CHAPTER - II

Psychoanalytic Study: Meaning and Definition

Human beings are born dreamer and their dreams indicate towards their repressed

emotions. Literature cannot be imagined without dreams or imagination. Literary works are

fictions and the inventions of the great minds though these works are based on the

inspirations of real events happened somewhere in the society. Dreams indicate truth but

they must be interpreted correctly. Undoubtedly such type of psychic explanations of the

dreams are much related to the thinking of Sigmund Freud, the most famous Austrian

psychoanalyst who developed his theory which is followed by the most of the scholars of the

universe. Many elements of Psychology that Freud sought to explain can easily be seen in

literary works of various ages and cultures, from Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (429 BC) to

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599-1602). However, literature can be appreciated on a

new level if we understand human psychology.

Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in Moravian Hamlet of Freiberg. Presently

this place is known as Pribor in the Czech Republic. Born as Sigismund Freud in an affluent

Jewish family his name was changed as Sigmund Freud in the age of twenty two. Being an

intelligent and devoted to study, Freud got the best treatment and good support from his

parents. Among six siblings, he was the only child who got a personal room for study. He

preferred to study alone in the room for long time and pondered on different mentality of

different people and concentrated on very common and unnoticeable activities. Throughout

his life Freud continued to excel in his studies and graduated in 1873 and went on to study

medicine at Vienna University. Having completed his doctoral degree in medicine at Vienna
 28

University in 1881, he set up neuropsychiatry practice. He was appointed as a professor at

Vienna University in 1902 and formed the Psychoanalytic Society.

Freud had been addicted to smoking cigars throughout his entire life. He was

diagnosed with mouth and jaw cancer. He had to undergo several surgeries for the treatment

of his cancer. The last phase of his life was very productive as by writing several books and

giving the best treatment to his patients, he reached to the crest of popularity. Finally, he

died of mouth and jaw cancer on September 23, 1939.

Sigmund Freud, one of the most famous figures of twentieth century, has published

more than 320 different, essays, books and articles. Studies On Hysteria (1895), The

Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905), On

Narcissism (1914), Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1917), Beyond the Pleasure Principle

(1920), The Ego and the Id (1923), The Future of an Illusion (1927) and Civilization and its

Discontents (1930) are some of his most influential books.

Sigmund Freud analyzed human mind minutely and assiduously better than any other

psychologists. It was Freud who used the term psychoanalysis first time in 1896 hence he is

known as the father of psychoanalysis, a theory which explains human demeanor and also

the method of dealing with psychic illness. Freud’s psychoanalysis is the best cure based on

patients’ open talk. Freud always allowed the patents to talk freely so that their symptoms

might be construed explicitly what is, in real, in their mind.

“Psychoanalysis was thus a strange kind of conversation. The patient would

be speaking on a couch to a listener they couldn't see, following the associative

threads of their discourse, however meaningless or random they seemed. Where

many other therapies offered a straight face-to-face chat, with advice and guidance,
 29

here was something else. Analysis didn't even claim to offer cure or happiness.

Freud compared it with a train ticket - an access to the unconscious - which we can

either use or discard.”(The Guardian Mar 07, 2009 Freud-Jung)

Sigmund Freud, the most popular Austrian neurologist is the inventor of

psychoanalysis that is a clinic method for treating psychopathology through an open and free

conversation between a psychoanalyst and the patient. Freud has established therapeutic

techniques in generating psychoanalysis and confirmed its central role in the analytic

process. In the span of 83 years Freud has founded a huge empire in the field of psychiatry

by introducing new techniques and unique terms that are now commonly used in our day to

day life. Freud formulated the Oedipus complex as the fundamental assumption of

psychoanalytical theory. He has focused very minutely to the subtle activities of conscious

or unconscious mind. He interpreted the dreams as wish fulfillments that bestowed him with

the models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the latent mechanism of

repression. On this ground Freud amplified his theory of the unconscious and continued to

expand a model of psychic structure consisting id, ego and superego. He theorized the

existent of libido, the energy with which mental developments and texures are invested and

it produces erotic attachments i.e. hate, aggression, neurotic guilt and death drive, the source

of compulsive repetition. In his subsequent work Freud developed a wide ranging perception

and critique of religion and culture also.

