Week 10 Responses-Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies

Most of our class engaged (and sometimes critiqued) psychoanalytic theories in their response journals this week, although Thorsten and I also utilized a few concepts associated with gender studies. I attempted to "introduce" an excerpt from everyone's journal, and edited entries for clarity.

Dono describes some of the perceived limitations of psychoanalytic theory and contrasts psychoanalytic theory with a Marxist perspective in his response: "Freudian or classical psychoanalysis tries to explore and delve into an individual's unconscious to find out an explanation for his/her pattern of repressed behavior as well as his/her patterns of defense mechanisms. Some keywords or concepts relevant to the study of psychoanalysis are 'the unconscious,' 'repression, 'defense mechanisms,' 'lack,' 'dreams,' 'anxiety' and the centrality of the family or childhood. While psychoanalysis provided a 'breakthrough in our understanding of characters in a literary text (and of ourselves), and enhanced our ways of seeing characters' deeper motivations, in my opinion, psychoanalytic theory puts too much emphasis on the behavior of the individual. In psychoanalysis, the individual is 'uprooted' from society and put under the very 'focused microscope' of unconscious behavior and only narrowly seen as a subject. We, however, believe that the individual is always in dynamic relation with his/her society, and that he/she is constantly influencing and being influenced by society. Marxist perspectives, which regard socio-economic perspectives as the predominant influence on personality and behavior, can be seen as the 'other end of the critical continuum."

Thorsten finds psychoanalytic theory (or Tyson and Ryan's summations of psychoanalytic theory) reductive and restrictive, and his response is tongue-in-cheek: "Lois Tyson, in Critical Theory Today, points out the basic concepts behind psychoanalysis. Evolved from Sigmund Freud's theory and further developed by Jacques Lacan, the main idea behind the psychoanalyst's approach seems to be the significance of men's loss of their mothers. Pretty much everything that men do after their births, or rather, after they 'recognize' their 'selfhood,' is to compensate for that loss in some way or another. Reading The House of Mirth through the lens of psychoanalysis, we can see the male characters' striving for wealth and reputation as a means to make up for the loss of their mothers. Lacan would call this behavior condensation because the mother is replaced by money, which, though comforting, is unlike the mother herself. In addition, those men who court Lily are 'displacing' the loss of their mothers, by somehow (unconsciously) relating Lily to their mothers. "

Veronica discusses ways Lily utilizes various "defense mechanisms" in The House of Mirth, and, following psychoanalytic principles, associates these defenses with Lily's rather troubled childhood and her "relationship with death." She writes, "Throughout The House of Mirth, Lily engages in projection by closing her metaphorical eyes to the hazardous realities of her future path. Lily shrinks back sharply from the most cursory, peripheral glance of herself reflected in Gerty's charity cases; she remains in denial even as she enters the environment of the lower circles of social climbers and joins other ladies forced into breadwinning through the employment of their artistic talents. In the end, Lily cannot suppress her fears and her nightmares haunt her waking hours; Tyson defines this state as crisis or trauma - especially apt for Lily - and aligns it with an individual's relationship with death. Tyson notes that this fear...'translates for most of us ito fear of loss in general' (23). Lily suffers the losses she feared the most: loss of status, finances, comfort, love and independence...Lily experiences psychological 'death' when she loses her status as the brightest star in the social firmament and falls to the 'rubbish heap...'"

Peter discusses Lear's "regression" in Shakespeare's play: "To illuminate better the regressive nature of Lear, an example seems necessary. Before the heath scene, in which Lear shrinks to the depths of insanity, the protagonist foreshadows his ensuing regression. Lear states,

O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!

Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,

Thy elements below! (2.2.246-248)

In the early modern period, the Hysterica Passio was a female affliction that arose from the womb and caused a woman to choke or suffocate. For Lear, citing the Hysterica Passio provides an excuse for his mental unraveling. Interestingly, it also suggests that the maternal figures (Goneril and Regan) are suffocating Lear. Indeed, at this point in the play, Goneril has symbolically emasculated her father by decreasing the King's retinue of a hundred knights."

