fear the veteran’s capacity for violence. A broken, damaged veteran is less of a threat. The story of the “Wounded Warrior” is not one of sacrifice. The “Wounded Warrior” exists after sacrifice, beyond any measure of “honor” achieved in uniform. “Wounded Warriors” are not expected to find a cure because the wound itself is an apparatus of the state that is commodified and injected into the currency of emotional capitalism. This chapter argues that military service and a damaged psyche need not always occur together. Following the second chapter, a close examination of “The Bear That Stands,” a short story by Suzanne S. Rancourt which confronts the author’s sexual assault while serving in the Marines, offers an alternative to both the “Hero” and the “Wounded Warrior” stereotypes. Rancourt, a veteran “Storyteller,” gives testimony of that crime, intervening in social conceptions of veteran identity to include a female perspective. As with the example of Bingo, the author demonstrates an innate ability to recognize and challenge the stereotypes discussed in the first and second chapters. This “Example” sets the stage for a more detailed examination of “Veteran Storytellers” and their communities in the final chapter. Chapter Three looks for examples of veteran “difference,” patriotism, the “Wounded Warrior,” and the “Hero” in nonfiction, fiction, and artwork emerging from the creative arts community, Military Experience and the Arts, an organization which provides workshops, writing consultation, and publishing venues to veterans and their families. The chapter examines veteran “difference” in a short story by Bradley Johnson, “My Life as a Soldier in the ‘War on Terror.’” In “Cold Day in Bridgewater,” a work of short fiction by Jerad W. Alexander, a veteran must confront the inescapability of that difference as well as expectations of conformity from his bigoted, civilian bartender. The final section analyzes artwork by Tif Holmes and Giuseppe Pellicano, which deal with the problems of military sexual assault and the effects of war on the family, respectively. Together, Johnson, Alexander, Holmes, and Pellicano demonstrate skills in recognizing stereotypes, crafting postwar identities, and producing alternative representations of veteran identity which other veterans can then draw upon in their own homecomings. Presently, no unified theory of veteran identity exists. This dissertation begins that discussion, treating individual performances of veteran identity, existing historical, sociological, and psychological scholarship about veterans, and cultural representations of the wars they fight as equal parts of a single text. Further, it invites future considerations of veteran identity which build upon, challenge, or refute its claims. Conversations about veteran identity are the opposite of silence; they force awareness of war’s uncomfortable truths and homecoming’s eventual triumphs. Complicating veteran identity subverts conformity; it provides a steady stream of traits, qualities, and motivations that veterans use to craft postwar selves. The serious considerations of war and homecoming presented in this text will be useful for Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans attempting to piece together postwar identities; they will be useful to scholars hoping to facilitate homecoming for future generations of war veterans. Finally, the Afterword to the dissertation proposes a program for reassimilation capable of harnessing the veteran’s symbolic and moral authority in such a way that self-definition and homecoming might become two parts of a single act.

Cette thèse analyse le mythe fondateur des Mille et une nuits, ou « mythe de Shéhérazade », par une approche psychanalytique et comparatiste. Nous mettons en évidence que le récit-cadre des Nuits constitue un récit mythique, miroir de l’imaginaire collectif, qui révèle la place de la femme, du féminin et du maternel dans le processus de civilisation.En effet, les Nuits s’ouvrent sur un double adultère et un double meurtre: deux femmes, sultanes, trompent leur époux avec un esclave noir. Ce désir féminin transgressif est le déclencheur de tout le recueil. Il constitue le péché originel qui entraîne la déchéance et le chaos. Shahrayar, tel le patriarche de la horde primitive freudienne, se venge et instaure le meurtre de la femme comme loi. La parole infinie de Shéhérazade, à la fois amante et mère, crée une zone transitionnelle féconde et mène le sultan à renoncer à la jouissance éphémère pour entrer dans le champ de la sublimation et du symbolique. Par la fonction symbolique du langage, la conteuse conduit le tyran à advenir sujet, parlêtre, soumis aux lois fondamentales de la civilisation.Nous analysons l’évolution de la dialectique du féminin, du maternel et des lois symboliques dans les réécritures, imitations, pastiches, perversions, parodies, tragédies, suites et adaptations musicales du mythe de Shéhérazade du XVIIIe au XXIe siècle
This thesis analyzes the founding myth of the Arabian Nights, or « myth of Scheherazade », with a psychoanalytical and comparative approach. This research points that the frame story of the Nights is a mythical story that constitutes the mirror of the collective imagination, which reveals the place of the woman, the feminine and the maternal in the process of civilization.The Nights open on a double adultery and a double murder scene: two sultanas commit adultery with a black slave. This transgressive feminine desire is the trigger of the Arabian Nights' collection. It constitutes the original sin that leads to the forfeiture and the chaos. Shahrayar, such as the patriarch of the Freudian primal horde, decides to take revenge on them and institutes as a law the murder of women. The infinite word of Scheherazade, who is at the same time lover and mother, creates a transitional fertile space and leads the sultan to give up the temporally enjoyment to enter the field of the sublimation and symbolism. With the symbolic function of the language, the storyteller leads the tyrant to become parlêtre, subject to the fundamental laws of civilization.We examine the rewritings, imitations, pastiches, perversions, parodies, tragedies, continuations and musical adaptations of the myth of Scheherazade from eighteenth to the twenty-first century, to analyze the dialectic’s evolution of the feminine, the maternal and the symbolic laws