Freud was the most eminent person in the field of human psychology in 20th century.

Besides the field of psychology he has the same influence in art, literature and even in day to

day practical life i.e. the way people breed their children and cause and effects of breeding

on children’s life. He explored all steps of human life affected by upbringing of parents,
 30

behaviour of family, society and the milieu where they grow. Specific terms for specific

stages like oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital were invented by Freud and today these

terms have been common to all. Undoubtedly his theory has become very popular and

common to day to day life in this age. Words introduced by him like denial, repression,

libido, cathartic, Freudian slip and neurotic are commonly used by most of us in everyday

life.

Freud developed a graphical miniature of human mind interpreting its structure and

functions. He described the three level of mind known as conscious, preconscious, and

unconscious. According to Freud unconsciousness is the most important part to be studied to

know the root cause of behaviour as it governs the attitude to a larger extent. Undeniably the

main objective of psychoanalysis is to peruse unconsciousness thoroughly and to make the

unconscious conscious.

Psychoanalytic theory by Sigmund Freud argues that human demeanor is the outcome

of the synergy of three components of mind known as Id, Ego, and Superego. The id is the

seat of desire and instinct and it is completely unconscious. It is the most primitive structure,

operated on pleasure principle, functions unconsciously, and seeks indiscriminant

gratification instantly. It is composed of biological and instinctual drives and a source of

mental energy that’s why it obeys the pleasure principle i.e. only the pleasure is good and

nothing matters. Therefore, the person under the effect of id thinks nothing except gratifying

his passions and returning physique to homeostasis. Freudian psychology says that it is a

basic human tendency to get pleasure and avoid all pains. This pleasure principle is

generally compared to the demands of children who seek instant gratification without

considering the social and moral issues. “Freud believed that, as babies, all our behaviour is
 31

ruled by the id, because this is where our basic survival instincts are located, and where our

desire for pleasure-seeking comes from. As we get older, our ego develops and is shaped by

influences in our environment.” (The Guardian Mar 07, 2009 ego-superego)

The ego, less primitive, based on the reality principle, performs in fractional

consciousness, and adjusts the id by gratifyng strong desires only in suitable time and

conditions. The ego begins as an undifferentiated psychic structure and it develops as a

structure separate from id. This separation derives from early discouragements or letdowns

when one’s passions are not accomplished. The ego, being conscious, is organized, rational

and reality oriented system that holds id in check until the desired and suitable object is

achieved. It helps id in achieving the gratification within the confines of reality. Now the

mind has the understanding of external world and its reality so it always obeys the reality

principle and tries to achieve its gratifications within a limit. The reality principle forces us

to consider the risks, requirements and all positive and negative consequences of the

decisions. The ego does not strive to repress the id completely but it calculates whether the

decision for gratification is justified or not. Thus, the reality principle operated by ego is

juxtaposed to the pleasure principle.

The superego, known as the most important framwork of modern structure, is credited

on moral principle and functions consciously. It regulates the id based that is based on social

learning and etiquettes. The superego is the intrinsic of a personality consisted of

internalized ideal traits that a person learns or achieves from his parents or the society. It

strives to repress the strong desires of id and tries to compel the ego to behave morally rather

than realistically. Derived by moral principle the superego strives for protection and a

dignified place in the society. The place, status or dignity what a man achieves in the society
 32

is decided by the ego’s ideals. The superego is developed through the rewards and

punishments, a man gets in the family or society or the ways how he learns the morals.

