Psychoanalysis - Discussion Questions

1. How might the Oedipal complex be at play in Ellison’s allusions to Dante and Dostoevsky? (i.e. assume that the allusions betray some form of authorial neurosis)

2. Consider how the Lacanian notion of the misrecognition of identity through the narrator in The Invisible Man? And how might this psychological issue be directed at the author himself?

3.

How do repression, wish-fullfillment and allied psychic moves seem relevant to a reading of the Invisible Man's interactions with women? Can the narrator’s complicated relationships with Sybil be described in terms of repression, projection, or wish-fulfillment? How?

4. What are the four avenues in which Psychoanalysis can be brought into the analysis of literature (for Eagleton)?

5. How do the structure of the dream, the notion of dream-work, and 'secondary revision' in Freud's account lend themselves to descriptions of literature?

6. How does the idea of pleasure itself make psychological approaches to literature seem more promising?