Dissertation on Dreams
Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalysis Concerning Dreams in Literature
being an Independent Study submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
BA (HONOURS) ENGLISH AND CREATIVE WRITING
by
Eleanor Maslin
April 2020
Abstract
The Interpretation of Dreams is one of Sigmund Freud’s most esteemed works which explores dream-work to gain a sense of what is involved in the production of our dreams. This Independent Study applies Freud’s theory to the childhood literary texts, Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and the gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. By approaching literary dreams as similar to real dreams, it explores aspects such as wish fulfilment dreams, dream distortions and displacements which create disguised contents, and the dream depicted as a rebus. Freud’s dream of ‘Irma’s Injection’ features a very dominant role, serving as a comparative analysis of the literary texts to explore the clarity of dream-work. Jeffrey Mehlman is also sourced to explain the egotism of Freud’s dream analysis of Irma’s Injection, and how narrow this focus can be seen in some respects. Coraline and Alice in Wonderland are explored comparatively through the concept of children’s literature and the coming of age novel. Exploring Frankenstein mainly, it also delves into Freud’s theories on anxiety dreams, relating them to neurotic symptoms and repressed feelings, comparing the nature of both Freud and Frankenstein concerning their medical practices. Sexual symbolism presents Freud’s idea of the castration complex, and how that relates to the uncanny in dreams of the literary texts. ‘The Uncanny’ essay sheds light into causes of fear that arise in dreams, including how a dream can be depicted as uncanny itself. Elements of Jung’s criticisms and theory of archetypes from his text Dreams features to explore the literary texts. Several other theorists are used as secondary sources enabling the study to offer a wide view of Freud’s dream-work. A key theme throughout details the crossover of a wish fulfilment and an anxiety dream, how they come to merge despite their obvious differences.
Introduction
Sigmund Freud lived from 1856 to 1939 and was deemed as ‘the originator and founding father of psychoanalysis’. This was a psychological theory involving the study of the unconscious mind. Amongst Freud’s works is The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1899, which is the central focus of this Independent Study. It explores dream-work, which may be defined as the ‘process by which the unconscious mind alters the conscious content of dreams to conceal the real meaning’. This Independent Study will apply Freud’s theories on dream-work to dreams within literature, to show how far these literary texts support Freud’s theories on the dream-work. The literary texts discussed in the following chapters are Coraline by Neil Gaiman, a dark children’s fantasy novella published in 2002, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, another children’s novel published in 1865, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, a gothic novel published in 1818.
At an early stage of research, the concept of incorporating psychology into this Independent Study was vital in supporting Freud’s theory of dream-work. However, as the research expanded it went away from the concept of science, recognising that psychoanalysis stands as its own literary theory, and differs greatly from the science of psychology. Scientific theory may explain ‘the dream as a purely physiological process, behind which one need not seek meaning, significance nor intention’, and therefore sheds no relevance to this Independent Study. This helped to narrow down the focus of the Independent Study to concentrate on the importance of the dream-work, which stands alone as its own justifiable theory, to analyse its chosen literary texts.
Before venturing further, it is important to bring to attention the nature of the dreams in the literature that will be analysed in this Independent Study. Due to the fact they are dreams written within the literature, they are therefore not real dreams, but rather fictional dreams written by authors, essentially dreamt by the characters. This would initially position the literary dreams as posing the question; ‘who is the author of a dream in a literary text?’ This dilemma creates a complicated ‘layering of constructs’ in which ‘the author is our construct’ but also ‘the character who dreams is the author’s construct’. However, in Freud’s essay Delusion and Dream: In Wilhelm Jensen's 'Gradiva’, he can analyse a literary dream, despite its complexities, undergoing ‘a psychoanalytic interpretation of the dreams “dreamt” by the main character of Jensen’s novel’. Freud himself confidently states in this essay that despite analysing a literary dream ‘might appear idle and strange’, writers actually ‘follow the common experience that a person’s thoughts and feelings continue into sleep’ and thus literary dreams can even be seen as being ‘more elaborated in the psychoanalytic sense’. Freud’s interpretation of his dreams could even be seen as forms of literature and storytelling, because ‘it is the dream interpreter who is the author of the dream’. Therefore, this Independent Study will show how far the chosen literary texts also give ‘a faithful representation of the formation of dreams’, furthering the analysis of literary dreams from Freud’s interpretation of Jenson’s Gravida.