Freud clarifies that id, ego and superego must be clear to a person. If these

components conflict to one another and if the person is unable to understand which type of

thoughts are clogging the normal brain activities, there is a great tension, disturbance and

emotional problems. In such case to reduce tension or anxiety a person should use defense

mechanisms which help the person to understand the situation and reduce anxiety otherwise

the person will be under a great stress that can develop fatal mental illness which,

sometimes, kills the patient. Usually the patient is unaware which phase of defense

mechanism he is facing. Only the psychologists or the psychiatrists can perceive the

situation of the patient. This type of complication can be diagnosed only by observation or

knowing the actual views of the patient. That is why Freud always permitted his patients to

talk candidly on any topic or phase he liked to discuss without any obstruction. This is only

the way a psychoanalyst can peep into the mind of the patients and notice the genuine

problem and its reasons and effects on the patients’ personality and the possible solutions for

the same.

Defense mechanism contains displacement, rationalization, reaction formation,

regression, repression, and denial. Displacement is the phase in which the patient has

repressed feelings, generally of enmity or aggression on things that is less dangerous

comparatively to the emotions aroused initially. Thus, a person displaces his anger on

things. In rationalization a person tries to justify his failures according to the norms that are

acceptable in the society instead of the palpable causes. Reaction formation transforms the

worries by cultivating the opposite thoughts in consciousness i.e. the contradiction is found
 33

in the person’s behaviour shown to others and the real feelings he has for them. Regression

is the phase in which a person returns to more primitive levels of behaviour from where he

has already escaped. In the span of time or some major changes in life one’s old memories

captures him/her strongly and the person mentally returns to early state and behaves as if

he/she were in the same state. Repression is the state in which a person subdues his

threatening memory from the consciousness. It is a psychological endeavor made by any

individual to direct his/her own feelings toward pleasurable instincts by excluding his/her

desires from the consciousness and holding it in unconscious. Denial is the phase in which

an individual cannot accept the reality due to its being unpleasant. It is very difficult to

decimate the firm image one has created in one’s mind. Denial refuses to accept something

that is unpleasant and a taboo emotion in one’s experiences.

Freud’s psychology studies the unconscious mind, which manipulates projection,

intellectualization, isolation, repression, deracination, rejection, or reaction formations to

cover or disguise the thoughts and emotions that the conscious mind declines to receive. His

skeletal philosophy sets up great attention on the function of unconscious psychological

clashes in creating personality and behaviour. Freud’s ideas are most preeminent for

criticism and especially to this study, due to his main concentration on sexuality that is

considered the principal driver of human personality development.

“The world of the unconscious isn't nice. It's all about the sexuality and

violence directed to those closest to us. These thoughts are unbearable, so we repress

them. But repression is nearly always incomplete: the repressed returns in slips of

the tongue, dreams and symptoms. By taking these strange phenomena seriously, we
 34

can be led back to our unconscious desires.”(The Guardian Mar 07, 2009 Freud-

Jung)

Freud has categorized the development of human age through psychosexual stages.

According to Freud psychosexual psychology works from day one in the life of everyone.

Freud believes that personality is developed by a number of childhood stages in which the

energy that seeks the gratifications of id is mainly focused. This psychosexual energy, or

libido, has been construed as the propulsive force behind one’s behavior. There are several

pleasures to be gratified in every stage of life and these gratifications must be balanced

properly, time to time. In case the child is not treated well and helped in fulfilling his/her

desires in the concerned age, his/her psychology alters which results into several uncommon

habits or abnormal behaviour. There are specific pleasures and habits to be dealt in the

specific stages of life so that a child may develop into a normal adult having a good

mentality according to our social norms. Due to ill treatment because of not having proper

knowledge of children’s psychology a child grows into an abnormal adult and becomes a

victim of many psychological diseases.

Freud classifies the human life into five psychosexual stages- oral, anal, phallic,

latency and genital. Oral is the initial and the first stage of psychosexual cycle covering the

age from birth to one year. In this stage, the pleasure is centered in and on the mouth.

