Final Paper

Christina Nalbandian
Dr. Wexler
English 638: Critical Theory
17 May 2010
Final Paper/ Nightwood
For Who could ev’r learn to Love a Beast?
In the darkness of the night there are unexplainable events that occur in one’s mind that either are forgotten as soon as one wakes up or they haunt them with confusion. What do they mean? What are they trying to say? And why do they not make any sense? The unconscious comes into play as inner truths are revealed yet not entirely understood. The unconscious becomes extremely difficult, disfigured and almost mutated into another language of images. The mind becomes the most difficult element to comprehend even when it is one’s own, so one can only speculate and try to analyze their thoughts. Robin Vote, in Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, represents the bazaar unconscious that remains misunderstood in a separate language of images. She appears mostly at night where she wanders through the streets in search of no one, while Nora is trying to catch or connect with her. However, like the unconscious, she is unattainable and only an image of one’s mind. She is not filled with words, like the Doctor, Mathew O’Connor, but filled with deeper meaning of her actions. She does not use valuable words of comfort, like the Doctor, but she reveals alarming secrets or shocking truths. Robin attracts people with her primitive innocence and her horrid strangeness. The last scene of Nightwood sets up the unconscious to communicate with Nora’s dog. Through sounds and movements the goal of communication is won from Robin to Nora. With Robin’s openness to lesbian relationships of her own, and her willingness to abandon her son, as well as her cross-dressing to abandon gender lines, she rejects all norms set to society. Not only does she reject the norms, but she also rejects the day, the rituals that are planned and structured. She rejects language and communication with others and above all she rejects the will to love any other than herself. Therefore, the last scene of the novel is able to conclude Robin Vote as the unconscious, her actions, her lack of speech, her presence only at night and her primitive innocence to share communication with Nora’s dog. Robin, as the unconscious, cannot love because it sets limitations to herself. Even Nora looses capability to love Robin, because she is incapable of loving the ambiguous. Since she cannot see Robin, only images of her, the love is lost or never attained. Love then becomes a narcissist event, in which the lover creates images of the beloved and beauty is no longer a miracle to the mind, but its own creation.
Felix describes Robin as an artificial jungle with earthly textured skin. She is seen among “a confusion of potted-plants” (Barnes 34). The image of the night is even incorporated into the observation of Robin as well as the “threatened consciousness” (Barnes 34) when she turns her head. The unconscious is present in the first description of Robin, in which the image of her among the artificial jungle is confusing and reminded of the night as well as the defenseless consciousness. The Baron’s relationship with Robin is based on his observations of her. She does not show any affection or connections with him. Her character only speaks a few times, so all Felix can do to try and understand her is by observing her actions. One of Felix’s most significant observations is Robin’s hands and eyes. He notices a pathetic glare in her eyes, but as he watches her he discovers that her hands take the place of her vision. Felix compares her to a blind person that sees more with their fingers that they forget more in their minds. The consciousness of her mind is disregarded and ignored, as she is able to interact solely with her actions.
However, because Robin only expresses herself through her body language and actions the Baron can only make assumptions to how she is feeling and what she desires. “I never did have a really clear idea of her at any time. I had an image of her, but that is not the same thing. An image is a stop the mind makes between uncertainties” (Barnes 111). An image then results from a person’s imagination, so that the mind can create a mental representation of the object or person in their mind. This relates back to the first description of Robin among an artificial jungle, in which it is possible that the narrator has created the setting from imagination. Felix is able to learn a great deal about Robin through other people, but the more he learns about her the more confused he becomes. He is unable to have a clear depiction of her like the other people present in his life. Robin does express that she does not want to be a mother therefore that is the only concrete emotion that he can be sure she wants. The only time he restricts her is by her pregnancy, for that time that she must be bound to her body and the creature inside of her. The pull that she feels is enough for her to escape from Felix and their child, Guido. Once she feels her restraints Robin will go to any lengths to escape from her surroundings.
Nora even sees Robin as an image that only moves to express thought instead of speaking. The innermost feelings become so complex that the person whose mind is sending symbols cannot even understand them. Philip Rieff discusses Freud’s interpretations of dreams and symbolism in his critical essay “The Tactics of Interpretation”. “But, as Freud defines it, symbolism is unconscious language” (Rieff 52). The unconscious becomes the part of the mind, in which symbolism sprouts from. Rieff continues to state symbolism therefore cannot be fully interpreted by the conscious mind, and if perhaps it were to gain the information that linked the accurate meaning to symbolism then the unconscious would soon vanish. The mind would no longer be as complex and complicated if images and symbols that the unconscious projected could be easily understood. When Nora looks into Robin’s eyes she cannot see her reflection. Robin’s stare is not upon people or it is not the way people stare and observe. Her eyes “which report not so much the object as the movement of the object” (Barnes 52) are not looking for words of affection. She is observing people’s motions and movements, and their words. She has found a new way to communicate with them, in a language she can only fully comprehend. However, Jenny is able to connect with her in certain aspects, in which there is a beast in her that takes over her personality and where all passion is lost. Therefore, Robin can communicate through actions, like their first encounter when they wrestled with each other in front of the Doctor and the young girl at nighttime. Jenny does not fear the truth, or the night where the unconscious appears. In Harold Bloom’s “Introduction” to Modern Critical Interpretations: Sigmund Freud’s the Interpretation of Dreams, he states that “It was for Freud that dream-interpretation proved the royal road to the Unconscious” (Bloom 2). She is able to accept and not fear the evil truths about herself and does not mind expressing the beast inside of her. Unlike the other main characters in the novel, she chooses to show all aspects of herself, and so the Doctor and Nora judge her.