Coraline depicts the journey of a young girl named Coraline Jones, as she ventures into the dream-like world of ‘the other mother’. This text is key for this Independent Study, as it explores Freud’s theory of wish fulfilment dreams. Coraline seeks and is granted a more exciting life initially, also relating to the destructive rejection of those in waking life that comes along with this kind of dream. This is discussed concerning Freud’s dream of ‘Irma’s Injection’ which is explored in chapter one. In comparative terms, this aligns well with Alice in Wonderland, as both texts involve journeys of young girls in dream-like worlds. In chapter two, Freud’s ideas of sexual symbolism are explored comparatively with both discussed texts, suggesting that despite the time difference between the novels, Alice in Wonderland originating in 1865 and Coraline being a contemporary novel, they are both able to illustrate Freud’s ideas. Alice in Wonderland is also a key text in exploring the notion of a dream relating to a picture-puzzle, whereby these picture-puzzles need to be ‘translated, one by one, into the language of the dream-thoughts’, which will be discussed further in chapter one.
Frankenstein, an adult gothic fiction that details the creation of life from inanimate matter made by young scientist Victor Frankenstein, is chosen for this Independent Study due to its incorporation of anxiety-based dreams, which is the topic of chapter two. The anxiety dreams that are documented in Frankenstein could be because it was written at a time where dreams were seen to occur ‘when the brain is disordered by certain irritants’, which is a concept explored through Freud’s theory of anxiety dreams in the chapter. The comparisons between Victor Frankenstein and Freud in terms of their medical practices and their perceived narcissistic personalities that they both appear to have is also a crucial element in exploring their psyche’s and how this affects their dreams. Jeffrey Mehlman demonstrates in chapter one of this Independent Study how Freud is egotistic by looking at his analysis of his dream of Irma’s injection, where Freud is seen to be ‘reducing dreams to the stability of a fixed meaning assimilable to the ego’ and therefore Freud’s analysis of his own dream ‘is but the subtlest ruse of narcissism.’Another important topic discussed in chapter two is Freud’s ‘The Uncanny’ essay. Coraline was a crucial text in exploring this theory, as ‘the other mother’ links directly to the uncanny notion of ‘the other’, which ‘arouses dread and creeping horror’, associated with anxious feelings, and can also be compared with ‘The Sandman’, which Freud analyses in ‘The Uncanny’ essay.
Initially, Carl Gustav Jung’s Dreams (1974) was going to sit comparatively alongside Freud throughout this Independent Study. However, as the research progressed, the dream theories of Freud seemed to take a more dominant and relevant place in the analysis of the chosen literary texts. This is because Freud focuses on the dream-work, a more subjective approach of a personal dream, and the process of how dreams are produced, rather than Jung’s collective approach of what they essentially come to mean. Jung describes this discovery of their different methods by saying “the material facts remain the same, but the criterion by which they are judged is different”. This Independent Study, therefore, whilst focusing upon ‘tracing the relations between the latent dream-thoughts and the manifest dream-content’ (Freud, p. 169), also keeps in mind possible limitations that come with this focus. Elements such as symbolism are therefore discussed along with Jung’s concept of archetypes, however, the prime concept of archetypes within Jung’s work will be explored parallel with elements of symbolism in chapter two.
An introductory example of Jung’s critique is when he states that Freud takes a ‘causal approach’ towards ‘the much-discussed symbolism of dreams’ which results in ‘something comparatively simple and elementary’. One of Jung’s personal dreams demonstrates this critique, in which he goes into an extensive explanation of his dream of a house, believing that it ‘represented an image of the structure of the psyche’, whereas Freud interpreted the dream by picking out the symbols of two skulls, telling him that there was a ‘repressed wish indicated by the two skulls’. Jung, therefore, saw Freud as ‘taking refuge in doctrine and unable to comprehend Jung’s mental world’. Yet generally, the contribution of Jung’s ideas in this Independent Study serve purely to offer some criticisms or similarities to certain aspects of Freudian thinking concerning the chosen literature texts.
