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.