Although Nora and the Doctor are revealed at night, behind close quarters they cannot accept the honest truths about other people, so they turn to valuable words of comfort. The Doctor comforts Nora by telling her, “The heart of the jealous knows the best and the most satisfying love, that of the other’s bed, where the rival perfects the lover’s imperfections” (Barnes 88). Nora can be comforted by knowing that because she is jealous or paranoid of Robin’s whereabouts and strange behaviors, she feels the best parts of love. The Doctor is able to state the truths that people may have difficult time facing by complementing their actions and desires. Therefore, instead of Nora focusing on the harsh truths about herself, the Doctor puts emphasis on life’s many complications. By generalizing Nora’s problems to a broader scope, it becomes easier to cope with, since she is not alone in her misery.
“Robin was outside the ‘human type’—wild thing caught in a woman’s skin” (Barnes 146). She is not a complete part of a human being, more so a single part of the mind. She is the part that is much too complicated to comprehend or fully recognize and understand. Robin represents the part of the mind that has no limits to its behavior. Therefore, she is trapped inside a woman’s skin that symbolizes the night. She is only active at night, but yet she has no sense of direction to how the night will go. Robin is a night flaneur, she only interacts with people at night and she wonders the streets through the darkness. Robin cannot explain where she is going or what will take place in the course of the night. The night flaneur is similar to a dream-like state in which the mind has no direction or control over its actions.
Robin appears at night, revealing only the bazaar. There is nothing normal about her. Her presence is strange and awkward, her behaviors are animalistic, like the circus performers, and she cannot communicate properly with other people. It is almost as if the unconscious has not developed properly with the modern times. In Meredith Anne Skura’s critical essay, “Literature as Dream: Mode of Representation”, she connects Freud’s analysis and interpretations of the unconscious mind to literature. “Freud claimed that dreams differ from waking life by discarding mature meaning and motives in their regression, but the source of the dream’s unique quality is rather the way it makes us uncertain about meaning and motive, playing each one against a more primitive, regressed counterpart” (Skura 124). Skura uses Freud’s interpretation of the unconscious to explain why dreams then become confusing to the wakened dreamer. When the dreamer awakes he cannot completely recreate the dream in his mind accurately. Therefore, the dream becomes confusing and disfigured to the wakened dreamer. It has refused to age with time and remains primitive and childlike. “A dream, in the Freudian view, is thus a belated text, an inadequate commentary upon a missing poem. Its plot is probably irrelevant; what matters is some protruding element, some image that seems hardly to belong to the text” (Bloom 5). Robin, as the unconscious, although fascinating to observe, can be pathetic due to her lack of development. Skura explores the childlike behavior of the unconscious mind, and connects it back to a child’s reorientation of the conventional world. As a child goes from picture books to books with words, he must learn to make the proper connections with words and their meanings. As the child develops and learns certain methods of understanding, the process to make those specific connections is forgotten. Skura reminds the reader that the mind functions in that manner when there are “moments of alienation, disorientation, and sleepiness” (Skura 127). The reader is not confident whether Robin is unsure of the rules to the society, because the narrator never reaches into Robin’s thoughts. Since she exudes a childlike presence and keeps a primitive innocence to her, it seems as though the mind has not yet developed well enough to understand it. Skura uses Freud’s interpretation of dreams to describe a primitive way of thinking that occurs in the unconscious mind. “The dreamer has actually gone back to a primitive way of seeing and representing the world, to a time when feelings were part of the landscape…This reversion is not denial of reality but a return to a mode of thinking in which wish, fear, and other subjective, emotionally tinged views have not been distinguished from reality” (Skura 125). If these certain modes of thinking have not been separated from society, than like Robin the mind will express its primitive way without the worry of being criticized.
Nora and Felix do not acknowledge Robin’s complexity of communication and the various images she exudes. Their fear of her as well as the dog’s fear can be her beast-like characteristics. The last scene conveys her savagery. She does not hold back any urges of behavior. Nothing is hidden about her, but she cannot speak her mind, only express herself.
The world is ultimately wanting. Robin is refusing to take her place in the world, to grow up, pursue a family and work. Robin is afraid to commit and is only in love with herself. She indulges in fantasies of connection and enjoys the spectacle of feelings. The Doctor advises Nora that “(Robin) knows she is innocent because she can’t do anything in relation to anyone but herself” (Barnes 146). By doing this, Robin never has to surrender to Nora or Jenny.