Finally, this Independent Study shows how a dream cannot simply be determined as a wish fulfilment, neither as an anxiety dream. Despite the illusion of placing both aspects of Freud’s dream work into two separate chapters, the following chapters will show how the crossover between the two types dreams is inevitable and that ‘there is always the possibility that even our painful and terrifying dreams may, upon interpretation, prove to be wish-fulfilments’ (Freud, p. 46). The chapters present a struggle, a constant battle between consciousness and unconsciousness, a desire to be fulfilled versus a gut-wrenching guilt. They will faithfully delve into the world of Freud’s dream work, whilst demonstrating some dream theories which are weaker than others.
Chapter One
Wish Fulfilment Dreams
Sigmund Freud’s theory of wish fulfilment in The Interpretation of Dreams is one of his most renowned and bold theories about dreams. He details his dream of ‘Irma’s Injection’, involving his friend and patient. In waking life, Freud cures Irma of her hysterical anxiety yet is not able to cure her of her physical symptoms. Freud then takes a hostile view towards his friend Otto, who has been to visit Irma, as Otto tells Freud that Irma is ‘better, but not quite well’. He says this is because he is annoyed at Otto’s tone of voice, feeling as if Otto and Irma’s family disagree with his treatment for Irma. To alleviate his repressed guilt and annoyance over Otto’s statement and Irma’s condition, Freud has a dream which transfers his guilt about Irma by moving the blame onto Otto. Irma is visibly unwell in the dream, being ‘pale and puffy’ (Freud, p. 21) as the illness is then described as an infection, the cause of this being traced to Otto who is said to have given her an injection. Therefore, Otto is blamed for her illness, Freud’s explanation of the dream ending with the disapproval of Otto even further, by saying that ‘one doesn’t give such injections so rashly’ and ‘the syringe was not clean’ (Freud, p. 21). He consequently goes on to explain that this dream ‘acquits me of responsibility for Irma’s condition, as it refers to this condition to other causes’ (Freud, p. 31). This is, therefore, an example of wish fulfilment, Freud argues, because it takes the blame off his mind, alleviating him of his conscious guilt and seeking revenge by turning the disapproval onto Otto rather than on himself.
Jeffrey Mehlman states that the main purpose for not just the dream but also for Freud’s analysis of it is the ‘primary concern of exonerating Freud of any guilt for the lingering illness of his patient Irma’. Even though this statement confirms that the dream is a wish fulfilment, Mehlman does not completely endorse this interpretation that Freud has of his dream, as he describes this exoneration of guilt as the ego’s way of ‘retaining a certain in-vulnerability or intactness’ as Freud can ‘obtain associations that will fit into a plausible story of whatever specific kind the interpreter should like to have’. The ‘narcissistic autonomy of (Freud’s) ego’ enables Freud to distance himself from what is threatening in the dream, which is apparent when he states he is ‘distressed by the thought of having invented such a serious illness for Irma’ (Freud, p. 26-27), as he realises he has done this to shift away all of his guilt. Neither does he dwell on this point for too long, as even in his analysis he seeks to justify his reason for doing this. This approach by Mehlman, therefore, confirms that the main motive of this dream is the attainment of wish fulfilment, yet it is important to remember that Freud’s analysis of his dream sticks to the ‘stable constructs of the ego’.
Carl Gustav Jung would also argue against Freud’s approach to his dream, as he explains that ‘usually a dream is a strange and disconcerting product distinguished by many “bad qualities” such as lack of logic, questionable morality, uncouth form”. It is clear to see therefore that Freud’s approach to his dream can be seen as the ‘subtlest ruse of narcissism’, as he is fuelled by the desire of his ego to draw out the aspects of wish fulfilment, not leaving much room to look at the ‘questionable morality’ and ‘uncouth form’ that comes with this dream. Freud can use his dream as an example to boldly state his theory of wish-fulfilment dreams which confidently sets up the remainder of The Interpretation of Dreams. It must be noted however the issues that come with looking at this dream analysis as an individual representation of wish fulfilment. The following paragraphs will explore this theory on a wider perspective by applying it to dreams in literary texts.