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
The fictional stories of Czech author Franz Kafka are renowned throughout the world for capturing the sombre and anxious zeitgeist of the early twentieth century in Europe. Kafka’s fiction was produced in the years immediately before the First World War and against a backdrop of emerging modernity. This dissertation critically examines several recurring spatial constructs — involving interiors, furniture and possessions — in Franz Kafka’s short stories, The Trial (1925), and The Metamorphosis (1915). These spatial constructs are identified and interpreted using a combination of theories drawn from three areas: architecture, psychoanalysis and literature. The primary architectural theories which are employed for this purpose are Anthony Vidler’s theory of the architectural uncanny, and Emily Apter’s thematic history of cabinet typologies. The psychoanalytical theories are drawn largely from Sigmund Freud’s On the Uncanny (1919), and his concept of dream symbolism developed in On the Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1915). Finally, literary theory, including the Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky’s model of ‘enstrangement’, is used to develop the notions of langue and parole to assist in constructing the connection between Freud and architecture, which is a precursor to the analysis of spatial constructs in Kafka’s fiction. The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first develops the theoretical framework for the central argument, looking at the uncanny and how it occurs in literature, architecture and psychoanalysis, before developing a theoretical nexus between the three. The second part examines the spaces of Kafka’s life and dreams, including connections between the two. The third part examines spatial constructs in his fiction, focusing on The Trial and The Metamorphosis. Through this process, the dissertation uncovers a particular recurring spatial structure, called, for the purposes of the present research, an ‘island of control’. This structure is nested at multiple scales and functions as a type of fortification, providing moments of personal power for the main protagonist in Kafka’s fiction, which are inevitably breached. By understanding the role played by these ‘islands’ in Kafka’s fiction, a new insight is offered into how architecture is used to aid narrative and character development, and further our understanding of the uncanny in architectural theory.

This dissertation examines a series of novels by Aminata Zaaria, Ken Bugul, Gaston-Paul Effa, Boubacar Boris Diop and Yolande Mukagasana. At the heart of my study is a problem that haunts much literary production and literary criticism about post-colonial Francophone African writing: the layers of distance and misunderstanding that often exist between readers and writers. Several of the authors in this study express frustration at the limited expectations that readers have of them, complaining that readers outside of the continent continue to read their novels solely in order to gain a grasp of socio-political "realities" of Africa. I propose a return to a select group of author's largely semi-autobiographical texts in order to better understand each writer's individual literary projects within the interdisciplinary framework of trauma studies. Interviews that I conducted with Senegalese and Cameroonian publishing directors, psychologists, sociologists and authors themselves offer an analysis of these texts within the context of broader social debates.

My first chapter focuses on Zaaria's La Nuit est tombée sur Dakar (2004) and Bugul's Le Baobab Fou (1983) and Cendres et Braises (1995) in order to examine intergenerational Senegalese semi-autobiographical representations of prostitution. My study ultimately finds that neither Senegalese society nor Zaaria and Bugul's narratives evidence healing through writing. Rather, both present literature as a "default" chosen because the authors found no one with whom they could initially share their stories face-to-face. Chapter Two hones in on Bugul's relationship with her mother, a painful theme revisited from one end of Bugul's semi-autobiographical oeuvre (Le Baobab Fou, 1982) to the other (De l'autre côté du regard, 2002). Chapter Three examines the trauma of parental loss in Gaston-Paul Effa's semi-autobiographical works, from Tout ce bleu (1996) to a more recent novel (Nous, les enfants de la tradition, 2008) in order to examine the evolution of Effa's personal identity quest and his extensive self-analysis over time in light of the author's permanent exile in France. My fourth chapter begins with a study of genocide survivor Yolande Mukagasana's recent narrative entitled N'aie pas peur de savoir (1999) in order to examine author/reader relationships in light of the often inconceivable trauma of genocide. I then move on to consider the ethics of speaking "for" genocide survivors by analyzing the well-known Senegalese author Boubacar Boris Diop's Murambi, le livre des ossements (2000) and the related Fest'Africa project. I end Chapter Four with a critique of Etoke's Melancholia africana: l'indéspensable dépassement de la condition noire (2010) in order to question whether or not sweeping theories of the various traumas experienced by members of Africa and its diaspora are in fact helpful in every context. Finally, I end my study with Effa's Voici le dernier jour du monde, which exhibits the interplay between autobiography, biography, fiction and the issue of literary violence.

