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.