Some compelling comparisons can be made between Freud’s explanation of the dream of ‘Irma’s Injection’ and the wish fulfilment that occurs in Coraline. The wish fulfilment which both Freud and Coraline are seeking in their dreams includes a form of distortion and displacement, which Freud describes as dreams that ‘need elucidation’ (Freud, p. 47) due to their disguised contents. These distorted aspects of the dreams can be explored when looking at the ‘latent content’ which is Freud’s wording of the deeper and hidden meaning of the unconscious, including desires and feelings. In Freud’s explanation, he states that in his dream it is as though he is saying ‘rid me of these three persons, replace them by three others of my own choice’ (Freud, p. 31), in reference to Otto, Irma, and Dr M. The appearances of Irma, who is ‘pale and puffy’, and Dr M., who ‘looks quite unlike his usual self’ (Freud, p. 20) makes them appear visually uncanny to their normal selves, the dream-work, therefore, distorting the people in Freud’s unconscious. In Coraline, the wish fulfilment she is looking for is a cure of her boredom, which is granted to her when she goes through the door and meets her exciting ‘other mother and father’, therefore ‘ridding’ herself of her dull, old parents. Coraline’s other mother is also distorted, and therefore uncanny, as ‘she looked a little like Coraline’s mother’, yet there are distorted aspects of her appearance, such as her ‘fingers were too long’.
Freud also explains how he avenges himself further, by comparing his two colleagues in his dream, Otto and Dr M. As Otto is the colleague who addresses Irma’s condition in Freud’s waking life, and therefore one of the causes of his alleviated guilt, and subsequently he punishes this colleague more in the dream by framing him for administrating Irma the rash injection, whereas Dr M. is just there for assistance. In the dream, it is as if Freud is saying to Otto ‘I like him (Dr M.) better than you’ (Freud, p. 31). In Coraline, the other mother says to her ‘we’re ready to love you and play with you and make your life interesting’ (Gaiman, p. 71). Through this, the other mother is trying to appeal to Coraline’s desires for a more interesting life, which implies that Coraline finds her actual parents boring, and her other mother more interesting, similar to how Freud prefers his other colleague. Both these features of the dream-work describe dreams as being ‘absolutely egotistic’ (Freud, p. 206). This is because the fulfilment of both Freud’s and Coraline’s dreams cater solely to their desires, and it becomes quite a selfish and egotistical act that to achieve their desires they punish other people in their lives, by rejecting them for their own means.
By making Freud’s visions of Irma, Dr.M., and Coraline’s visions of her other mother appear not quite like they do in waking life, it seeks to justify the wish in a way that cannot be achieved directly in waking life. The constant references to the ‘other’ mother in Coraline confirms this idea as it is the ‘other’ self of her real mother and therefore a direct displacement, whom Coraline refuses to admit is a ‘better’ version of her actual mother, as portrayed by Coraline’s statement; “you aren’t my mother” (Gaiman, p. 92). Her other mother and father are a more interesting version of her real parents that will grant her more fun and freedom; “it’s much more interesting than at home” (Gaiman, p. 53). Coraline’s unconscious is pushing away her real home as a form of displacement, to piece together the new desires of her unconscious. Dreams are therefore egotistic as underneath the ‘manifest content’, the main goal is to achieve wish fulfilment, which the unconscious strives to achieve at any cost ‘behind the scenes’ and behind the veil of distorted images. Thus the elements of visual distortion and character displacement in both Freud’s and Coraline’s dreams represent the ability of the unconscious to shift away from the real identities of the people in the dreams, which therefore alleviates the guilt of the ‘absolutely egotistic’ nature of the demands that come with achieving the wish fulfilment.
