A Copernican Psychoanalytic Reading of "Hamlet"

            In Freud’s article titled A Difficulty in the Path of Psychoanalysis he outlined three blows which he believed to have been inflicted upon human narcissism. The first blow came from Copernicus, and a history of other scientists before him, who suggested that the earth was not at the centre of the universe. This displaced humans’ importance in the cosmos, and thus was termed the “cosmological blow” to human narcissism. The second came from Darwin who showed that humans were not created in the way in which they exist today, but evolved from other creatures. This removed humans from their pedestal over other animals, and thus was termed the “biological blow” to human narcissism. The third, Freud suggested, came from himself when he suggested that “the ego was not master in its own house”. This is the psychological blow to human narcissism. The ego is the part of the mind, in Freudian terms, which oversees what is going on and channels thoughts into either the conscious or unconscious depending on whether they cohere or go against the needs and wishes of the individual. In suggesting that the ego does not hold power in the mind, Freud indicates that the unconscious does. If one then follows a Laplanchian way of thinking the unconscious is an internal other, which does not come from within the individual, but is created through intromission from the adult to the infant in the primal scene. This primal scene is a scene of seduction, usually one in which the mother places her breast into the child’s mouth. She is consciously telling the child by doing this that she wishes to feed him, but unconsciously is sending enigmatic signifiers (enigmatic because neither child nor adult can translate them) which are sexual. This is a Copernican approach to psychoanalysis because it focuses on the importance of the external other in the creation of one’s unconscious, and indicates that the unconscious is not formed internally, but from the outside.

            To examine Hamlet in a Copernican way his relationship with his mother and father must be examined. The primal scene in this play occurs not between an infant and his mother, but between Hamlet and his father when the ghost comes to Hamlet and tells him of his murder. Intromission here happens through Hamlet’s ear. The ghost is consciously telling Hamlet to kill his uncle, but unconsciously sends an enigmatic signifier regarding Hamlet’s mother’s sexuality. Hamlet’s uncle killed the King and as a result gained the Queen’s (Hamlet’s mother’s) sexual desire; if Hamlet kills the King by the same logic he would gain her desire. This message cannot be translated by Hamlet and so is repressed into his unconscious, but it does drive the action of the play. He uses sexual and violent language to talk to his mother in the closet scene which not only suggests that he is considering her in a sexual manner, but also that he is repressing it. Indeed, during this scene, he stabs Polonius; in a Copernican reading this can be interpreted as him not doing it out of his own fear or suspicion, but it is a sexual act in which he is proving himself for his mother as his sword can be understood to be a phallic symbol.

            Moreover, a Copernican reading of Hamlet would also decentre the protagonist’s Oedipal desires in driving him to act, but instead focuses on his internal other, the unconscious. Hamlet is said to become insane in the play, but another interpretation of this could be that his ego loses control over his unconscious. His Oedipal complex (in which he loves his mother and feels a paradoxical love and hatred towards his father) is only thinly disguised as his need for some kind of justice for his father’s death. Hamlet delays in killing his uncle not because he does not have the means to, or does not wish to kill him, but because to kill his uncle would be a realization of the repressed wishes of his unconscious, placed there by the other. thus his internal other represses his need for revenge because of this reason, but his conscious self cannot see that and believes that he is delaying the murder for logical reasons.

A Historical Reading of White Oleander

Janet Fitch was born in 1955 in Los Angeles. Not only had she lived there for the entirety of her life when she wrote White Oleander, but as two previous generations of her family lived in the city she clearly has an expansive and personal knowledge of it which allows her to inject a level of geographical accuracy into the novel which not only heightens its interest for local readers, but also for those worldwide for whom the accuracy gives the text a level of authenticity. As a child she had a difficult relationship with her mother, whom she believes lacked the necessary skills for motherhood  (there appears to be a slight insertion of her own history into the text on this theme). She studied history for a period in Keele University in England, having been inspired by the concept of stories within history. However, she eventually realised at the age of 21 that she did not want to merely read stories; she wanted to write them, and thus began her journey as a writer.

