THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL 'Psycho-Analysis and Textual Production' being a Thesis submitted for the degreeof PbD. in the University of Hull by Donna Cox, B. A. (Wales), M. A. February 2000 This piece of writing is dedicatedtO mY parents with love. Rosalind Cox & Don Cox PREFACE Preface 'Psycho-Analysis and Textual Production' As its title suggests,this study is divided into two separatebut related parts. Each part of the thesis is then sub-divided into sections. Part I is evolutionary in nature, building its argument in a more linear and expository style than those sectionswhich comprise Part 11which stand in a more dialogical relation to each other and are self-sufficient in form. The title of the thesis usesthe term 'psycho-analysis' as it was first introducedby Freud with referenceto a systemic methodology. It should be noted that the 'textual production' to which I refer in the title should not suggesta Marxist-basedanalysis. Instead, it refers to the activation of the text in conjunction with its encounter with the reading subject. As such, it does not refer to the creation of an author, nor to the material production via institutions in the strict historical sense. It does,however, refer to a material affect of the signifier in its interpretative rendering by emphasizing its bodily interlinking with the imaginary of the reader in a scene which is analogous to that of hysterical symptomatology. Part I is entitled 'Psycho-Analysis' and consistsof three sectionswhich explore the beginnings of psychoanalysis,its main theories on hysteria and the relationship between Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud. The theoretical base of hysteria is consideredto be illuminating to analyses of critical proceduressuch as those employed in literary criticism. Part 11is entitled 'Textual Production' and is comprised of six sections of textual readings. These readings are presentedas discrete in themselvesyet of an interlocking character. This study of psycho-analysisand textual production has attemptedto examine the mechanismsof critical encounter in relation to the psychoanalytical text and the literary text. Theories offered by psycho-analysisformulated wkh reference to hysteria are consideredto offer an illuminating parallel to those processeswhich occur in critical practice. 2. CONTENTS Psycho-Analysis and Textual Production CONTENTS Introduction (6,233) Part 1: Psycho-Analysis 1. The Parameters of Interpretation: "[flulfilling the law of the pendulum" [Myths of birth of psychoanalysis,relationship between Breuer and Freud, feminist mis- representation.] (12,218) 2. The Hen and the Hawk: Breuer's 'Theoretical' contribution to Studies on Hvsteria (1895) and its influence on psycho-analytic theory [Recuperation of Breuer's theory, electrical analogy, textual reflexivity, theoretical metaphors,symptomatology, critical hysteria.] (18,392) 3. "In the new house she hallucinated her old room": Hysterical Topology and the Phantasy of Gender [Inhabitation of metaphor, biological ego, bodily image investment, hysterical symptomatology, 'Anna 02, feminist use of 'gender' as vocabulary incarceration.] (10,131) Part 11: Textual Production 4. "1 have no story to tell! ": Maternal Rage in Susan Hill's The Woman in Black [Ghosts, intertextuality, temporality, grief, hysterical narrator.] (7,464) 5. "Through a door": Retroactive Narrative in Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden [Ghosts, temporal and topological affects, hysterical character, mourning, depressive signifying position.] (6,784) 6. Negotiating Theories ofthe Feminine: Michele Roberts, In the Red Kitchen [Theory as story, ghosts,mourning, hysterical narrative, temporality/topology. ] (10,509) 7. In Signifying Chains: Pauline Wage's Story of 0 [Chains of signification and textual enslavement, bodily map, submission to textual mastery, movement in topology of T in responseto reiterated replay of subjection that is subjection.] (5,666) 8. Visions and Prayers: Linguistic Incarnation and Performative Paradigm. Dylan Thomas, 'Vision and Prayer' [Linguistic incarnation, performativity, virtual textual space, fetish of authorial myth, hysterical critical position.] (5,580) 9. Diana: Her True Sto : Post-Modern Transgressions in Identity ' [Questions of true story, post-modernismand identity subversion, investment in narrative structure of 'F, hysterical outpouring of 'true lies' of fiction, mourning for the lost text.] (9,404) Notes Afterwords (1,566) [Total word count: 93,947] I. INTRODUCTION 'Psycho-An*sis and Textual Production' INTRODUCTION As its title suggests,this study is divided into two separatebut related parts. Each part of the thesis is then sub-divided into sections. Part I is evolutionary in nature, building its argument in a more linear