Coraline’s unconscious seems to demand more fun which in turn dismisses her parents, and Freud avenges himself by dismissing respectful colleagues he knows in his waking life. Freud describes the wish fulfilment in both Coraline and Freud’s dreams as consisting of ‘two psychic forces… one of which forms the wish expressed by the dream, while the other exercises a censorship over this dream-wish, thereby enforcing on it a distortion’ (Freud, p. 53). The distortion in these particular scenarios, however, works against the censorship, as the dream content would be more disguised if the figures appeared in their normal forms. The frightening depiction of Coraline’s ‘other’ mother who is a lot thinner, with a chalky complexion, and Freud’s depiction of Irma as an extremely sickly figure, which he goes on to explain that ‘another person is being substituted for her’ (Freud, p. 22) illuminates the fact that both their unconscious minds are trying to fulfil their wishes so much that they discard the original figures in waking life completely, and are left with guilt-ridden figures that may as well be strangers to them. If the figures in their dreams were not distorted this would create censorship in itself, disguising the warped nature of the deeper wish to get rid of the figures themselves.
Gaiman presents Coraline as dealing with mental conflict within her unconscious when the granting of her wish fulfilment, initially being an innocent desire to cure her boredom, shifts towards a struggle between guilt and desire in the manifestations of her other mother. At first, Coraline is impressed with her other mother, claiming that her wish is fulfilled straight away when she devours the delicious food; ‘it was the best chicken that Coraline had ever eaten’ (Gaiman, p. 35) in comparison to her actual parents’ cooking: ‘Coraline was disgusted’ (Gaiman, p. 10). As the text goes on, however, it is clear that her wish for excitement has become destructive as it turns into literal disposal of her actual parents for the replacements. This is evident when the cat leads Coraline to the mirror, where they are trapped inside, seeming ‘sad and lonely’ (Gaiman, p. 63). Thus when Coraline then goes back to her other mother’s world, she is quick to stand up to her other mother, declaring “you aren’t my mother” (Gaiman, p. 92) despite her other mother’s appeals to Coraline’s initial desire of wanting to ‘make’ her ‘life interesting’ (Gaiman, p. 71). This is because the wish now becomes the desire of Coraline ridding herself of her other mother.
The shifting of the wish and also the desire developing into guilt shows how ‘the manifest content stands in opposition’ to the latent content (Freud, p. 46) through a disguising of its real meaning. This is displayed in the distortion that the other mother goes through. Right from the beginning, she is an uncanny figure but still ‘sounded’ and ‘looked a little like Coraline’s mother’ (Gaiman, p. 34). Yet towards the end of the novella the other mother ‘did not look anything at all like her own mother’, she is ‘huge’, ‘her hair writhed and twined’, and ‘her teeth were sharp as knives’ (Gaiman, p. 155). Freud explains the meaning of this distortion by saying that when a wish fulfilment is disguised ‘there must be present a tendency to defend oneself against this wish’ (Freud, p. 52). Coraline’s urge to disguise this wish is also because her ego has a ‘desire for control (that) knows no boundaries’, thus the censorship in the distortion of her wish can warp itself into resembling what Coraline wants, enabling her to distance the comparisons between her real mother and the other mother to reject her and alleviate her guilt. When Coraline rejects her other mother, she can question ‘how she had ever been deceived into imagining a resemblance’ (Gaiman, p. 155).
The other mother could represent the other side of Coraline’s unconscious ego that is still tempted to fulfil itself, and the side of Coraline herself fighting against her other mother could be her conscious guilt and rejection of this wish that has gone too far. Freud states that ‘there are dreams in which my ego appears together with other persons’ (Freud, p. 206). Likewise, Dr M. distorted into a feeble state which may be compared to the other mother, in the sense that he symbolises the fuel to fulfil Freud’s unconscious desire and Freud distorts his being as a source of guilt coming from his consciousness.
As explored previously, when Freud determines his dream of Irma’s injection as wish fulfilment, he does not shy away from the motives of his dream, which is to alleviate himself of any guilt and blame. Yet he also details the distortion that occurs in the censorship, not just with Irma but also in Dr M. who ‘looks quite unlike his usual self’ (Freud, p. 20). This distortion of Dr M., therefore, indicates a disguising of the wish, there is still some guilt residing in Freud’s unconscious which prevents Dr M. from looking like his usual self. He is also described as being very pale and limping. Dr M.’s physical state may be observed as a symbol of Freud’s ego, especially as a doctor, of presenting himself as the superior doctor and everyone else as his patients. Mehlman states that the patient can be seen as ‘servile means for the physician narcissistically to affirm his mastery’. By distorting not only Irma’s appearance but also Dr M.’s in his dream, Freud, therefore, positions himself on a pedestal above his colleagues, replacing Irma with her friend, as ‘she would tell more than Irma’ (Freud, p. 24), in order to serve him in fulfilling his mastery as a ‘superior’ physician and overriding his guilt and shame for Irma.
