The journal of Psychoanalytical Study of English Language and Literature
Online ISSN : 1884-6386
Print ISSN : 0386-6009
Volume 2007, Issue 27
Displaying 1-6 of 6 articles from this issue
  • Toshiko Ariyoshi
    2007Volume 2007Issue 27 Pages 1-20,103
    Published: 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: March 11, 2011
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Yoshiko Nogami
    2007Volume 2007Issue 27 Pages 21-36,105
    Published: 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: March 11, 2011
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this paper, I will focus on the destructive impulses which the intellectual characters in Women in Love manage to contain under the disguise of their sophisticated manners and appearances. Since the war was fought among the civilized men (at least who would profess to be so) on the European continent, it was a vain attempt, as far as Lawrence was concerned, to denounce the Great War (1914-18) publicly from the humanistic and aesthetic point of view. It must have been a more urgent business for Lawrence to examine human nature which caused the war than a detrimental effect upon body and soul the war had. That is why Lawrence proceeded to trace the cause of the war back to the origin of the human souls he calls “the unconscious” in his own way and regards as “the well head, the fountain of real motivity.”
    Such modern intellectuals and leading people of the day as Hermione, Gerald and Gudrun have hard surface that protects against the sense of inner deficiency and the fear of self-disintegration. The instability of their psyche can be ascribed to the way “the unconscious” works. I am going to examine their psychic constitution especially when they are on the verge of having recourse to violence.
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  • Makiko Udou
    2007Volume 2007Issue 27 Pages 37-52,106
    Published: 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: March 11, 2011
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    William Faulkner's Light in August, published in 1932, might be regarded as his most inscrutable work. Such inscrutability, or difficulty in comprehension, is mostly caused by the variety of problems dealt with and by the intricacies of the past and the present or of the plural stories about the plural main characters in the book. This work is, as we might say, so chaotic and so multi-layered that it shows too many things and dazes the readers. Thus, in order to comprehend as far as possible, this paper deals with Gail Hightower only.
    Needless to say, Hightower is completely absorbed in his ancestral past. Although there are plenty of critics statements about his absorption in the past, the cause and the process for it seem to be still veiled. The purpose of this study is to examine Hightower's childhood and reveal that cause and process with the help of the psychoanalytic works of Jacques Lacan. Finally, revealing them, we can find the last attitude of Hightower in chapter 20 means the beginning of his new life.
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  • Eriko Kuroki
    2007Volume 2007Issue 27 Pages 53-67,107
    Published: 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: March 11, 2011
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Glass Menagerie opened spectacularly in Chicago in 1944, marking the end of one part of Williams' life and the beginning of another as different in its external ircumstances as could be imag ined. His following drama, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) won several prizes including the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics' Award. The works made him famous as a Post War American dramatist, and he remains famous to this day.
    In The Glass Menagerie, Williams models Laura's haracter on his own elder sister Rose, and Tom's upon himself. The play centers on Laura, who plays an important part in the drama. In this paper, I focus on Laura and her relationships with the other characters.
    As a result of her limp, even though it is not noticeable to others, upon leaving high school Laura begins to withdraw from reality, playing with a unicorn and other animals made of glass. It could be said that she suffers from an inferiority complex. Her limp troubles her greatly, and she comes to identify with the glass unicorn.
    Tom and his mother, Amanda, argue frequently due to the genera tion gap and gender differences between them. However, despite their very different ways of thinking, they are agreed in wishing for Laura's happiness. They invite Jim, who works with Tom, for dinner to meet Laura and make friends with her so that she can increase in confidence as a woman.
    Laura loved Jim since high school, and at the dinner finds her passion for him again. She is kissed by him, and hopes he will become her boyfriend, but, in the end, he turns her down for his fiance. At the same time, the horn of the unicorn happens to break, turning it into a horse. This symbolizes Laura's hange. She experiences ‘object loss’ not only with Jim but also the unicorn whose horn was broken. She realizes that she has to live not in the world of the glass menagerie but reality; building human relationships.