All the elements of the last scene with Robin and Nora’s dog are able to portray the unconsciousness. The scene is set at night where the unconscious or Robin is present, in the woods among the darkness. “As she had frightened the woods into silence by her breathing, the barking of the dog brought her up, rigid and still” (Barnes 168). Robin’s presence is able to keep the darkness fearful of the mind; the darkness in which Nora is apart of and that haunts her throughout the night. The barking of the dog is his instinct of an intruder and a fear that there is something unknown present in the darkness of the woods. Nora sees Robin in her boy trousers, which can represent the strangeness of the unconscious not bound by gender or prejudices. Robin is able to communicate with Nora’s dog by getting down on all fours and she is able to transform her image. Anything is possible in the mind, the bazaar is created, the strangeness is eluded, boundaries vanish and confusion breaks through. Karen Kaivola states in her critical essay, “The ‘beast turning human’: constructions of the ‘primitive’ in Nightwood” that the primitive reveals the unconscious. She uses Freud’s unconscious and the instinctual to portray Robin as an imaged primitive, pre-cultural past that she proclaims humans have descended from. Robin’s detachment allows for the reader to be identify her in any such way like erotic or dangerous (Kaivola 172). Like the unconscious, this scene is not fully understood. Therefore, it is an image that the reader can take in and make it his own, by analyzing and interpreting it. Like the unconscious, anything can occur to create a deeper meaning that can never be fully understood. “There is a civil war in the human psyche, so that the Unconscious and not nature or the state is what most inescapably threatens each of us” (Bloom 3). Like the unconscious, one fears a power that it holds, for the human mind is constantly curious about the truth and its meaning.
Although it sets us apart from animals our mind or stream of consciousness can be animalistic, and not be able to communicate with words. One’s mind while asleep, cannot be controlled, and can only send images in pieces that are jumbled and fragmented. Therefore, Robin can only be a distorted image. She can be beautiful, mesmerizing, innocent, and peculiar but she is only the way the viewer chooses to see her. Felix explains to the Doctor that he feels Robin needs to be given permission to live and if she is not given it, she will make a fearful primitive innocence for herself. The unconsciousness cannot survive without the minds wanting to know the truth; they must sink down deep into evil in order to discover true honesty. “Don’t I know that the only way to know evil is through truth?” (Barnes 138). The unconsciousness cannot survive without human consciousness hiding certain aspects of the psyche. If there were no truths to be told or no images left to be analyzed than the unconsciousness no longer would need to exist. The mind would reveal good and evil, and both the normal and strange, and even both the beautiful and grotesque. However, the mind works like day and night, in which certain aspects are revealed during the day that are planned and organized, and the abnormality of a person’s mind at night. “She would kill the world to get at herself if the world were in the way. A shadow was falling on her—mine—and it was driving her out of her wits“(Barnes 155). This is Nora’s way of trying to understand Robin or understand the unconscious that she fears. Robin cannot bear being around people that expect her to return her love. Robin’s child, Guido, expects her to love him unconditionally, naturally like any baby, so Robin escapes from a love like that. Similarly with Nora, Robin allows her to fall in love with her primitive innocence, but Nora cannot expect love in return. Being in love and showing that love, requires restrictions and to put aside selfishness. The mind without a path or structure cannot have limits or boundaries, so Robin, as the unconscious, cannot love due to the limits that are created. Although Robin is incapable of loving those that want love in return, she has a power over them. It is her strangeness that scares them, but yet lures them in, wanting them to know more.
In Jessica Benjamin’s book, The Bonds of Love, she defines true love in the sense that both people in a relationship reciprocate mutual respect to one another. Benjamin argues that “Domination is a twisting of the bonds of love. Benjamin states that “Domination does not repress the desire for recognition; rather, it enlists and transforms it” (219). Benjamin goes on to state that the person in the relationship that wants the power to dominate over the other creates an absence where the lover should be. So, the void that is created can be filled “with fantasy material in which the other appears so dangerous or so weak—or both—that he threatens the self and must be controlled” (Benjamin 220). Even though Nora tries to love Robin, her love remains selfish. She does not just love Robin for who she is. Instead, she follows Robin around at night and demands happiness from her. She tries to mold Robin into her lover and attempts to nurture Robin for the child that she perceives her as. “‘I thought I loved her for her sake, and I found it was for my own’” (Barnes 151). Nora is not able to love someone that she tries to change. Love is a far more complicated and sacred thing, and Nora is not able to love because too many selfish emotions are in the way. In accordance to Benjamin, Nora becomes the dominator in the relationship, as she tries to control and restrict Robin. Nora has created a vision of the lover she sees Robin to be, and therefore she feels Robin is an ailing child that needs to be controlled. “Robin is not in your life, you are in her dream, you’ll never get out of it,” the Doctor said to Nora (Barnes 146). Nora remains in the unconscious. Robin keeps the people that she interacts with in her dreams because she is always in a state of the unconscious. Hence, Robin can never love anyone that is merely in her mind, because then it would be a love created by the mind, in her dreams. Robin would only find what she is looking for because it would come from her own psychic residue. Nora or any other character cannot fall in love with Robin, but they can be fascinated and fearful of her behaviors since she is someone that cannot be seen entirely, solely through images. Therefore, Nora can never know the ambiguity of Robin; she can only look toward valuable words from the Doctor to help comfort her through the unconscious.
In conclusion, Robin remains an image in people’s minds because there are constant uncertainties about her. She represents the Freudian unconscious, in which she appears at night as a flaneur, having no direction to where she is going. Robin expresses the bazaar with her cross-dressing, her lesbian relationships, her animalistic behavior and her rejection of being a mother. The last scene portrays the unconscious, in which the reader can only make assumptions and try to analyze the deeper meaning of Robin and Nora’s dog. However, love is not possible in this situation. Robin is incapable of loving anyone because that would involve limitations to her lifestyle. And finally, Nora cannot love the beast that she is drawn to in the darkness of the night, since she cannot see and accept the grotesque truth of the unconscious. The curse is placed upon them, until they can step outside their fears of the night that haunts their savage minds. The question remains, will the spell be broken, for who could ev’r learn to love a Beast?