Coraline’s fulfilled wish, where she is granted an exploration of the other mother’s world, shares some similarities with Alice in Alice in Wonderland, who also finds herself in a bizarre dreamlike world which opens itself up to her curiosity and exploration, entering ‘a fantastic world where one can never be bored’. The journeys that both Alice and Coraline embark on are similar in the sense that, as young girls, they both seek to experience unusual and extraordinary things for which childlike minds seek. At the start of the novel, Alice is in a state of mundane idleness, disapproving of her sister’s book: “and what is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations?” This statement links to Freud’s idea that ‘a dream is a picture-puzzle’ a ‘rebus’ (Freud, p. 170). The pictures that Alice seeks in her sister’s book are granted to her when moments after this the white rabbit entices her down the rabbit hole to a dreamlike world full of visual stimuli which mimics the ‘intensity of dream-images’ (Freud, p. 212). Alice’s wish fulfilment is granted as after she complains of her sister’s book not having pictures, she ‘dreams/writes herself into Wonderland’, full of jumbled visual images of the puzzle pieces in her unconscious mind, the manifest ‘dream-content’, and the deeper meanings which lay behind these images and their conversations with Alice, the latent ‘dream content’ (Freud, p. 169).
The first puzzle that Alice experiences is of her own identity. After sifting through many different sizes, she states “how puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another!” (Carroll, p. 49). The wish fulfilment Alice could, therefore, be seeking in the dream world of Wonderland could be working out what her own identity is. Alice’s puzzle of her own identity is therefore also amplified in the curious creatures surrounding her, which could show in this instance that the ‘ego appears together with other persons’ meaning that the creatures in Alice’s Wonderland ‘show themselves to be (her) ego’ (Freud, p. 206). This could also explain the absurdity of Alice’s surroundings, as ‘the possibility of creating composite formations is one of the chief causes of the fantastic character so common in dreams’ (Freud, p. 207). An example of this within the text is Alice’s conversation with Humpty Dumpty, a fantastic character from a common nursery rhyme, who challenges her by constantly asking her questions about her identity such as what the meaning is of her name and stating “how old did you say you were?” (Carroll, p. 156). This serves Alice’s wish fulfilment as it allows her to explore her identity through Humpty Dumpty, who is a symbol of her ego. He also presents Alice with nonsensical riddles, such as “with proper assistance, you might have left off at seven” (Carroll, p. 157). Freud sees ‘the human mind itself as a virtuosic generator of riddles and dreams designed to elude conscious interpretation’, therefore the use of riddles used in Alice in Wonderland as well as the questions Alice receives regarding her identity to achieve wish fulfilment supports Freud’s ideas concerning dream-work.
Alice meets the charming Cheshire Cat in Wonderland, which speaks to her and acts as a guardian, vanishing yet appearing again in times of Alice’s need; “It’s the Cheshire Cat: now I have somebody to talk to” (Carroll, p. 71). Likewise, in Coraline, her dreams of an interesting companion, which is the talking black cat, makes her life more interesting and fulfils her desire to be listened to, unlike her parents who do not seem to have much time for her. The black cat also magically vanishes and reappears, just like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland; ‘it walked behind a tree, but didn’t come out the other side’ (Gaiman, p. 46). These clear similarities in the two feline characters adhere to the wish fulfilment of a companion, quite like a childhood wish for an imaginary friend. The similarity of vanishing and reappearing cats that both these dreamlike literary texts share links back to the idea of the dream being a rebus and a picture-puzzle. This is because the cats are presented as advisors, who help Coraline and Alice to piece together the ‘hieroglyphics’ of the dream, of which the ‘symbols need to be translated’ (Freud, p. 169) to enable Coraline and Alice to manoeuvre through the picture puzzle of their dreams. This is also proved by Maria Nikolajeva, who states that ‘the integrity of the cat is contrasted to Coraline’s identity confusion’, which therefore shows that Coraline is on a wish-fulfilment journey of self-discovery, and needs the wise cat with her to make sense of the picture puzzle. Alice is also on the same journey, as the cat in Wonderland challenges ‘Alice’s sense of self and attempts at self-definition’. This also relates to the Freud’s statement that egotism encompasses dreams, mentioned in a previous paragraph, as it’s a constant reimbursement of their unconscious needs in requiring a subservient guardian, and therefore even an imaginary cat in the dream is forced monotonously to vanish when no longer needed and quickly reappear when the desire to have them back is required.