I ultimately argue that a major difference between the "talking cure" of psychoanalysis and the process of seeking healing through literary narratives involves the question of audience. In the case of Sub-Saharan African literature, the author/reader relationship does not necessarily provide a safe space akin to the doctor/patient model in Freud's "talking cure." Therefore, I ultimately call for a closer analysis of the myriad ways by which authors are seeking healing and answers outside the realm of literature.

Dissertation

From W.H. Auden’s The Age of Anxiety to Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, modernists have frequently attested to the anxiety permeating members of modern civilisation. While critics have treated anxiety as a consequence of the historical circumstances of the modernist period—two World Wars and the disintegration of European empires—my aim is to view anxiety in both a psychoanalytical and political light and investigate modernist anxiety as a narrative ploy that diagnoses the modern condition. Defining modernist anxiety as feelings of fear and alienation that reveal the uncanny relation between self and ideological state apparatuses which themselves suffer from trauma, perversion, and neurosis—I focus on the works of four key modernist writers—Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and Gertrude Stein. These authors have repeatedly constructed the mind as an open system, making the psyche one of the sites most vulnerable to the power of colonial ideology but also the modernist space par excellence to narrate the building and falling of empire. While the first part of my dissertation investigates the neurosis of post-war London in Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, the second part of my thesis discusses the perverse demands of the colonial system in Forster’s A Passage to India and Woolf’s The Waves, arguing that Woolf and Forster extend Freud’s understanding of repetition compulsion by demonstrating that the colonial system derives a “perverse” pleasure from repeating its own impossible demands. The concluding section of my dissertation discusses Woolf and Stein’s queer primitivism as the antidote to anxiety and the transcendence of perversity. My dissertation revives Freud’s role in the modernist project: Freud not only provides avant-garde writers with a theory of consciousness, but his construction of the fragmented psyche—a construction which had come to dominate modernist renditions of internality by the early-twentieth century—functions as a political stratagem for an imperial critique.
Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2013-03-11 16:48:57.865

Dans ce mémoire, j’explore la construction du sujet en relationnalité en m’appuyant sur un cadre théorique composé de concepts issus à la fois des études littéraires et d’approches psychanalytiques contemporaines. Dans la première partie de mon travail, j'explore la manière dont le travail littéraire peut faciliter l'actualisation de l'altérité à la fois dans le texte et chez le lecteur. Dans la deuxième partie de ce travail, j'illustre cette actualisation possible en en explorant les affects évoqués et produits dans l’histoire « I Only Came to Use the Phone » de Gabriel García Márquez. Dans la troisième partie, j’explore théoriquement l’impact potentiel de la fiction littéraire comme moyen thérapeutique auprès des lectrices/lecteurs « nonnevrotiques ». J’explore la façon dont la lecture d’histoires peut contribuer à l’activation de certaines traces mnésiques qui pourrait renforcer la capacité de symboliser expériences émotionnelles jusque-là non métabolisées ou non représentées. Je soutiens que la lecture et la discussion d’histoires dans des suivis thérapeutiques pourront aider des patientes à co-construire (à l’aide de leur thérapeute) de nouveaux récits qui pourront mener à une certaine transformation de la structure psychique non-névrotique des patients. Dans la dernière partie, j’avance comme hypothèse que le tiers intersubjectif issu de la rencontre d’un couple analytique avec l’histoire « I Only Came to Use the Phone » pourrait nourrir de nouvelles façons de penser, de sentir et d'exprimer des affects en séance, tout en activant des « rêves » dont l’émergence témoigne de la manière dont la lecture d’histoires pourrait potentiellement animer la vie inconsciente des personnes prises avec des états mentaux non représentées. Enfin, je soutiens que la lecture de fiction littéraire pourrait initier chez des personnes avec des états mentaux non représentés un mouvement de transformation, et ce, d’une part, en les aidant à passer d’un « bain mycélien de non-figurabilité » interne au renforcement de leur capacité à (se) représenter ; de l’autre, en leur sortant d’un état d’apathie vers le développement de nouvelles cartographies affectives.
In this thesis, I explore the subject’s construction in relationality, first by presenting a theoretical framework built from concepts drawn both from literary studies and contemporary psychoanalytic approaches. In the first part of the thesis, I explore how the literary work has the potential to facilitate the actualization of otherness both in the text and within the reader. To illustrate this contention, in Part II, I explore the affective tone of the short story, “I Only Came to Use the Phone” by Gabriel García Márquez. In Part III, I elaborate theoretically on the potential benefits of using literature as a therapeutic medium with non-neurotic readers. I explore how the reading of short stories may contribute to the stimulation of the non-neurotic reader’s capacity to memorize and to remember while promoting and strengthening her/his capacity for symbolizing previously unmetabolized or unrepresented emotional experiences. I argue that reading and discussing stories in the context of analytically oriented sessions may lead to the co-construction of subsequent narratives that may be transformational for the reader’s non-neurotic psychic structure. In the fourth and last part, I argue that the intersubjective inbetween space that might emerge from the encounter of an analytic dyad with the story by García Márquez could potentially facilitate the important task of supplying new ways of thinking, feeling and expressing, while simultaneously potentially producing “dream” material that may contribute to the enlivening of the analysand’s non-neurotic conscious and unconscious life. Finally, I contend that the reading of literary fiction may initiate in non-neurotic analysands a transformational movement: first, from an internal “mycelial bath of non-figurability” to the strengthening of their representational capacity; and second, from an emotional apathy to the extension of the analysand’s affective cartographies.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-258)
258 leaves ; 30 cm.
Presents readings of six novels which depict something of the nature of war trauma. Collectively, the novels suggest that the attempt to narrativise war trauma is inherently problematic. Traces the disjunctions between narrative and war trauma which ensure that war trauma remains an elusive and private phenomonen; the gulf between private experience and public discourse haunts each of the novels.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 2001