Work Cited
Barnes, Djuna. Nightwood. New York: New Directions, 1937. Print.
Benjamin, Jessica. Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
Bloom, Harold. Introduction. Modern Critical Interpretations: Sigmund Freud’s The
Interpretation of Dreams. Ed. Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 1-7.
Kaivola, Karen. "The 'beast Turning Human': Constructions of the 'Primitive' in Nightwood." The Review of Contemporary Fiction 13.3 (1993): 172-85. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 1 May 2010. .
Rieff, Philip. “The Tactics of Interpretation”. Modern Critical Interpretations: Sigmund Freud’s
The Interpretation of Dreams. Ed. Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
51-57.
Skura, Meredith Anne. “Literature as Dream: Mode of Representation”. Modern Critical
Interpretations: Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams. Ed. Bloom. New York:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.119-127.

Elephant Man and Edward Scissorhands

Elephant man can be connected to the film Edward Scissorhands. Edward is put on show for the town and cannot identify with anyone. Though the townspeople are nice to him, it is only because they find him interesting and they too want to feel unique, so they allow him to give them all haircuts and make shapes out of their bushes with his scissor hands. He accepts that he will always be different even after he tries to fit in with those that are nice to him. In the end he realizes that he will always be different and decides to fake his death and live in a life of solitude. By doing this he eases the town’s minds. Just like the Elephant Man he will always be the biggest part of the performance. Everyone is watching him and therefore remains on outcast of society and a spectacle to everyone that is apart of society.

Working Final Paper on Freud's unconscious in Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

Robin Vote, in Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, represents the bazaar unconscious that remains misunderstood in a separate language of images. She appears mostly at night where she wanders through the streets in search of no one, while Nora is trying to catch or connect with her. However, like the unconscious, she is unattainable and only an image of one’s mind. She is not filled with words, like the Doctor, Mathew O’Connor, but filled with deeper meaning of her actions. She does not use valuable words of comfort, like the Doctor, but she reveals alarming secrets or shocking truths. Robin attracts people with her primitive innocence and her horrid strangeness. The last scene of Nightwood sets up the unconscious to communicate with Nora’s dog. Through sounds and movements the goal of communication is won from Robin to Nora. With Robin’s openness to lesbian relationships of her own, and her willingness to abandon her son, as well as her cross-dressing to abandon gender lines, she rejects all norms set to society. Not only does she reject the norms, but she also rejects the day, the rituals that are planned and structured. She rejects language and communication with others and above all she rejects the will to love any other than herself. Therefore, the last scene of the novel is able to conclude Robin Vote as the unconscious, her actions, her lack of speech, her presence only at night and her primitive innocence to share communication with Nora’s dog.
I am going to explore Robin’s minimal relationships with others that grow in love and attached to her by her strangeness and innocence that she projects. Then I will begin to explore her sleepwalking and her interactions with the night and the people that are awake as well. After, I will make a connection with the night in which the unconscious appears and the savages in people are revealed or feared, which Robin represents. When I have made this connection between the night and the darkness that unravels, I will use the last scene to show how all aspects of the Freudian unconscious are present. Robin’s behavior, her attire, the setting and time, as well as the uncertain meaning of the novels ending all lead to the equation to how the unconscious is revealed and identified. The unconscious mind, as well as Robin, is bazaar, dark, indescribable, and unwilling to be constrained or confounded by the world. My ending point of this paper will be that Robin, as the unconscious, cannot love because it sets limitations to herself. Even Nora looses capability to love Robin, because she is incapable of loving the ambiguous. Since she cannot see Robin, only images of her, the love is lost or never attained. Love then becomes a narcissist event, in which the lover creates images of the beloved and beauty is no longer a miracle to the mind, but its own creation.

The Madwoman in the film, Obsessed

In the movie Obsessed Beyonce’s character turns into a demon in order to protect her family from the psychotic woman that is tearing them apart. This ties into Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s article, “The Madwoman in the Attic”. “All women were inexorably and inescapably monstrous, in the flesh as well as in the spirit”. Although Beyonce’s character is represented as the “angel” in the movie, she brings out her monstrous side to kill the woman that is obsessed with her family. Therefore her character’s possesses attributes of both angel and monster, because she must step in as the protector, but by doing so she must kill the other woman that is coming between her and her family.

Viewing Disney through Said's lense of the Orient

Disney portrays Said’s “other” in many ways. In Lady of the Tramp the Siamese cats possess qualities of the Eastern stereotype. They are being categorized as sneaky and deceptive creatures.



In Aladdin they describe Arabia in the song as “barbaric, but hey, it’s home”. They create a world that is not only different then the western world, but savage. Aladdin’s only way of survival is to lie and cheat his way through life. The bum tends to be viewed as the most civil and caring from all the others, and it is his uniqueness of caring that makes him the “Diamond in the Rough”, a character that the West can identify with and want to see as the hero.
Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam
Where it's flat and immense
And the heat is intense
It's barbaric, but hey, it's home
When the wind's from the east
And the sun's from the west
And the sand in the glass is right
Come on down
Stop on by
Hop a carpet and fly
To another Arabian night

Arabian nights
Like Arabian days
More often than not
Are hotter than hot
In a lot of good ways

Arabian nights
'Neath Arabian moons
A fool off his guard
Could fall and fall hard
Out there on the dunes

Factory Scene from Modern Times

At the end of Chapter 13 in Upton Sinclair’s Jungle it states, “for the woman worked so fast that the eye could literally not follow her, and there was only a mist of motion, and tangle after tangle of sausages appearing. In the midst of the mist, however, the visitor would suddenly notice the tense set face, with the two wrinkle graven in the forehead, and the ghastly pallor of the cheeks; and then he would suddenly recollect that it was time he was going on. The woman did not go on; she stayed right there—hour after hour, day after day, year after year, twisting sausage links and racing with death. It was piecework. And she was apt to have a family to keep alive; and stern and ruthless economic laws had arranged it that she could only do this by working just as she did, with all her soul upon her work, and with never an instant for a glance at the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who came to stare at her, as at some wild beast in a menagerie”.



This scene greatly reminded me of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, where he is stuck in the factory doing monotonous work. They expect him to be like the machine in order to keep up with the machine. And just as the machine, he will not be able to stop his work. Then salesmen come into the factory to sell an idea to remove “lunch time”, so that more work can be done. It is all about efficiency and the largest profit margin and there is no consideration taken into the fact that they are only human. Industrialization and Capitalism create a world for the working class of not only survival solely through labor, but just like the machine if they cannot work they are replaced.

