Fathers and Mothers in Literature, Pages 309-325Henk Hillenaar, Walter Schönau Who of us, as a child, has not dreamed of having other parents: a gentler mother, a kinder or stronger father, a more illustrious family? According to our secret dreams, were not most of us born sons or daughters of a king, a president, a champion? Freud termed this the Family Romance. We all carry these secret scenarios in ourselves. Usually they are long forgotten but nevertheless remain alive in the stories we tell ourselves and relate to others. Therefore the Family Romance is one of the keys to the understanding of literature. The French literary critic Marthe Robert developed in an original way this simple but fundamental theory of Freud. In 1972 she presented in her now famous publication Origins of the Novel a new method to analyse the novel and to understand its history. Her study offers such a convincing and lively proof of the relevance of Freud's views that it still invites us to expand on its ideas and suggestions, to elaborate, develop and, if necessary, correct them. It is in this perspective that the authors of this volume write about the historical and mythical figures Mary, Medea, Electra, Kaspar Hauser and Sir Gawain. Other articles are devoted to the Family Romance in the works of the following authors: Barthes, Beckett, Camus, Drieu la Rochelle, Faulkner, Flaubert, Goethe, Claire Goll, Gombrowicz, Greene, Kafka, Lévy, Modiano, Petronius, Sartre, Vigny. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 28 | |
| 48 | |
The Exorcizing of Bad Objects | 66 |
An Integration Process in The Ministery of Fear | 85 |
A Failing Mouring Process in The Heart of the Matter | 100 |
Idealized Women | 113 |
The Double and the Twins | 130 |
The Pitfall of Role Playing | 162 |
The Haunting Paternal Imago | 176 |
The Laius Motif | 195 |
The Representation of God | 210 |
Bibliography | 237 |
Name Index | 253 |
Subject Index | 258 |
The Flight from Role Playing | 147 |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute bad aggression Allain Andrews Anna Anthony anxiety attitude bad object believe Bendrix Bomb Party Brighton Rock Brown Burnt-Out Captain Catholic Chapter characters child childhood Comedians confession countertransference death depressive position Doctor Fischer double dreams escape evil existence experience expressed external fantasy father feelings Fischer of Geneva formulated Fortnum Fowler Freud function girl Graham Greene Greene's fiction Greene's imaginary world Gun for Sale hate Honorary Consul human idealized object identification internal Jones Kate killed Laius later literary text London love object loyalty lust meaning Ministry of Fear Monsignor Quixote mother murder narcissistic narrative narrator novel offers personified Pinkie Plarr Potting Shed priest primitive protagonist Pyle Querry Quiet American relationship religious representation represented role playing Rowe Rumour at Nightfall Rycker Sarah Scobie Scobie's sexual splitting process Stamboul Train story structure superego symbolic theme twins unconscious mind unconscious phantasies Vietminh wanted wife Wormold writings
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