This dissertation analyses the protagonists in The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, and Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin, and looks at the extent to which they confront the Jungian archetype of the anima. I demonstrate that individuation and wisdom are not achieved in these characters until they confront the anima archetype within their individual psyches. I analyse the experiences and behaviour of each protagonist in order to identify anima confrontation (or lack thereof), and I seek to prove that such confrontation precipitates maturity and wisdom, which are goals of the hero's journey. The essential qualities of the anima archetype are wisdom, beauty and love. These qualities require acceptance of vulnerability. I argue that the protagonist is far from anima integration when he displays hatred and fear of vulnerability, and conclude that each protagonist is integrated with the anima when wisdom, beauty and love are evident in his character.
English Studies
M.A. (English)

This study critically explores the numerous strains of “madness” that Zimbabwean authors represent in their postcolonial literature. My focus is on their reflection of “madness” as either an individual state of being, or as symptomatic of the socio-political and economic condition in the country. I have adopted insights from an existential psychoanalytic framework in my literary analysis in order to bring in an innovative dimension to this investigation of the phenomenon. I consider this an appropriate stance for this study as it has enriched my reading of the literary texts under study, as well as played a crucial role in providing me with effective conceptual tools for understanding the manifestations of “madness” in the texts. The literary works that I critique are Shimmer Chinodya’s Chairman of Fools (2009), Mashingaidze Gomo’s A Fine Madness (2010), Brian Chikwava’s Harare North, Petina Gappah’s An Elegy for Easterly (2009), Tsitsi Dangarembga’s The Book of Not (2006) and Yvonne Vera’s Without a Name (1994) and Butterfly Burning (1998). These selected texts offer me an opportunity to analyse the gender dynamics and discourses of “madness”, which I do from a peculiarly indigenous and feminist perspective. My study reveals that these authors’ representations are located in and shaped by very specific temporal and spatial contexts, which, in turn, shed light on the characters’ existential reality, revealing aspects of their relationship with the world around them. It demonstrates that their notions of “madness” denote different markers of identity, such as race, class, gender, and religion, amongst others. Significantly, my literary analysis illustrates the varied permutations of “madness” by exposing how these authors characterise the phenomenon as trauma, as alienation, as depression, as insanity, as subversion, as freedom, and even as a sign of the state of affairs in Zimbabwe. This investigation also reveals that because “madness” in these authors’ fiction is intricately linked to the question of identity, it manifests in situations where the characters’ sense of ontological security is compromised in some way. What emerges is that “madness” can either signify a grapple with identity, a loss of it, or a struggle for its redefinition
English Studies
D.Litt. et Phil. (English)