This chapter, therefore, shows how dreams in Coraline and Alice in Wonderland can be applied to Freud’s wish fulfilment theory. The application to these literary dreams in this chapter proves how ‘absolutely egotistic’ wish fulfilment dreams are, and stick to the construct of the character’s egos, just like Freud does in his dream analysis of Irma’s Injection.
Chapter Two
Anxiety Dreams
The previous chapter explored Freud’s theories of wish fulfilment and displacement dreams within Alice in Wonderland and Coraline, two childhood literature texts. Freud stated that ‘it was in children that you found the wish-fulfilment dream in its most obvious form’ but this chapter will also explore the fact that it is in ‘anxiety dreams that children are so often haunted’. Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein also features primarily in this chapter to explore anxiety dreams further, and how ‘our painful and terrifying dreams may, upon interpretation, prove to be wish fulfilments’ (Freud, p. 46).This chapter, therefore, explores different elements of all three literary texts, in light of the complexities and paradoxical issues that come with anxiety dreams being depicted as wish fulfilments.
Frankenstein explores ‘states of marginal consciousness’, encompassed by a dark atmosphere of Romantic gothic intrigue, delving into the repressed regions of the ‘tormenting and distressing rabble of ideas’ that haunts Victor Frankenstein’s mind when he tests the boundaries of science and nature. This novel exemplifies Ronald R. Thomas’ statement that dreams in Frankenstein ‘present themselves through both story and discourse as neurotic symptoms’. This is because both Victor experiences a tormenting dream after creating his monster which provides an insight into his unconscious minds, as a reflection of what is being repressed.
Frankenstein portrays the inner conflicts of Victor’s mind and therefore the unconscious side of his ego that comes out during sleep, representing the monstrous side of him, therefore his creation, his ‘other’ self. Even though the novel is not predominantly about a dream state, the first dream that occurs in the text can constantly clarify the fact that Victor cannot escape from the burden of the monster because it is, in fact, a part of himself. The manifest content that occurs in Victor’s first dream is ‘calculated to conceal the knowledge’ (Freud, p. 51) of what is going on in his repressed emotions, which is explored in the following paragraphs.
The first dream in Frankenstein is experienced by Victor, just after he has beheld his creation for the first time. Victor states that ‘the beauty of the dream vanished’ as he seems to snap out of the hypnotic dream-like state he was in whilst he was creating the monster, realising the horror of what he has done. Victor also states that he has ‘deprived’ himself ‘of rest and health’ (Shelley, 59-60) as throughout the duration he has adopted an obsessive frenzy to complete his experiment, showing that he was in a neurotic state of mind. Escaping from the room, Victor attempts to seek solace by going to sleep but he is ‘disturbed by the wildest dreams’ (Shelley, p. 60). According to Hohnbaum, whom Freud mentions in The Interpretation of Dreams, the ‘first attack of insanity is frequently connected with a terrifying anxiety dream’ (Freud, A. Zeller, p. 63). This first dream is, therefore, the first instance of Victor’s sanity declining. Within this apparent nightmare, Victor sees Elizabeth, an orphan who was taken in by his family and whom he later decides to marry, appearing ‘in the bloom of health’, yet when he embraces her, she turns into a deathly figure, as he sees ‘grave worms crawling in the folds of flannel’ (Shelley, p. 60). Initially, there appears to be a wish fulfilment of Victor embracing his sister, yet the failure to be able to do this due to the distortion Elizabeth’s figure undergoes shows that there is an ‘anxiety (which) replaces the dreamwork as a defence against the repudiated wish’. When looking past the manifest into the latent content, the initial wish of embracing Elizabeth in the dream could relate to Victor’s waking wish to make his creation, yet when he embraces his sister in the dream, just as he embraces his creation for the first time, he immediately rejects both.
