The Unconscious in Literature: The Oedipus Complex, the Death Drive, and the Unsymbolic Void

This book aims to investigate the unconscious in literature using Freudian and Lacanian psychology to analyse the unconscious in a range of literary works. The works of Thomas Hardy, William Golding, and Iris Murdoch are discussed in the first chapter through eight. Based on the argument in these chapters, this volume considers the environmental problem by examining the unconscious in the literary texts, including poetry, in the light of philosophers and critics on ecology. There is a focus on the Oedipus complex, the death drive, and the unsymbolic void, as they have much relevance to each other in the unconscious as to one’s relationship with others, primarily with the mother, and underlie the plots and leitmotifs of the literary texts discussed. The author carefully examines the complicated relationship between the infringement of the pleasure principle, and the unsymbolic void, and how they are depicted as various phases of nature.

Yasunori Sugimura is Professor Emeritus at Otaru University of Commerce, receiving his Ph.D. from Tohoku University. He has published articles on Thomas Hardy, William Golding, and Iris Murdoch in major journals including The Modern Language Review, and has been a visiting scholar at Darwin College, University of Cambridge. His most recent publication includes ＂The Void and the Metaphors: A New Reading of William Golding’s Fiction＂ with Peter Lang.