Group Presentation on Equus

We each found our interest with Equus and applied the theory we best understood. I mainly focused on Formalism and Structuralism, but I was very much interested in researching the Greek mythology references in the play as well. I found articles discussing mythology in relation to Freud. We each came up with about 2 questions and put them into the grid to generate discussion in the class. Our group created our own blog to create constant dialogue throughout the weeks leading up to our presentation. I made copies of the grid for the class as well.

Charlie Chaplin's in Modern Times

When reading the Jungle by Upton Sinclair it reminded me of Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, where the humans are working with machines, and so in order for the factory workers to keep up with the fast pace of the machines they begin to turn into machines. Chaplin’s character must constantly be in-sync with machines or else the system fails. He does tedious work, and the only way for him to take a break is if another person takes over for him. He must punch in and out for every break he takes. The most interesting part is when a company comes in to sell a product that will assure factory that they will get the most for their money. To make sure they beat the competition they have created a machine that will allow the worker to eat lunch while they work in order to guarantee time will not be lost.



Another funny clip that can be connected to the Jungle and child labor is from the movie Zoolander. Mugatu and the other fashion designers are promoting child labor in other third world countries. They do not want to have to pay much for their garment manufacturing and are planning on killing the Prime Minister of Malaysia, so he does not outlaw child labor.

Midterm Paper

Peter’s Oedipal Problem
Using Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory I wish to explore Peter Pan and his inability to return home and take his place in the world. Neverland in this case represents a child’s fantasy and imagination; a place where they can forget about growing up. I will show through Freud’s theory how it is the lack of love and parental presence that keeps Peter in his childlike state, never to return home. Through the analysis of Peter’s character, I will explore the harmful effects the fantasy can bring when the child returns to their home without the assurance of their mother’s love. Therefore, a mother’s love becomes the key ingredient to a successful and purposeful flight from childhood to adulthood.
In Jon C. Stott’s article, “Midsummer Night’s Dream: Fantasy and Self-Realization in Children’s Fiction”, he explains the two types of structural patterns of a journey that the child hero in literature experiences. Stott suggests that fantasy worlds are created not merely as an escape from real life, but a way to cope with real life issues. Although fantasy worlds stray away from reality they serve an important purpose of inner growth and supply a clearer understanding of life. Instead of escaping from the problems of the real world, it in fact forces the hero to undergo growth and find solutions to their problems. Stott states that without recognition and resolution of the hero’s struggles they will be confined to the fantasy world forever. The hero is put to the test mentally and emotionally and will not be able to return to the real world until they have won their inner battles. He claims that the hero must return home to the real world or else the fantasy world no longer is a place to grow, it then becomes a place of terror. A good example of this is J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, in which Peter permanently remains in the fantasy world. He does not mature throughout the story and does not long to become an adult. Because he does not make the realization that every child will grow up eventually and have to find a career he remains in Neverland where he has no concept of time or death. He is offered a home by the Darlings and even though the Lost Boys leave Neverland to grow up with a family, Peter still turns down their offer and refuses to live in the real world.
In R.S. Peter’s article “Freud’s Theory” he identifies Freud’s primary process under the control of the pleasure principle as a place of “no consciousness of time, of contradiction, or relation to the real world” (Peters 5). In Peter Pan this place can be represented as Neverland. Peter cannot understand growth, because he has no concept of how much time has passed when he is in Neverland and the change that comes along with growing-up becomes extremely upsetting to Peter. In Neverland, Peter can repress his desires from wanting a mother that loves him. “Repression…prevents what has been repressed from being put to conscious use by the ego in motility” (Peters 7). Neverland can allow Peter to not have to deal with any of these emotions because it eliminates his desires and past anxieties by Peter staying in a place of permanence as opposed to constant growth. Neverland also can represent the part of Peter’s mind of isolation where “the ego defends itself by isolating an idea or hiving it off from its emotional significance” (Peters 7). Neverland is isolated from the outside world and there Peter can remove all emotional ties to his childhood. Also the mechanism of regression is present in Neverland for Peter. Reality is not comfortable to the child that has been rejected by it, and even replaced with another child. It seems as if Peter had the confidence that his mother would be waiting for his return, because he does attempt to go back but is shocked that the windows are “barred”. The word “barred” highlights Peter’s rejection of his mother and the real world. Therefore, Peter regresses “in dealing with frustration by returning to an earlier period of life when satisfaction was obtained” (Peters 8). Peter remains a permanent boy in Neverland where he no longer needs to feel rejected by the real world.
Unfortunately for Peter he is not welcome after he has been to Neverland for quite some time, and although the narrator questions whether it is true or not, Peter’s memory of his mother’s rejection stays with him and greatly affects the way he views adults, specifically mothers. “I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me; so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed” (Barrie 130). The love becomes vitally important. Without the love the fantasy world cannot function as a place of realization and a place to reenact certain repressed desires of imaginative adventures. Perhaps Peter did grow when he first left to Neverland and finally was ready to return home to reality and his mother, but since the love for his mother was not given to him he is forced to go back to Neverland. The love gives the child the safety of traveling between both worlds and Peter cannot travel back for more than a night because he no longer yearns for a mother’s love. Instead he chooses to isolate his emotions, repress his desires of love, and regress in a permanent state of childhood.
In Sarah Gilead’s article, “Magic Abjured: Closure in Children’s Fantasy Fiction”, she suggests that “a return-to-reality closure” often happens in children’s fantasy literature, “reestablishing the fictional reality of the opening” of the story (Gilead 277). Although all the Darling children and the Lost Boys are able to return to family and reality, Gilead states that, “the return does not bring stability but, rather, generates further losses and returns” (Gilead 287). The children must grow up and have their own careers, which means they will lose their childhood imagination and energy, people will pass away with age, and Peter will forever be trapped in Neverland. “Peter, forgetting the past, is entrapped in an eternal present without emotional or cognitive meaning” (Gilead 287). In this case Gilead is claiming the return becomes tragic to all the characters, not just Peter’s. Gilead states, “Forever young, (Peter) embodies the adult obsession with time and death. Peter is at once the idealized child and the regressive, impotent adult who is compelled to kidnap the very concept of childhood to alleviate the intolerable burden of adult existence” (Gilead 285). Even though the adult may want to escape their lives and be young forever that does not mean that the adult wishes for that desire to manifest into reality, even in the literature. Receiving a mother’s unconditional love at a young age allows the child like Wendy to grow up and move on from their imagination and fantasies. In Michael Payne’s article “What Difference has Theory Made? From Freud to Adam Phillips” Adam Phillip suggests that as children become adults they inevitably become antagonists of their own pleasures (Payne 8). Perhaps that is why Peter Pan remains in Neverland because he does not want to go against all his childhood pleasures.
Barrie is able to instill the fear of desiring eternal childhood with Peter’s inability to grow mentally or physically, and his inability to return to reality and even his own memory. “And then one night came the tragedy” (Barrie 202). Peter’s situation of permanence, to remain a child forever indicates suffering to the child when they are faced with the reality of growth and change. The return of the child is guaranteed through the love he receives from his mother. Without the love there can be no successful return or any assurance of self-growth during their journey into the fantastic. Applying this to Freud’s theory, the child will not be able to grow from their childhood imagination into adulthood without the love and care of their parents. In Freud’s phallic stage Peter is not able to repress his desires for his mother because he does not receive the love from her that he expects and therefore is not able to take his place in the world and identify with his father. Instead he can regress, isolate and repress his desired emotions and never take his place in the world.
David Morgan states in his article “The Father’s Shadow/Father’s Body” that a son must bond with his father’s body in order to develop his own creative life. If the son as a poor connection with his father than he tries to make a connection through his father’s shadow instead. This can result in a “state of passive creative frustration” (Morgan 219). In Peter’s case there is no mention of a father figure therefore it can be assumed that he did not bond with his father’s body before he left for Neverland. He goes on to say that no son can become an adult male unless they become more than their father’s son. If Peter was never able to bond with his father how can he break free from his father? Peter remaining forever in Neverland indicates a fear to move on and grow up to become whole. Morgan states that “all fathers have a shadow” and that this shadow is usually placed on others. These shadow characteristics are those a person detests to see in others, but “which are to be found lurking near the entrance to the dark cave of his own unconscious” (Morgan 223). The oedipal complex therefore is not resolved by either parent, because Peter cannot properly repress his desires from his mom and take his place in the world and identify with a father figure. In the beginning of Peter Pan, he is brought into the real world because he is looking for his shadow. Wendy finds it and is able to sew it back on for him. His shadow in Morgan’s case could be his unconscious luring him back to where he can grow and accept the world. His unconscious wants him to grow up and face his anxieties, but his conscious mind is able to hold back his inner emotions and continue his life in Neverland.
Michael Payne, in his article, explores the world of children through theory. He states, “To be a child is to learn how to make mistakes, how to become disillusioned. But being realistic, too, has its pleasures, including the satisfaction of having done the right thing” (Payne 7). In Peter’s case, he is not able to recognize what a mistake may be because he does not learn or grow from any experiences he has in Neverland. He almost does not fall under the category in Payne’s description of childhood through Freud and Phillips theories. Peters suggests that we must also assume that childhood greatly effects and influences a person’s life as they grow up, and that the mechanisms a child embrace’s to solve problems becomes impressionable to a person’s character. In Peter Pan’s situation unfortunately, he has chosen mechanisms such as repression, isolation, and regression in order to avoid feelings of pain and growth. Peter remains in Neverland never to remember any significance to life and his emotions.