Feeding, thumb sucking and babbling are the most important activities through which the

infant achieves gratification. That’s why the infant puts and keeps everything in his/her

mouth to derive pleasure through oral stimulation. The infant is completely dependent on its

parents or the caretaker (mainly accountable for nourishment), the infant cultivates a sense

of trust on the caretaker. The main struggle in this stage is detaching procedure. The infant
 35

must be less dependent on the caretaker otherwise fixation will be developed in the infant. In

case of fixation the individual will have the issues of dependency and aggression. Thus oral

fixation can result into addictions like eating, drinking, smoking and nail biting.

Anal is the second stage of psychosexual development covering the age of one to three

years of the child. In this stage the child focuses on the controlling of bowel and bladder

movements for the toilet procedures. In this stage the main conflict is regarding the toilet

training-how a child should control his/her physical needs because it is one of the most

important and tender trainings provided to the child. A proper development in this training

leads to accomplishment and independence. According to Freud, it depends on parents how

they approach this training. The parents should balance and train the child properly by

appreciating and rewarding for using the toilet properly and at the fixed or suitable time. A

successful and balanced toilet training makes the child competent, productive and creative.

In case parents being too harsh or too lenient the child is fixated with stringent, rigid,

obsessive or destructive personality.

Phallic is the third stage of Freud’s psychosexual development covering the age from

three to seven. In this age the child realizes the difference between male and female and

becomes conscious about sexuality. According Freud the theory of Oedipus complex and

Electra complex develops in the mind of children in this stage but due to fear of parents the

children repress their emotion under the effect of ego. If the child is preached according to

social norms treated sympathetically, he develops into a balanced and ideal personality.

Latency, the fourth stage of Freud’s psychosexual development, covering the age from

seven to eleven, is considered to be one of the most important and delicate stage of one’s

life. Along with ego, superego also develops at this stage as this is the stage when the child
 36

starts to go to school where he/she continues his/her development through peer relationship,

hobbies and interests. In the latent period sexual energy exists but it is transferred to other

aspects like intellectual quest or social interactions. This is one of the most important stages

for the growth of social synergy, communication skills and self-confidence.

Genital is the final stage of psychosexual development, covering the age from eleven

to adult or from puberty to death. It is the most responsible stage for the development in

one’s personality under the effect of superego. In this stage, the individual has a strong

interest in opposite sex but now shaking off old dependencies, the adolescent learns how to

deal maturity with opposite sex. In previous stages the main concentration was on one’s own

needs and self-interests but in this stage the person develops the feelings for others’ welfare

and social activities. If early stages are accomplished successfully, the person develops into

a warm, well-balanced and caring personality.

“Freud formulated the idea that many neuroses originated in traumatic

experiences that had occurred in the past and, too painful to be lived with, had

remained hidden from our conscious selves. He concluded that there was an

unconscious wherein resided a huge amount of information about ourselves that, if

brought to light, would relieve us of our mental distress. The rest is history.”(The

New York Times Aug 10, 2014)

George Prochnic writes in his article ‘The Curious Conundrum of Freud’s Persistent

Influence’ in The New York Times on Aug 14, 2017

“ … our behaviors, language, dreams and fantasies; that we can sometimes

be consumed by our childhood familial roles and even find ourselves re-enacting

them as adults; that our sexuality might be as ambiguous and multifaceted as our
 37

compendious emotional beings and individual histories — these core conceits, in the

forms they circulate among us, are indebted to Freud’s writings. Now that we’ve

effectively expelled Freud from the therapeutic clinic, have we become less

neurotic? With that baneful “illusion” gone, and with all our psychopharmaceuticals

and empirically grounded cognitive therapy techniques firmly in place, can we assert

that we’ve advanced toward some more rational state of mental health than that

enjoyed by our forebears in the heyday of analysis? Indeed, with a commander in

chief who often seems to act entirely out of the depths of a dark unconscious, we

might all do better to read more, not less, of Freud.”(The New York Times Aug

14, 2017)

Like Freud and Erikson Jung delved into the psyche as three interacting components-

the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. According to Jung the

ego is broadly accountable for feelings of identity and persistence as this is the ego that

depicts the conscious mind and it subsists of the thoughts, feelings, logics, and memories.