    Experiencing ‘object loss’ and through the process of ‘mourning work’, Laura establishes her identity, and comes to realize herself. Therefore I conclude that the theme of The Glass Menagerie is about Laura's self-realization.
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  • Mark Twain's Sense of Morality via Freudian Psychoanalysis
    Takashi Suzuki
    2007Volume 2007Issue 27 Pages 69-85,109
    Published: 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: March 11, 2011
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Mark Twain (1835-1910) exposed human hypocrisy in many his stories. “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”(1899), written in his later years, is one of the best examples of such stories.
    In this story, Twain describes good and evil in a truly complicated way. For example, Mr. Richards, one of the inhabitants of “the most honest and upright town, ” tells a lie, which is an absolutely evil act, but the lie will help another inhabitant, the Reverend Burgess, to escape from the attack of the town people. When Mr. Richards has been driven into a corner, the Reverend Burgess also tells a lie to help him and his wife, but the act causes their death. We can see Twain's criticism of hypocrisy in such descriptions of complicated good and evil.
    In fact, Twain does not only show his criticism of hypocrisy, but also his idea of an escape from hypocrisy in this story. Freudian psychoanalysis can make this clear to us. Freud separates the human mind into three parts: the ego, the super-ego, and the id. In this story, the ego is embodied in Mr. and Mrs. Richards, the super-ego is the town itself, or “the principles of honest dealing.” In this case, however, the super-ego, which must naturally function as a beacon for morality, serves as a cause for hypocrisy, rather than a safeguard against it. What Twain presents as the alternative to the super-ego as a beacon is the id. Goodson, one of the important characters, shows us “the pleasure principle” in this story, so we can say he is the embodied id. He could easily ignore the moral order, or “the principles of honest dealing, ” and is hated by the town people, but Twain describes him as the only person who has the potential to help people in trouble, as his name indicates; that is, by embodying the id, he is the only person who can escape from hypocrisy.
    Through the story “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, ” Twain shows his criticism of hypocrisy by presenting the super-ego as the cause of hypocrisy. He also says we must at first accept that we must follow the id instead of following the super-ego, and this is the only way to prevent us from falling into hypocrisy. Such is Twain's sense of morality.
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  • Kanako Matsuno
    2007Volume 2007Issue 27 Pages 87-112
    Published: 2007
    Released on J-STAGE: March 11, 2011
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten (1943) is his last work and deals with maternal love and forgiveness; those things which O'Neill craved for throughout his life. In A Moon for the Misbegotten, the leading character, James Tyrone Jr. tries to confess his ambivalent feelings of grief, anger, longing, guilt, and love toward his lost mother. Tyrone loved his mother so blindly that when she died, Tyrone's mind was much distracted by those feelings, and he sought solace in women and alcohol. O'Neill portrays his own brother Jamie as Tyrone, and some of the episodes Tyrone confesses in the play are based on what O'Neill heard from Jamie himself. As an example, when Tyrone had to transfer his mother's body from California to New York by train, he got too drunk in his private car with a prostitute and was in a drunken stupor by the time the train arrived at New York. Worst of all, he was too drunk to attend her funeral. This incident left a wound in Tyrone's mind and he wished to be forgiven by his mother.
    Tyrone makes a confession in Josie Hogan's arms in the moonlight. Josie, who is a daughter of a tenant farmer in Tyrone's estate, is the only one who shows understanding toward his feelings and offers him maternal love and forgiveness. Josie is an extraordinary, large-built woman, and although she wants to become Tyrone's lover, she gives up this hope and decides to become his mother-substitute. After the confession, Tyrone sleeps in Josie's arms like a dead child, for his body has been affected by the long term of drinking habit. Finally, he bids Josie farewell with the rising sun never to return.
    The purpose of this paper is to examine the mental states of Tyrone and Josie from a psychoanalytical point of view, before, during, and after Tyrone makes his confession. By doing so, we may discover O'Neill's interpretation of ‘a moon’ and his feelings toward this play.
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