Johannes, like Veronica, analyzes Lily Bart's use of various psychological defense mechanisms in The House of Mirth. He also looks briefly at Selden's psyche and the concept of the "Republic of the Spirit:" "Another character Edith Wharton establishes in her novel is Lawrence Selden. Unlike Lily, Selden has created what seems to be a second space. He calls this the 'republic of the spirit' (Wharton 55). It is here that Selden is able to find personal freedom. The republic of the spirit serves him as a defense mechanism, a place in which anxieties are not present. Whatever unconscious issues he represses in real life, they are not present in the 'republic of the spirit.' Selden's ego successfully protects him from anxiety."

Keen engages Lacanian theory in his analysis of The House of Mirth: "It becomes possible, through Lacan's lens, to see Lily as a representation of [Lacan's] 'Mirror Stage.' Lily is a character who is...still a part of a collective consciousness. She blindly follows the cultural precepts of the leisure class, pursuing a husband and 'marketing' herself, to use a Marxist term. She does not, however, display any specific identity traits that cannot be easily argued away. Granted, she is good at the role she plays; she is engaging and sociable and many men of high station take notice of her. This, however, does not necessarily mean that she has an identity. In fact, the moments of dissonance in which Lily unwittingly stumbles into what would be considered by her peers to be an "indiscretion" can be seen as the beginnings of the formation of her true identity. Lily begins as a firmly collective character, surrounded by other women of her status who all participate in the same activities that she does (with varying degrees of success.) Over the course of the novel, as Lily's epiphanies break her away from these behavioral patterns, she can be said to be experiencing a figurative 'Mirror Stage.' For example, the perversion of the economic power paradigm that happens when Gus Trenor thinks that his providing of financial aid to Lily justifies him receiving sexual favors from her, she refuses, though this goes against the collective belief on the subject. Here, Lily truly realizes her own body, making an assertion of refusal and individualizing/differentiating herself."

Like Thorsten, I analyzed Wharton's depiction of motherhood and mothering using psychoanalytic concepts - however, for me, psychoanalytic theories are useful tools for "unpacking" literature (though I feel perhaps Tyson and Ryan "infantilize" psychoanalytic principles in their attempts to make them accessible): "In terms of Tyson and Ryan's respective overviews of psychoanalysis and “gender studies” and their relevance to The House of Mirth, I thought back to my in-class comments about 'mothering' in the novel – indeed, mothers and (often highly ambivalent) depictions of mothering have primacy in the narrative, and, as both Tyson and Ryan illustrate, representations of “mothering” in literature are often highly fraught (and particularly well-suited to analysis that utilizes psychoanalytic or feminist critical perspectives). I thought back to Lily's own mother –Wharton presents a character who's callow, desperately and tragically materialistic, avaricious – and thought it's possible to read Lily's 'problems with intimacy' as a result of her relationship with her mother. It's significant that Lily's own sense of self is so irrevocably tied up with her mother's perceptions and viewpoints, as well. Wharton also makes it clear that most of her male characters have 'mother fixations' - shy, tremulous Percy Gryce has an overpowering mother; Selden's mother was perennially charming – and indicates the ways both men's sexual tastes and personalities are heavily influenced by this relationship. Motherhood also intersects with issues of class in the novel – upper-class women are rarely 'motherly.' Judy Trenor criticizes a minor character for putting familial bonds and the celebration of motherhood before social obligations: 'She says her sister is going to have a baby - as if that were anything to having a house-party' (42)! And Carrie Fisher is diffusely motherly – yet pays little attention to her actual daughter. Shabby Nettie Struther is the only character in the novel who is tender towards her child, and Wharton suggests by her treatment of Nettie – who narrowly recovered from t.b., who represents the abject underclass Lily can't bear to be associated with – that motherhood is redemptive. Wharton also illustrates (in what I find a somewhat saccharin or maudlin-fashion – actually, my twenty-first century feminist politics inform my reading of this novel and I find Wharton's treatment of motherhood a little pat and regressive) Nettie and her child bonding over a literal-'mother-tongue.' And, of course, where the novel 'virtually' begins with a discussion of Lily's background, specifically and primarily her relationship with her own mother, it of course ends with Lily hallucinating that she holds Nettie's child while she dies..."