Like Freud Jung asserted the relevance of unconsciousness in relation to personality but he

categorized the unconscious into two components- one is personal unconscious while the

other is collective unconscious. Collective unconscious is also known as transpersonal

unconscious. Jung’s personal unconscious is similar to Freud’s version of the

unconsciousness- forgotten information and repressed memories while complex unconscious

is different from Freud’s as it contains latent memories from ancestral and evolutionary past.

Jung’s work also contributed to mainstream psychology but his theory could not be as

famous and familiar as Freud’s because there was a little ambiguity and esoteric in his ideas

that’s why they could not be interpreted clearly. Moreover, Jung became more philosopher

than psychologist.
 38

Jung had been a very innovative, good follower and fast friend of Freud though this

friendship did not last longer due to variation in assumptions. Theoretical differences made

their friendship and collaboration reach to the separation and Jung developed a new theory

named Analytical Psychology. In spite of it Jung had a very good impact of Freud as he

himself describes initial impression of Freud as “… extremely intelligent, shrewd and

altogether remarkable.” ([Link])

Freud always wished to have a good relation with Jung due to Jung’s innovation and

keen interest in psychology. Freud describes Jung as “heir”, “my successor and “crown

prince”, and even as “spirit of my spirit”. “Freud became a father figure to Jung as if their

relationship were its own psychological case study.”([Link])

Psychoanalysis became so important that it became the indifferent part of culture and

life and the psycho-analyst seemed to be a detective for whom it was a great challenge to

find out the missing thing in the patient. In spite of all this Freud observed that things were

barely so smooth. “Human beings tend to cling to their symptoms and suffering and are

usually loth to give them up. There is a powerful pull to self-destruction, a kind of

masochism and pleasure in pain that Freud called the ‘death drive’.”(The Guardian Mar 07,

2009 Freud-Jung) While Jacques Lacan, a very famous French psychoanalyst strongly

believes that the unconsciousness “was created through speech, the words that are imposed

on us in our childhood. We act out scripts without knowing it, while at the same time a

crucial area of our mental life is governed by an unrepresentable and unbearable domain that

we only ever encounter fleetingly: in a nightmare, a panic attack or a hallucination.”(The

Guardian Mar 07, 2009 Freud-Jung)

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Recently there was a debate on the ‘Freud Museum’ in London in which a very

prominent neuropsychiatrist named Richard Kannan and Stephanie Howlett, a

psychotherapist participated and argued intensely about the symptom and treatment of

trauma in the light of Freudian theory. Representing Freud as an eminent personality

Richard Kannan says, “If Freud had referred to PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) rather

than hysteria, he would now be remembered as a pioneering hero.”(The Guardian Nov 30,

2015)

Trauma is a severe shock or serious body injury. Cathy Caruth describes trauma as “a

wound inflicted not upon the body but upon the mind.” (Caruth 3) Sometimes it is physical

bruise; trauma is a deep emotional wound and unsolvable problem. Some physical wounds

can be healed in a span of time but emotional shocks may continue to linger forever.

Actually this psychic lesion is due to unbearable shock, torments especially psychological

torture.

Recently in April 2017 a conference on “Conference to focus on work of trauma

scholar Cathy Caruth” was organized in Cornell University. Linda B. Glaser, staff writer for

Arts and Sciences, has published an article in Cornell Chronicle on April 20, 2017 and

quoted some specific thoughts of the scholars. According to Jonathan Culler, the Professor

of English and Comparative Literature,

“Cathy Caruth was one of the first to realize the importance of trauma

theory for the humanities. Working closely with psychoanalysts and psychologists

to bring techniques of literary interpretation to bear on questions about the

meaning of survival, and the nature of witnessing, she edited two historically

important issues of American Imago on Psychoanalysis, Culture and Trauma.