Fitch finally finished writing White Oleander in 1999. This was a turbulent time in Los Angeles as certain parts of America, including here, had undergone a rapid economic decline and resurgence within just over a decade. The tension at this time was further heightened by the fact that the Cold War finished only 8 years earlier, whilst Fitch was in the process of creating a text; the uneasiness of American citizens was not immediately extinguished by this time, as they had suffered over thirty years of fear and anxiety. Moreover, perhaps the most significant cause for anxiety for the citizens of Los Angeles during this time however was the 1992 riots and their aftermath. They commenced after a video of a black man being beaten by a group of white policemen was filmed and realised to the public and the trial saw the all-white jury acquit the men of this crime; the riots broke out within hours. People lived in fear for their lives, and some did not make it. Not only were there violent, sporadic killings, but over $1 Billion worth of damage was caused, largely through arson. This rupture in the quotidian social climate meant that life has not been the same in Los Angeles since. These factors which induced high levels of anxiety in citizens are reflected in the book: Astrid constantly fears for something; Ingrid is unsettled and eventually finds happiness in the structure of prison; the instability of the various domestic lives of the foster homes, particularly Claire’s depression and anxiety issues.

The novel also reflects movements in the world as a whole at the time in which it was written as the 1990s in the Western world in particular was recognised as being a time in which the growth of multiculturalism was seen. This is seen through the variety of races which Astrid encounters on her journey through life and the way in which Fitch allows them to each have their own identities within their race. However, as capitalist markets in the Western world boomed so did racial and class tension, which is again explored in the text. This was a time in which the world saw the rise of Third Wave feminisms, which not only differ from the second wave in that this was more racially motivated than before, but it also saw the rise of antifeminisms, some key ideas of which are included in the text. 

How has the portrayal of illness, including mental illness, changed between Victorian literature and modern literature?

The Victorian era saw a severe rise in the number of people being committed to insane asylums, partly as a result of the great amount of repressive social and historical change which was coming about during this period. At this time there was also a great deal of poverty which led to many physical illnesses because of overcrowding, poor nutrition and low sanitation levels. Victorian literature rarely discusses how the illness was developed, and often only alludes to its development, as it focuses much more on its effects. On the other hand, modern literature often discusses how these diseases are developed and tracks their development explicitly as well as highlighting its effects. This difference results from the fact that in the Victorian era much less was understood medically about both physical and mental diseases, so there was not as much material for Victorian authors to work with without making up untruths.

            Firstly, Emily Bronte in Wuthering Heights uses characters which clearly are not mentally or physically stable. Cathy appears to suffer from schizophrenia as her mental health starts to decline from a very early age, resulting in her hallucinating towards her death and believing in her own delusions. This illness is portrayed in a way which makes Cathy seem not only scary, but also devilish. During the Victorian era there was thought to be a link between sin and illness, especially mental illness; this explains why Bronte chooses to expose Cathy’s illness with negative imagery. Similarly, Heathcliff shows signs of depression: he weeps often, he loses interest in eating and sleeping, loses interest in social contact and at one point self-harms. Again, Heathcliff is a devilish figure. Bronte does not highlight the development of these illnesses or expose any reason behind why these characters are acting in this way, nor does she talk about their symptoms in any real detail. This seeming lack of interest in discussing the mental illness and how it affects the character may come out of the fact that mental illnesses were not deemed to be as important then as they are now: contemporary readers would likely not have wanted any greater analysis of Cathy and Heathcliff’s disorders.

On the other hand, modern literature discusses mental illnesses to a much greater extent. This is because the increase in medical work on them over the past hundred years or so has raised greater awareness of their existence as well as raising a greater level of understanding of them in the wider public. Ned Vizzini exposes the intricacies of a variety of different mental illnesses in his It’s Kind of a Funny Story. He was able to write such an accurate portrayal of these as a result of his own time spent in a psychiatric ward because of his severe depression. He was informed a great deal about the illness itself and used his own feelings and experiences to accurately portray what living with a mental illness is like. Unlike Bronte, he openly examines what factors can cause the development of a mental illness, the manifestations it can take as it develops and a variety of outcomes which can occur as a result of it.

Furthermore, there is a high lack of interest in the deaths of characters in Victorian fiction due to physical illnesses. Bronte barely remarks on Cathy’s death: one only knows that she is gone and her daughter is alive, whilst nobody witnesses Heathcliff’s death or knows the true reasoning for it. Moreover, in Gaskell’s North and South Bessy Higgins’ death, which is one of many deaths in the novel is described in a great amount of detail, but only in terms of her actions, thoughts and words during the time; there is only a little description of the convulsions which her body suffers from leading up to her death.