and expository style than those sectionswhich comprise Part 11which stand in a more dialogical relation to eachother and are self-sufficient in form. The title of the thesis uses the term 'psycho-analysis' as it was first introduced by Freud with referenceto a systemic methodology.' Its hyphenatedform here draws attention to the interest of the thesis in the historical evolution and aetiological beginnings of psychoanalysisas we now term it. In its divided form, it is also suggestive/redolentof the analysesand analytical proceduresdevised and employed by literary critical encounters. This thereby draws attention to the shared linguistic base of both disciplines and the active dimension of written and spoken textuality in both domains. At other times in the thesis, I employ the term 'psychoanalysis' to refer to the present-daydiscipline in its application. The collapsible nature of the earlier term into the later synthesis allows a distinction to be made between a system based upon linguistic distinction and its subsequent methodological application which has facilitated a new terminology and vocabulary establishedwithin its own domains. This transmutationtherefore might suggestthat any discipline is systemic to itself, allowing its thoughts and textual production to be shaped and determined by its own methodologies. It should be noted that the 'textual production' to which I refer in the title should not suggesta Marxist-basedanalysis. Instead,it refers to the activation of the text in conjunction with its encounterwith the reading subject which provides an arenaof virtual space. As such, it does not refer to the creation of ar-author, nor to the material production via institutions in the strict historical sense. It does, however, refer to a material affect of the signifier in its interpretative rendering by emphasizing its bodily interlinking with the imaginary of the reader in a scenewhich is analogousto that of hysterical symptomatology where the latent text finds its 'inscription' in the living flesh, a symbol made manifest in the body of the hysteric. In this way, it may be seen to link with the living history assumed by the reading/writing subject engagedin the signifying act for, according to Lacan, "[i]t is certainly the assumption of his history by the subject, in so far as it is constituted by the speech addressedto the other, that constitutes the ground of the new method that Freud called psychoanalysis"(Lacan: 1977,48). Part I: 'Psycho-Analysis' Part I consists of three sections which explore the beginnings of psychoanalysis, its main theories on hysteria and the relationship betweenJosef Breuer and Sigmund Freud. Texts of early psychoanalysisare examined in relation to theories formulated on hysteria. This is not a static or purely historical exploration but one which seeks to utilize concepts and negletted theoretical strata from Breuer and Freud's Studies on Hysteria (1895) to comment upon critical practice. Studieson Hysteria is given close attention in order to explore the theoretical baseof hysteria representedthere as one which may prove illuminating to analysesof critical procedures employed in the younger academic application of literary criticism. As the springboard of all later psychoanalyticaltheorization, the phenomenonof hysteria - precisely becauseit was not regardedas a clearly defined clinical entity by Breuer and Freud - must be understood as offering an aetiological cross-sectionof all subsequentlyclassified neuroses. More pertinent to the premise of this thesis, it also offers a clinical scenario of an intense serniotic encounter. Becausethe psychoanalyticaltexts selectedare of an early character in the history of psychoanalysis, through their discussion of the aetiology of hysteria the aetiology of psychoanalysisitself may be displayed. It is interesting to note the close attention paid to languagein the establishmentof psyclioanalytical theory and practice. It may be seento exist as an application of a systemof serniotics in which the lived affects of the signifying practices may be traced through the symptomatology with which it is presented. It is also through and by the same signifying practice that psychoanalysisoffers both its therapy and analysis. In other words, its therapeutic application is subject to the same linguistic mechanismsas the object of its scrutiny: its object is most manifestly its subject. The same observation may be maderegarding the critical encounterwith the literary or indeedany other text. The meansby which critical interpretation presents itself sharesthe same linguistic base and may use the samefigurations as the text with which it is engaging. It would seemtherefore that there is an argument for an hysterical splitting of scenesin both psychoanalysisand literary criticism. Historically,