Works Cited
Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan. New York: Penguin Group, 1967.
Gilead, Sarah. "Magic Abjured: Closure in Children’s Fantasy Fiction." PMLA 106.2
(1991): 277-93. JSTOR. Web. 9 March 2010. .
Morgan, David. "The Father's Shadow/Father's Body." Journal of Religion and Health 34.3 (1995): 219-32. JSTOR. Web. 10 Mar. 2010. .
Payne, Michael. "What Difference Has Theory Made? From Freud to Adam Phillips." College Literature 32.2 (2005): 1-15. JSTOR. Web. 9 Mar. 2010. .
Peters, R.S. "Freud's Theory." British Journal for the Philosphy of Science 7.25 (1956): 4-12. JSTOR. Web. 10 Mar. 2010. .
Stott, Jon C. "Midsummer Night’s Dream: Fantasy and Self-Realization in Children’s
Fiction." The Lion and the Unicorn 1.2 (1977): 25-39. Project Muse. Web. 4 March 2010. .

Annotated Bibliography: Midterm Paper

Annotated Bibliography

Gilead, Sarah. "Magic Abjured: Closure in Children’s Fantasy Fiction." PMLA
106.2 (1991): 277-93. JSTOR. Web. 9 March 2010. . Gilead examines children’s literature from the adult reader’s perspective. She suggests that “a return-to-reality closure” often happens in children’s fantasy literature, “reestablishing the fictional reality of the opening” of the story (Gilead 277). She states that although this pattern seems to occur often in this type of literature there are three different types of mode and meaning with a return-to-reality ending. “The Return as Bildung”, in which the child undergoes either moral, psychological, and intellectual development during their journey through the fantasy, “The Return as Narrative Repression” that rejects the fantasy by failing to understand its meaning and ignoring its power of influence, and “The Return as Tragic Ambiguity” where the return becomes unclear and the child misses the closure between what is fantasy and reality (Gilead 285). This article is useful for those that wish to explore not only the different types of fantasy fictions, but the psychological process that the child hero undergoes through their influence of the fantasy realm.