On the other hand, John Green in writing his modern novel The Fault in Our Stars exposes the causes, developments and results of having a serious physical illness. His exposition of how it feels to be a teenager with cancer touches the heart of many teenagers because they can relate to these characters in a way in which the Victorian literature discussed does not allow them to. Not only is the development of this illness portrayed in an accurate way, but the return of Augustus’ cancer (sorry, spoilers) exposes the complications of being a cancer survivor. The clear and detailed description of the decline in his health, written from the perspective of another cancer sufferer exposes the reality of this illness. Moreover, the grim reality of his death in that it does not occur at the end of the novel, but part way through, serves to remind the reader that when one dies that is not the end of the influence their illness has had: it affects many other people for a very long time. 

The Harry Potter series as a social commentary?

J.K.Rowling’s series of novels designed for teenagers seem to me to have a deep socio-historical context that is not clear upon an initial examination. This is often portrayed in a humorous manner which allows it to become a rather satirical representation of modern life.

            For starters, the character of Voldemort appears to be an amalgamation of several historical figures as well as a figment of Rowling’s imagination. Whether these influences were intentional or not is unclear, but as one of them especially is a clear character in the world’s cultural consciousness it is easy to recognise him. This particular individual is Adolf Hitler. The key parallel between the two of them is his insistence on eradicating those not of “pure-blood” (in Hitler’s case those not of the Aryan race, and in Voldemort’s those not of wizarding blood). This drive to eradicate people whom these powerful men saw as inferior to them led to cruelly hunt people down and murder them often in their homes. As Voldemort becomes more powerful, it becomes unsafe for students of Hogwarts who are of mixed blood or who derived from muggles to travel unprotected. This mimics a similar situation in Germany when Hitler was at the peak of his power. The almost hypnotic power of these two men in securing followers is also similar as people dis whatever was asked of them out of both fear and respect for these despotic leaders. Moreover, the existence of the Order of the Phoenix seems to be a representation of the Allies in World War II: they exist to stop the increasing malevolent power of Voldemort.

            Another character which appears to be embodied in Voldemort is that of Satan himself. In previous times the name Satan, Devil or even Beelzebub was something spoken with a great deal of fear, and thus was something to avoid. In a similar way Voldemort is largely called “You-know-who” or “He-who-must-not-be-named” in order to avoid incurring pain from him or one of his followers. Voldemort is an embodiment of all evils in the text and is the source of them also; there is an awareness in the books that if Voldemort did not exist the use of dark magic on muggles or other wizarding folk would not have occurred. Indeed, he tempts people to join his side with thoughts of safety and adoration, just as the devil tempts people to join him.

            There are several other aspects of the series which have satirical social contexts and, when contemplated, are rather funny. The primary example of this in my opinion is the fact that goblins run a bank. These shrunken, ugly creatures whose only concern is for gold caricature the popular perspective of bankers. Moreover, the corruption within the bank which emerges quietly throughout the books mimics the loss of trust our modern day English public have felt in the banking system. Not only are several people’s vaults broken into (something that can only be done with the help of a goblin) but in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows we are given a first-hand view of how a goblin will breach the bank he works for in order to seek personal wealth.

However, perhaps the most important aspect of the series which is most relevant to modern day life is the fact that how you perceive someone’s character is from the way they act is not their true character. In our modern society we are endlessly encouraged to understand the importance of beauty. Also, in the majority of modern texts we have lost the depth of characters that formerly existed in classical tomes. Yet J. K. Rowling has managed to bring this back, particularly in the characters of Snape and Professor Dumbledore. The immense plot twist towards the end of the series of books in which we realise that Dumbledore isn’t as much of a paragon of excellence as Harry understood him to be and that Snape does have a heart, at the centre of which is Harry himself, forces modern readers to accept that you can never truly know a person until you have been inside their head. This is an important lesson to learn as it highlights that we ought to suspend our judgements on everybody as you cannot know their nature or true motivations. This appears to be the most potent lesson for modern day readers to take in by reading these books and thus ought to remain with us for a long time after the reading of them has been completed.

A Comment Upon Love Triangles in Victorian Literature

Most of us are accustomed to love triangles as being a standard part of the majority of modern romantic comedy films, however this has been around for considerably longer than originally thought. Although it has been used by writers (or poets as they were known in Ancient times) since Ancient Greek literature the development of feminist perspectives in the Victorian era allows it to take on a new meaning.