My concern in Dead Drunk is not simply the subject matter of death, it is rather with the representation of drunks in the form of fictional phantoms in The Glass Canoe and Bliss as rendering the death drive visible. Close scrutiny of the representation of the drunk in Australian fiction, as discussed in relation to The Glass Canoe, and Bliss reveals a ‘constant recurrence of the same thing’ rendered uncannily visible. On inspection, what becomes visible is recurring deaths and subsequent resurrections. For the ghostly Australian drunk there is always the possibility of resurrection, but that resurrection is usually in the form of another drink. A drink promises resurrection, but instead delivers a return or recurrence of the drunken, ghostly state.
The presence of drinking and drunks in Australian fiction can be described as a haunting, the ghostly drunks as repetition of an anachronistic past. It is the repetition of the representations of drunks as ghostly presences in Australian fiction that is telling. Utilising Sigmund Freud’s theories developed in ‘The Uncanny’ (1919) and Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), I propose that if the uncanny is an encounter with one’s origins and the death drive is a backward looking return to origins; the drunks are a past that is repeatedly encountered in an uncanny moment. Utilising the modalities of the uncanny in regards to The Glass Canoe reveals the guises of the drunken ghosts. Making reference to an Australian colonial past, founded on intoxicant use and abuse the dissertation suggests alcoholism as a white man’s dreaming. A discussion of Bliss links the uncanny ghosts to a registration or surfacing of the death drive. In conclusion I suggest the psychoanalytic concept of sublimation as both an explanation for and a release from the symptomatic repetition.
Floundering, the creative work, is an extract from a novel in progress. The section presented is the opening to the novel. The narrative unfolds during one day, New Year’s Eve, and involves the interactions between the two brothers Jordy and Tom, and Old Fat. Loretta, the boys’ absent mother, haunts the novel and drives the narrative. Although the creative work does not explicitly depict dead drunks as discussed in the dissertation, the theory has by necessity permeated the creative, and the creative permeated the theory, forming a chiasma – a crossing over between strands of thought.

The thesis derives from my bachelor thesis "The Motif of Dream in Selected Czech 19th century Fiction (Zeyer - Mácha - Erben)", which is focused on dreams in fiction literature, mostly on selected Czech authors of the 19th century. This diploma thesis will be devoted to Jakub Arbes and Svatopluk Čech, Czech authors of the second half of the 19th century. In the titles selected, the accent will be put on the importance of the motif of dream and the possibilities of their usage in the plot. The thesis will also consider the diversity and concepts of the literary motif in question. This work should be comparative (in the international sense), and will also consider both the common and the variating elements of dreams in chosen literary texts. Attention will be paid to the analysis of dreams, the activity of dreaming itself and the symbols used. The entire work will be based on traditional concepts of dream in psychology and psychoanalysis (Carl Gustav Jung, Sigmund Freud), but also will keep in mind the fictional nature of literary "dreams". Due to that, it will also stem from the so-called fictional worlds theory, which is in current naratology described eg. in the book "How to Do Fiction with Words" by Jiří Koten.

Owing to changes brought by modernisation, folktales and other folklore genres are often looked down upon, and thought by many to be outdated. The aim of this study is to explore manipulative behaviour in Siswati folktales. The study glanced at how manipulation is used in folktales, i.e. the causes and key strategies used by manipulators to manipulate their victims. The focus was on the conformism of manipulation in folktales, to current practice of manipulation in different social institutions, implication of manipulation, and how manipulation could be controlled. The researcher used the qualitative research method to collect and analyse data. To achieve the objectives of the study, data was collected from 28 folktale books that were purposefully selected for the purpose of providing information to answer the research questions. All data collected was analysed using ’Neuman’s (2000) Analytic Approach whereby the Method of Agreement and the Method of Difference was utilised. Data was categorised into different themes teased from the folktales for analysis. Based on the findings of the research, it is evident that manipulation prevails in Siswati folktales. Different characters are being manipulated in different settings using different strategies and tools. The powerful manipulate the less powerful, the intelligent manipulate the less gifted, and the rich manipulate the poor, while the knowledgeable manipulate the ignorant. The research findings relate very well with the current manipulative behaviour practiced by different social institutions and almost every individual and society is affected. Furthermore, the research reveals that manipulation can be curbed if current victims of manipulation decide to expose manipulative acts and join forces to fight the manipulator. In this case, it is recommended that different stakeholders from various departments join forces to fight manipulative tendencies that prevail in different institutions and society as a whole. The present study may revitalize the urge and the need to reconsider the study of folktales, since their themes remain the same.
African Languages
D. Litt. et Phil. (Languages, Linguistics and Literature)