Frankenstein
It seems natural to think about novels in terms of dreams. Like dreams, novels are fictions, inventions of the mind that, although based on reality, are by definition not literally true. Like a novel, a dream may have some truth to tell, but, like a novel, it may need to be interpreted before that truth can be grasped.
There are other reasons why an analogy between dreams and novels seems natural. We can live vicariously through romantic fictions, much as we can through daydreams. Terrifying novels and nightmares affect us in much the same way, plunging us into an atmosphere that continues to cling, even after the last chapter has been read--or the alarm clock has sounded. Thus it is not surprising to hear someone say that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is "like a dream." It describes dreams, it frightens Iike a nightmare, and it is a structure that allows author and reader to explore wishes, fears, and fantasies.
The notion that dreams allow such psychic explorations, of course, like the analogy between literary works and dreams, owes a great deal to the thinking of Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian psychoanalyst who in 1900 published a seminal essay, The Interpretation of Dreams. But is the reader who calls Frankenstein a nightmarish tale a Freudian literary critic? And is it even valid to apply concepts advanced in 1900 to a novel written in the first half of the nineteenth century?
To some extent the answer to the first question has to be yes. Freud is one of the reasons it seems "natural" to think of literary works in terms of dreams. We are all Freudians, really, whether or not we have read anything by Freud. At one time or another, most of us have referred to ego, libido, complexes, unconscious desires, and sexual repression. The premises of Freud's thought have changed the way the Western world thinks about itself. To a lesser extent, we are all psychoanalytic interpreters as well. Psychoanalytic criticism has influenced the teachers our teachers learned
There are other reasons why an analogy between dreams and novels seems natural. We can live vicariously through romantic fictions, much as we can through daydreams. Terrifying novels and nightmares affect us in much the same way, plunging us into an atmosphere that continues to cling, even after the last chapter has been read--or the alarm clock has sounded. Thus it is not surprising to hear someone say that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is "like a dream." It describes dreams, it frightens Iike a nightmare, and it is a structure that allows author and reader to explore wishes, fears, and fantasies.
The notion that dreams allow such psychic explorations, of course, like the analogy between literary works and dreams, owes a great deal to the thinking of Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian psychoanalyst who in 1900 published a seminal essay, The Interpretation of Dreams. But is the reader who calls Frankenstein a nightmarish tale a Freudian literary critic? And is it even valid to apply concepts advanced in 1900 to a novel written in the first half of the nineteenth century?
To some extent the answer to the first question has to be yes. Freud is one of the reasons it seems "natural" to think of literary works in terms of dreams. We are all Freudians, really, whether or not we have read anything by Freud. At one time or another, most of us have referred to ego, libido, complexes, unconscious desires, and sexual repression. The premises of Freud's thought have changed the way the Western world thinks about itself. To a lesser extent, we are all psychoanalytic interpreters as well. Psychoanalytic criticism has influenced the teachers our teachers learned