Post modern psychoanalytical criticism
As an instructor in literature, I've noticed a fairly new and unsettling trend in the analysis of literature which I believe says something about our society as a whole. I'll try to keep this free of jargon so that it's not just for us lit-geeks.
Let me tell you how I became aware of this. Though I noticed it in previous classes that I've taught, it has become more readilly apparent in the class I'm teaching now. And it goes a little something like this.
We read A New England Nun--Louisa is obviously obsessive compulsive. We read Bartleby, The Scrivener--Bartleby is obviously suffering from one of numerous anti-social disorders coupled with adult ADHD. A Hunger Artist? Anorexia Nervosa. Paul's Case? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by child abuse and/or molestation. Bliss? Alcoholism. The Yellow Wallpaper? Post partum depression. To Room Nineteen? Bi-Polar Manic Depressive.
It would seem that whatever character my students look at, there is a clinical term for what is wrong with them, and in many cases, medication that can be prescribed. None of the characters are worthy of more consideration because these have ceased to be stories about the human condition and have become, instead, case studies in illnesses that we are now able to identify. The students themselves can identify these illnesses but they can never identify with the characters and so the discussions go something like this:
student 1: I think Louisa has obsessive compulsive disorder
student 2: Yep
student 3: Yep
student 4: Yeah, see right here on page 214. That's obsessive compulsive disorder.
student 5: Yep.
Has it really become this bad that no matter what your personality is, it is a condition. I realize that this is the post-modern ethic at hand--there is no truth, only textures of acceptance. But here's a problem. These stories are not about various mental illnesses and/or psychosis. They are not about which pill the characters should get from their pharmacists. They are about human beings and what it means to be human, but nobody ever has to go that far because evidentally now there's a pill for being human.
Let me tell you how I became aware of this. Though I noticed it in previous classes that I've taught, it has become more readilly apparent in the class I'm teaching now. And it goes a little something like this.
We read A New England Nun--Louisa is obviously obsessive compulsive. We read Bartleby, The Scrivener--Bartleby is obviously suffering from one of numerous anti-social disorders coupled with adult ADHD. A Hunger Artist? Anorexia Nervosa. Paul's Case? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by child abuse and/or molestation. Bliss? Alcoholism. The Yellow Wallpaper? Post partum depression. To Room Nineteen? Bi-Polar Manic Depressive.
It would seem that whatever character my students look at, there is a clinical term for what is wrong with them, and in many cases, medication that can be prescribed. None of the characters are worthy of more consideration because these have ceased to be stories about the human condition and have become, instead, case studies in illnesses that we are now able to identify. The students themselves can identify these illnesses but they can never identify with the characters and so the discussions go something like this:
student 1: I think Louisa has obsessive compulsive disorder
student 2: Yep
student 3: Yep
student 4: Yeah, see right here on page 214. That's obsessive compulsive disorder.
student 5: Yep.
Has it really become this bad that no matter what your personality is, it is a condition. I realize that this is the post-modern ethic at hand--there is no truth, only textures of acceptance. But here's a problem. These stories are not about various mental illnesses and/or psychosis. They are not about which pill the characters should get from their pharmacists. They are about human beings and what it means to be human, but nobody ever has to go that far because evidentally now there's a pill for being human.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
10:38 AM
2 Comments:
Why fight this trend? After all, students seem to have become expert in their assessment of characters' inner machinery. I'm reminded of Freud's "An Outline of Psycho-Analysis," a small volume written shortly before the author's death, in which he points to the limitations of psychoanalysis, saying, "the future may teach us to exercise a direct influence, by means of particular chemical substances, on the amounts of energy and their distribution in the mental apparatus."
Well, we're now living that future. Don't bother to fight it, Monstro. If you do, we'll normalize you with some good 'ol Alprazolam. Instead, I think you should work with me to amend our literature to shift it's cruxes toward our new interpretive centers. For example, notice how flat this line of Beckett sounds under your older, "human" reading:
"You're on Earth, there's no cure for that!"
Snore! Now, let's shift it toward our new interpretive center:
"Doctor, I'm on Earth. How can you adjust my med levels?"
See how that opens the text up to class discussion? Students can theorize, or even give suggestions based on their own med levels. We've made the text current.
This currency doesn't make any of our discussion less complex; rather, we have the chemical complexity of the mind to deal with. The correct combination of medications, in their correct levels, is as difficult to arrive at as an understanding of that phoney construct, "the human condition."
Forget that unnecessary commodius vicus of recirculation and get pragmatic, man. And if you absolutely can't forget it, get yourself some shock therapy: it's back in vogue.
Because I don't have a Blogger account, I wanted to let you know I'm Dana Huff from http://www.planethuff.com/dana/.
Now that introduction are out of the way, I posit the notion that we can't help but psychoanalyze characters this way. I have OCD, and the fact is, Louisa does exhibit symptoms of it. Freud wrote more papers about OCD than any other mental illness. It's interesting. All the mental illnesses cataloged in the DSM-IV have been around since the dawn of man. Why would an author not be aware of someone "like that," even if he/she didn't know what name to give to whatever "that" is and seek to replicate it in a character? By the way, I found your blog while looking for information about Louisa Ellis and OCD. I teach high school, and my students are about to write research papers. I thought I'd write one along with them so they could see how the process works and also get a sample project with all the pieces and steps involved readily accessible to them.
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