Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Psycho Derivations
Dennis Foster states that "[a]t the heart of Dracula is hunger, that blindly mechanical oral impulse that each of us discovers in the first days after birth"(484) and that Jonathan's primary "duty seems to be to chatter (yet another oral task)" (490) as examples of Dracula's psychoanalytical imbuement. The issue with such statements, which threaten the psychoanalytic approach in general, is the problem of creating a situation and explanation from the words which are just not present. If desired, one could argue that almost any action is rooted in "the pleasures of childhood" (490) or in some way connected to a child's actions that was written with a deeper meaning, where it really was not. If Stoker meant to line his story with psychoanalytic meaning, he would have done so more clearly and openly, as seen in our analyses from the Gender Criticism and New Historicism approaches.
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3 comments:
This may seem odd, but in writing this thread I have come up with a sort of response to my own argument. This does not mean that I am revoking my point, but rather giving a possible explanation.
It may be that Stoker purposely left the signs of oral fixation and Oedipus complex latent just as is the subconscious and subtle nature of these desires. To make them an obvious and blatant subject of analysis would be to lose the point of psychoanalytic criticism altogether.
Although I still stand by my original assumption, which of my differing opinions/explanations do you agree with?
I agree, with the first post. I do not think that it was Stoker's intention to include so much hidden aspects of "childhood". I think that some of it just appears that way. I did not look at the actions as childish, but as a lower form of existence. I think that is is more of a question of the Id and Ego. These situations where people/vampires are just reacting to events. I don't know if I would say the "oral" fixation is anything more than just observation.
As an open minded individual I believe there is room for both interpretations at the same time. While your first post was correct in assuming "that almost any action is rooted in 'the pleasures of childhood'"(Barry's Post 1) this does not necessarily count out your second statement. With you first statement it is possible to make this connection because all of our innate desires emerge from childhood but the connection often seems stretched thin. The reason that both are acceptable is because your second post was correct in assuming, "To make them an obvious and blatant subject of analysis would be to lose the point of psychoanalytic criticism altogether"(Barry's Post 2). The connections seem thin and stretched because oftentimes, so does the work of psychoanalysts.
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