            There are clearly two ways Victorian writers create love triangles: two men vying for a woman’s affections, or two women vying for a man’s. Which one they choose depends on the particular representation of the two genders that they are trying to evince in their writing. Emily Bronte explores gender through this type of love rivalry in Wuthering Heights in a particularly interesting way as she utilises both of the above forms and does so in a way that makes the reader sympathetic towards women as well as making them strong characters. Cathy Earnshaw is sought after by two men (Heathcliff and Edgar Linton) and is free to make her own decision regarding her future husband. This commences well until Cathy is forced by Heathcliff to realise that in marrying Linton she has defied her true nature which is bound to him. The mental turmoil she then succumbs to eventually leads to her death as she cannot lie with this inner tension. Thus, although Bronte creates Cathy as a seemingly independent, strong woman her death is induced by the power this love triangle has over her. Indeed, this book has another triangle in which the wrong choice is made, however this time not unwittingly. This is between Heathcliff, Cathy and Isabella Linton. Heathcliff’s intentional abuse of Isabella’s feelings in marrying her to secure property and because he cannot marry Cathy (thus making her the second choice) serves as an example of the cruelty of men in the art of love in the Victorian era.

            Another writer who particularly likes the use of love triangles is Thomas Hardy. Both Tess of the D’Ubervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd explore the nature of men through their differing attitudes towards love. Hardy uses this arrangement to comment socially upon the transition between traditional ways and the coming of the “Golden Age”. In Tess the contrast between the new age and the old is highlighted with the characters of Angel and Alec D’Uberville. Although there is this foundational contrast between the two they are both morally corrupt, which highlights the fact that neither traditional ideals nor modern ones are morally and socially appropriate; perhaps an amalgamation of the two is more ideal. Thus Hardy utilises the love triangle between these two men and Tess to not only explore the social context of womanhood in the late 1800s but also that of masculinity in a sexual context.

            Furthermore, Austen uses this form of relationship struggle to highlight the way in which a woman ought to behave in her novel Mansfield Park. Fanny Price and Mary Crawford vie for Edmund Bertram’s attention, but in the end Fanny secures the position of being his wife because of her inner purity and piety. Austen here socially condemns the modern way of life with drinking, gambling and doing perverse things in large towns, especially London. Mary’s character ensconces immorality at a simplistic life with her utter refutation of religion as well as leading a nice, rural life. Thus, this love triangle exposes the idea that cohering to modern ideals will not secure you a lover; you must stay true to being good.

To conclude, at the centre of these and many other Victorian love triangles I have not mentioned is not love. Instead these authors are exposing that to secure what one strives for in life (that is, a life partner in those days) one must have a keen moral sensibility and use it to do what is socially, as well as religiously, correct.

Is Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin a simplistic, grotesque reading of Freud’s works or a more ethical social reading of modern day America?

The crude, graphic language of this modern text, at once compelling and repugnant, in fact seems to show that this book is not about either of the topics highlighted above, but about both of them. This language is initially applied to Eva’s (the protagonist’s mother) sexual life with her husband, but as the novel takes a sickening plunge it becomes enmeshed with the murderous violence of the book’s eponymous “hero”, Kevin. Arguably Kevin’s actions are a symbol of the violence taking place in America when Shriver wrote the novel (early 2000s), and Eva’s are those of a sexualised, neurotic mother and thus these two characters encapsulate what I see as being the two key influences on the text.

Firstly, the Freudian scenes lord over the text. Not only are they frequent, but they are memorable because of their graphic and disturbing nature. Shriver confronts us with the sexualisation of a mother-son relationship that is physically and emotionally repellent to us. In my opinion the disgusting nature of their relationship peaks when Kevin masturbates in front of her mother, and yet she does not immediately recoil from this, but watches before telling him to stop. Freud theorised that parents repress their child’s sexuality; all children are born sexual, but are misguided by information given to them by their parents about sex. Thus Shriver exposes what happens if one’s parents do not repress their sexuality. This is scene not only through the Kevin’s phallic stage of development (as highlighted above), but also through his anal one, as he wears nappies for a prolonged period of time, thus pleasing himself through his fecal matter.