Morgan, David. "The Father's Shadow/Father's Body." Journal of Religion and Health 34.3 (1995): 219-32. JSTOR. Web. 10 Mar. 2010. . Morgan stresses the importance of the father’s shadow for his son living a significant life. He first finds this essential meaning of the father’s shadow in the myth of Cronos and his son Zeus. This myth conveys how Cronos’ son is able to connect to his father’s body through his illusive shadow. The valuable meaning of the father’s shadow is based on research conducted by a developing men’s group. Morgan takes a phallus dream analyzed by C.G. Jung that highlights the importance of the father and son body connection in determining the success of the son’s imaginative growth. This article will be useful for those researching a son’s creative development and how it can be influenced by their relationship with their father.

Payne, Michael. "What Difference Has Theory Made? From Freud to Adam Phillips." College Literature 32.2 (2005): 1-15. JSTOR. Web. 9 Mar. 2010. . Payne recognizes that Adam Phillips has gained a reputation in understanding and explaining Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Therefore through Adam Phillips work, we can better comprehend Freud’s theory and our understanding of children. He suggests that psychoanalytic theory has been useful in viewing the child’s perceptive of life, and how it is possible for a child to comprehend their own gender experience. He greatly affirms the idea that theory is how we view the world, how we see our mistakes and are able to learn from them. This article can be useful to those interested in understanding Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and its effect on understanding child development and our view of the world.

Peters, R.S. "Freud's Theory." British Journal for the Philosphy of Science 7.25 (1956): 4-12. JSTOR. Web. 10 Mar. 2010. . Peters takes Sigmund Freud’s theories and summarizes them in this article, so that it may be useful to compare his theories with others. He begins with the preservation of equilibrium where he discusses human instincts, and then discusses the mechanisms or “techniques of defence” on the ego. He then summarizes the development of sexual desires and its stages in the mind, and lastly the genetic expectations of childhood influences and how they become impressionable through development of character. Morgan’s effort is to compile as clearly as possible Freud’s main principles.

Stott, Jon C. "Midsummer Night’s Dream: Fantasy and Self-Realization in Children’s
Fiction." The Lion and the Unicorn 1.2 (1977): 25-39. Project Muse. Web. 4 March 2010. . Stott explains the two types of structural patterns of a journey that the child hero in literature experiences. The first one is the linear journey where the hero ventures from Point A to Point B. It is clear to the reader why the protagonist goes through the journey and how he or she reaches their final destination (Stott 25). However, Stott chooses to focus on the second type of journey, the circular journey, in which the hero returns to the same point he started from. Stott states that the hero in this type of journey desires to escape his “normal” world and thereby enters into a fantasy world where his experiences allow him to return home changed and matured. Although fantasy worlds stray away from reality they serve an important purpose of inner growth and supply a clearer understanding of life. This article is useful for those trying to understanding the usefulness of a child exploring their imagination and what they can learn from it.

The Father's Shadow in Equus

After reading Equus I read another article for my midterm paper “The Father’s Shadow/Father’s Body” by David Morgan. In his introduction he states, “the need of a young boy to achieve a successful bond with the body of his father is a determining factor in whether the son is able to develop his own creative life, or must go through life in a state of passive creative frustration” (219). For my midterm paper I was interested in looking at Peter Pan and applying Freud’s theory to his condition. But I think this article really speaks to Alan and Frank in Equus. Alan is not able to have a close relationship with his father and therefore tries instead to bond with his father’s shadow. What I mean by that is Frank’s unconscious that he tries to repress. When Alan sees his father watching the same pornographic film as him Alan is able to connect to him, but on a level his father is not comfortable with. Just like Frank, Alan cannot perform sexually with a woman, he instead becomes embarrassed and feels as though he is being watched and judged. Morgan uses Freud’s Oedipus complex to explain why the son has a destructive perception of what it means to be a man. “The development of an inner creative life by a boy is blocked if he unconsciously bonds with his father’s shadow qualities. Such negative qualities include a distant father, or a father who violently abuses his son…As a result, he cannot accomplish anything truly creative of his own life—all he has is his father’s shadow” (Morgan 226). Alan seems to be struggling with his father’s shadow and cannot move on from there. He has the same urges and reactions as his father with sex. The stare in the play seems to be of guilt and embarrassment by both Frank and Alan. They both seem too worried about judgment brought out from their sexual urges and they both seem to be having a problem with performance. I think that Alan being able to tell Dysart what has happened to him becomes the point where he can separate himself from his father and be his own man. Frank is never able to come to terms with what he has done and what his son has seen, and so he cannot break from his own shadow.

Hiding behing the Mask of Punishment

When reading Michel Foucault’s Disciple and Punish this idea of always being watched as a form of punishment made me think of the film V for Vendetta when the whole city of London is constantly being monitored and given strict rules that they must follow. In this film ordinary life becomes a prison. They do not know when or if they are being watched at that very moment, but they fear being seen or noticed by officials the most. So instead of having a prison in this case they are already punished by being monitored by their every move. The authority figures are not officers in uniforms, so anyone you do not know could be part of the police. Therefore you never know who is watching you. There is surveillance all over the city as well, so if they want to find you they have the power to. The only way for V to hide is under a mask, so that even if he is seen no one will know who he is.



For me this film shows how restricting and cruel it can be just to know you are being watched. This form of punishment in prisons would probably prove to me very effective.