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Exploring trauma as a model for thinking about relations between history and

experience, her books have made her a leader in this field which she partly

created.” (Cornell April 20, 2017)

Cathy Caruth, born in 1955, is Frank H T Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters at

Cornell University and is appointed in the departments of English and Contemporary

Literature. She has taught at Yale University and at Emory University. She got her Ph.D.

from Yale University in 1988 and has authored several eminent books. Empirical Truths and

Critical Fictions: Locke, Wordsworth, Kant, Freud (Johns Hopkins UP, 1991), Unclaimed

Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History (Johns Hopkins UP, 1996), Literature in the

Ashes of History (Johns Hopkins UP, 2013) and Listening to Trauma: Conversations with

Leaders in the Theory and Treatment of Catastrophic Experience (Johns Hopkins UP,

forthcoming 2014) are her some major books. She is also editor of Trauma: Explorations in

Memory (Johns Hopkins UP, 1995)

“….trauma seems to be much more than a pathology, or the simple illness of a

wounded psyche: it is always the story of a wound that cries out, that addresses us in

the attempt to tell us of a reality or truth that is not otherwise available. This truth, in

its delayed appearance and its belated address, cannot be linked only to what is

known, but also to what remains unknown in our very actions and our language.”

(Caruth 4)

It is the importance and interest of Cathy’s Trauma theory that attracted the

versatile scholars from different field i.e. law, cinema, theology, philosophy,

historiography, translation studies and literature. Even Amy Ziering, a documentary

 41

filmmaker and a former student of Caruth, delivered the opening lecture and her film

“The Hunting Ground” was screened at Cornell Cinema during the conference.

“Unclaimed Experience is a splendid work, written with admirable clarity,

power, and economy. The book has importance for a number of different fields: for

psychoanalysis, for trauma theory or theory of 'post-traumatic stress disorder,' for

literary study, for literary theory, for cultural and historical studies, and for ethical

theory. Each chapter is a classic essay on its topic."(Miller, [Link])

Cathy Caruth, in Unclaimed Experience, delves into the techniques in which literary

theory and the content of psychoanalysis and literature study the profound story of traumatic

experience. She neither depicts simple and substantial case studies of trauma survivors nor

elucidates the psychiatry of trauma directly. She analyses the complex and complicated

ways of trauma. Her main motive is to explore a different story in the texts of all eminent

scholars. Cathy writes,

“I attempt not just to follow each author’s argument in its explicit reference to

traumatic experience (Freud’s theory of trauma as outlined in Beyond the Pleasure

Principle and Moses and Monotheism, the notion of reference and the figure of the

falling body in de Man, Kleist, and Kant, the mutual narratives of personal

catastrophe in Duras and Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour, Lacan’s rethinking of

trauma in his interpretation of Freud’s texts)” (Caruth 5)

Cathy Caruth is very popular and an eminent figure for the literary scholars as well as

distinguished personalities related to the field of psychology. It is her constant and deep

study with the innovative idea that has made her reach to the crest of popularity. Robert Jay

Lifton writes, "Cathy Caruth has emerged as one of our most innovative scholars on what
 42

we call trauma, and on our ways of perceiving and conceptualizing that still mysterious

phenomenon." (Lifton, [Link])

Trauma is not defined in some limited words by any scholar though they have defined

it in several ways. During a few decades the physicians and psychiatrists have started to

develop their mentality about physical and mental experiences like rape, child abuse and

industrial accidents etc. These symptoms are considered as the terms Post-Traumatic Stress

Disorder or PTSD. This specific term was named by the American Psychiatric Association