However, Shriver takes the opposite view to Freud: she shows that by not repressing the sexual, Oedipal urges of a child towards both his mother and himself the child can still grow up neurotic. Kevin makes no attempt to stop his animosity towards his father, and yet he can conceal it. This act of concealing which is usually performed by the unconscious but here has to be performed by Kevin’s conscious ego creates a great deal of psychical energy within him. This thus erupts and results in him not only killing his father, but shooting him through the penis as an additional wound. The murder appears to arise out of a deep seated hatred of his father as a person, but this specific wound combined with the murder of his younger sister appear to show that this more likely arose out of jealousy regarding his mother’s affection.

Although the novel does have this Freudian foundation, it is a rather complex narrative as Shriver focuses on the mother’s perspective within an ethico-social context. The narrative is written from a retrospective point of view; she is contemplating whether or not the actions Kevin took were a result of him being inherently evil or her poor nurturing. This simple nature-nurture dilemma is never answered in the text, and many people and critics have entirely opposing views on it. Shriver appears to be highlighting that Kevin’s character is not developed because of one of these aspects of his infantile life, but because of a combination of the two.

The disgusting reaction of the community to Eva is also an ethical dilemma: how does one treat someone who has raised a child who has massacred children living in your community? Or perhaps even your own child? Their violent, antisocial reaction links in with the nature/nurture dilemma: are they inherently antisocial and this traumatic event merely worked as a trigger for this or was the event the reason why they behave in this way? All these questions remain an unanswered undercurrent of the book which I believe works as an appropriate antithesis for the simplicity of her Freudian content.

Eating disorders as a form of suppression in Literature: outdated Victorian form of control or a modern one?

For this week’s blog I was inspired by a recent article called “5 reasons to date a girl with an eating disorder”, placed up on an internet forum which I’m sure has incited many to anger. This article outlines what the “author” believes to be perfectly acceptable reasons for choosing a girl suffering in this way over others: she is good at sex, she costs men less money, she is often rich, she is vulnerable and she will be more likely stay thin and “pretty” than other girls. Not only does this have the potential to encourage or “trigger” many girls to furthering their own disorders, or subliminally placing the idea into their unconscious, but it also adheres to antiquarian views on women.

When one considers the Victorian novel, in particular upper-class Victorian women, one cannot help but construct the image of a fainting, pathetic figure falling into the arms of a sturdy man. Literature has progressed from this ideal, however society doesn’t seem to have done so.

Wuthering Heights is a key example of the wasting-away of a woman until her death in Victorian fiction. This form of death is alluded to in many novels from this period, without much thought being given to it by the modern reader. However, in this case, as well as more discreetly, Cathy, the key female character in the novel, reaches a point of hysteria (“coincidentally” driven to this by men) at which point she breaks down and refuses to eat. This mission of starvation incapacitates her to such an extent that she never recovers. Her fragile and vulnerable state does indeed endear her rival lovers to her, but not because she is somehow more attractive, but because they know it will kill her. This novel is over 100 years old and yet manages to understand the concept of an eating disorder better than the modern understanding in that article.

Indeed, modern literature has moved away from the idealisation of a skinny white woman and has begun to accept people of all sizes as attractive. A key example of this is in Delillo’s White Noise (published 1986). The key protagonist’s descriptions of his wife are nearly always concerned with her socially “unacceptable” size as she is overweight. However, this does not paint her in a negative light; she is beautiful. All of his descriptions of her size come paired with his lust for her body and her mind intertwined to create who she is as a person.

This is where modern texts and thoughts should be situated, in a place in which size does not matter in terms of the integrity of a person. Jack, the protagonist mentioned above, has also married several other people whose weight has not been discussed. This is because the author understands the modern world: someone’s weight is not a necessary factor in who they are. The important point about women and their shape in this text is that it is transient: women can be who they want to be and for as long as they want to be. It is not down to men to categorize whether a woman’s weight is “good” or not, it is up to women to have that control.

This is an example of how modern fiction has moved away from the physical constrictions on women of the Victorian era. Not only are women free to utilise their bodies sexually in the way in which they desire, but they also should be free to develop their bodies in the way in which they desire. Neither should they, nor would they, have to be constrained in an ideal modern world, however social constraints, particularly those enforced by males, as well as the marketing industry are attempting to trap women of our generation once again and thus are unfortunately subverting the literary move towards a modern representation of women.