Postmodern piece Wicked

Just like we discussed in class a good example of how the postmodernists changed the metanarrative would be Milton’s Paradise Lost, I could not help to think about Wicked the novel by Gregory Maguire that is most famous for its Broadway musical. Even though it does not change history or religion, it takes a classical piece of children’s literature and focuses on the wicked witch of the west. Telling the story through her experience she no longer remains the villain but the victim or hero of the society she has been born into. She is no longer ugly, but still green. She has a kind heart, and it uses all the scenes specifically from MGM’s film, but simply changes the perspective where the audience can understand and sympathize for Elphaba’s (the wicked witch of the west) perspective. The good witch and the bad witch are friends, and it shows how the evil villains are perceived that way because they have been rejected or misunderstood by society.

Dexter: The Code of Harry and Freud on human repression

When reading Freud I could not help to think about Showtime’s Dexter. Eagleton discusses Freud’s analysis on human repression of the “pleasure principle” by the “reality principle”. Then he mentions how this repression could become a negative aspect of one’s life and make them sick. Too much repression cannot be a good thing, but humans can put up with some. “One way in which we cope with desires we cannot fulfil is by ‘sublimating’ them, by which Freud means directing them towards a more socially valued end.” In Dexter’s case, he lives by Harry’s code. Harry, his adopted father realizes that Dexter has tendencies and urges to kill, and creates a code where Dexter can still kill, but only killers. He does not harm the innocent, but instead protects them by eliminating other killers. By doing this Dexter is able to control a lot of his urges and pretend to live a normal life.

"Dexter: The Code of Harry"

In disagreement with Hirsch

Hirsch highlights the differences between the author’s “meaning” and the work’s “significance”. Of course the only way to know what the author’s intentions are is to have the author explain the meaning. However, why is the author’s meaning so important to their work? The author creates the piece of work properly because he has been inspired or influenced by specific events or people in his life., but once the work is produced and open to be read by the public, doesn’t it grant the readers their own interpretation? As important as the meaning of the work might be in order to appreciate the art they have created, how does it influence the reader? I think you can look at art in two ways; one to appreciate the skill and process of the artist to produce various works, and the other to allow for the art to touch the reader or observer in a special way, but that can only happen with their interpretation of each piece of art work. I think that is what makes art special in that the person appreciating the art can have their very own unique connection with the piece. Art touches each person in a different way, so to read Shakespeare and still not know for sure his intent if anything allows the reader to open their interpretation even more. They can have a truly “pure” experience with the text without having to know why it was created and what the meaning was for Shakespeare. I also think that meaning and significance go hand in hand, the reader finds the meaning only when the text is significant in some way to their lives. Without the readers connection to the text they will not be able to find or understand the meaning of the work.

Looking at the Formalists through Morrison's The Bluest Eye

In the “Introduction: What is Literature?” Eagleton states, “The Formalists, then, saw literary language as a set of deviations from a norm, a kind of linguistic violence: literature is a ‘special’ kind of language, in contrast to the ‘ordinary’ language we commonly use. But to spot a deviation implies being able to identify the norm from which it swerves” (4). This statement reminded me when Toni Morrison begins her novel The Bluest Eye with a narrative from a Dick and Jane reading primer. Morrison repeats the story three times consecutively, the second time without punctuation, and the third time without spacing. In the second narrative form, only the first letter “Here is the house” becomes capitalized, and then following, none of the words are capitalized after that, and it lacks any sort of punctuation. The third narrative form, begins with the same capitalization, but then leaves no spacing in between any of the words, creating a jumbled and chaotic paragraph of letters, “willplaywithjanetheywillplayagoodgameplayjaneplay”. As the Dick and Jane story becomes distorted by the lack of punctuation and spacing so does Pecola’s world. By presenting the Dick and Jane narratives in all three forms, Morrison chooses to question the why and how racism continues to disrupt and destruct the American society. We are able to see the strong desire in Pecola to be given blue eyes, and why she wants to possess qualities of the white Shirley Temple. Morrison also shows how Pecola and the rest of the Breedlove family is affected and hindered from growing individually and in society. Therefore, by knowing the “norm” of writing and “deviating” away from it, Morrison can create her language of meaning.

Plato v. Emerson

In the “Introduction” of Classical Literary Criticism, Penelope Murray states that the poets Aeschylus and Euripides “assume a direct connection between literature and life” (xix). Plato agrees as well on “the crucial importance of role models in literature, and the question of how far people’s behaviour is influenced by the depictions of art” (xix). In connecting this to the transcendental philosophy by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay Nature, he discusses the important role nature plays in understanding the “soul”. In “Chapter 1: Nature”, Emerson states, “The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are always inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence”. Even though Emerson is referring to nature and its ability to influence the mind, I wanted to connect this idea back to poetry or art. I think that every person that is listening or viewing an art form such as poetry can only be influenced by it when allowing the piece agency. Therefore, the power is in the individual to make the “connection between literature and life”. They cannot gather that the listener of great poetry will make this connection. They cannot suppose that all listeners are open to their influence. The transcendentalists would also argue with Plato in that emotions should be monitored and controlled by reason, so that they are not harmful. Transcendentalists like Emerson believed that the truth lied in our inner conscious, instead of relying on emotions that come after our intuition. They believed that the basic and most useful truths lies beyond the information and wisdom we gain through our senses. Intuition, which Emerson called the “highest power of the Soul,” is a power that “never reasons, never proves, it simply perceives…” I would have to argue with Plato as well, because I think that it is beneficial to “arouse emotion” through poetry. I believe that the beauty of art to be able to imitate nature in order to spark emotion into each individual. It allows not only for the individual to feel certain emotions, but possibly connect those messages to their lives. That is not to say that each person will be swayed towards the poet’s view. I think Plato needs to give more credit to the individual, and recognize that each person will understand that it is an imitation of life, and that they will give agency to where they choose to give it to. In this case, it comes down to perception, how each individual views the literature and the state of mind they are in when they are taking the literature in.