1980. Previously it was known by the name of shell shock, combat neurosis, or traumatic

neurosis. It “reflects the direct imposition on the mind of the unavoidable reality of horrific

events, the taking over of the mind, psychically and neurobiologically, by an event that it

cannot control. As such, PTSD seems to provide the most direct link between the psyche and

external violence and to be the most destructive psychic disorder. The study intends to argue

that trauma is not simply an effect of destruction but also, fundamentally, an enigma of

survival” (Caruth 58) Cathy Caruth generalizes the definition of trauma with more clarity as

“trauma describes an overwhelming experience of sudden or catastrophic events in which

the response to the event occurs in the often delayed, uncontrolled repetitive appearance of

hallucinations and other intrusive phenomena.” (Caruth 11)

Trauma is not in the form of sores on the body but more than that it is related to mind.

Physical injuries can be observed but mental fear, insecurity and uncertainty not.

“Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is

alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly

bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes,

 43

they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of

what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.” (Kolk 97)

Trauma is the unconscious process in which the outside enters or hits inside without

any meditation. It is a psychic disorder that materializes to echo the inevitable and

devastating intrusion of factual events on the psyche. Trauma is the shock that seems to

work strongly like a corporeal intimidation or warning but is literally a hiatus in the mind’s

experience of time. There is an unconscious chain of repetitive horrible thoughts that goes

on continuously in the mind. Freud speculates that origins of consciousness can, in fact, be

realized as an endeavor to grab the antithetical relation between survival and consciousness.

In Beyond the Pleasure Principle Freud eventually claims that “it is traumatic repetition,

rather than the meaningful distortions of neurosis, that defines the shape of individual lives.

Beginning with the example of the accident neurosis as a means of explaining individual

histories, Beyond the Pleasure Principle ultimately asks what it would mean to understand

history as the history of a trauma.” (Caruth 59-60)

Cathy Caruth generalizes the meaning of trauma and defnes it as “the response to an

unexpected or overwhelming violent event or events that are not fully grasped as they occur,

but return later in repeated flashbacks, nightmares, and other repetitive phenomena.

Traumatic experience, beyond the psychological dimension of suffering it involves, suggests

a certain paradox: that the most direct seeing of a violent event may occur as an absolute

inability to know it; that immediacy, paradoxically, may take the form of belatedness. The

repetitions of the traumatic event—which remain unavailable to consciousness but intrude

repeatedly on sight—” (Caruth 91-92)

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Toni Morrison is the perfect novelist to be studied with the complex matrix of

psychoanalysis as in her novels most of the characters are psychologically mutilated up to an

intolerable limit. Their torture is too severe to be tolerated. Their body can be healed but

their mind could never be. That’s why most of her characters are mentally distorted; slightly

or completely because this torment has engraved a deep impact on their psyche- consciously

or unconsciously. This is the psychic trauma that has made them autistic. If racism is known

as one of the responsible factors for their torments, psychological factors are not second to

any major factors. Most of the characters in Toni Morrison’s novels are neither treated well,

nor nurtured properly and the majority of her characters have faced very abnormal

psychosexual stages. Due to not getting proper pamper, care, training, and analogous

demeanor in their turf, most of the children’s or adults’ thoughts are perverted and they are

contemptible in the society. This is the misdemeanor that pumps a clogging in the gentle

minds of the victims and they become perverted or accomplices that’s why their outlook for

the family or society alters completely.

(*****)
 45

References


Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. The John

Hopkins UP, 1996. Print.


[Link]

[Link]

Photobiography/[Link].

[Link]

behaviour-unconscious.

[Link]

caruth

[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

unconscious-theories

[Link]

freud.

Kolk, Bessel A. van der. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain Mind and Body in the

Healing of Trauma, Penguin Books. 2015. Print.


Lifton, Robert Jay. MD, author of Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima.

[Link]
 46


Miller, J. Hillis. University of California, Irvine, author of The Conflagration of

Community: Fiction Before and After Auschwitz.

[Link]

.(*****)