The rejection of Elizabeth upon being embraced could be Victor’s wish for his creation to also be dead as soon as he gives it the kiss of life. The kiss that Victor imprints on Elizabeth’s lips is therefore symbolic of the life that Victor gives to his creation, the ‘hue of death’ relating to Victor’s disgust and rejection. Victor’s statement that ‘the beauty of the dream vanished’ regarding creating his monster, is what visually happens within his dream, as Elizabeth’s ‘bloom of health’ (Shelley, p. 60) is quickly eliminated upon embracement and she vanishes. Therefore, the real nightmare Victor experiences is upon awakening when he realises his wish for the creature to be dead has not been granted, as he ‘beheld the wretch – the miserable monster whom I had created’ (Shelley, p. 60). The rejection of the kiss in the dream is due to a manifestation of anxiety and guilt in Victor’s unconscious over what he has created and the fact that the monster represents Victor’s repressed self. The creature is consequently ‘a double of Victor himself’ acting out ‘his satanic impulses’. The rejecting of Elizabeth in the dream, therefore, caters to the feelings of anger and anxiety which are usually repressed in Victor’s mind, considering Elizabeth is fondly spoken of by Victor in waking life; ‘my sweet Elizabeth’ (Shelley, 42). Victor’s dream of Elizabeth is a statement that she ‘brings death rather than life’, as the kiss turns into his dead mother, which could be a repressed grudge that Victor holds against her since his mother died after contracting scarlet fever from Elizabeth. When Victor’s mother is dying, she also tells Elizabeth to ‘supply my (her) place’ (Shelley, p. 41) which shows that the control is given to Elizabeth and Victor takes a backseat. After his mother’s death, Victor goes on to say that grief becomes an ‘indulgence’ (Shelley, p. 41) fuelling this indulging grief into his studies by bringing life to inanimate matter.
Freud states that there is a ‘positively striking’ comparison between the ‘hysterical character’ and a ‘naughty child’ (Freud, p. 145). Victor’s passions in creating the monster certainly have the characteristics of a hysterical personality, as he does not stop until he has reached his end goal and upon beholding it declares he has a hysterical ‘anxiety that almost amounted to agony’ (Shelley, p. 59). By making his creation, Victor becomes a mother himself, and regains power for his ego, rejecting the embrace of Elizabeth as a maternal figure as he does in his dream, therefore becoming the ‘naughty child’. As a consequence, Victor’s repressive side that shows itself in the creature also comes out in his unconscious emotion in his dream.
Freud also depicts his dream of being in a railway station and giving up a urinal to a blind man. Freud goes on to say that the blind man symbolises his father, and the ‘rebellious content of the dream’ in which Freud makes plans which ‘may be traced to a revolt against my father’ (Freud, p. 115). This links to Victor’s revolt against Elizabeth, the maternal figure in his life, as he rejects her embrace in his dream, demonstrating his nature of being a ‘naughty child’ in revolting against Elizabeth by creating the monster, which represents his repressed self, and ends up killing Elizabeth on their wedding night as Victor finds her ‘lifeless and animate, thrown across the bed’ (Shelley, p. 244). This rebellion is therefore already present in Victor’s first dream, just after revolting against Elizabeth and creating his monster, foreshadowing future events through this wish fulfilment aspect of Victor’s dream. The reason Victor does not take notice of the foreshadowing in his dream is due to his repressed ‘other self’, which is reflected in his creation’s actions and the havoc that it creates, which is separate from Victor’s conscious mind.
The embrace of the kiss also has incestuous connotations as we are gaining an insight into the guilty and possibly incestuous side of Victor’s feelings towards Elizabeth. The quick rejection of the kiss gives the impression that Victor’s unconsciousness is demonstrating the popular phrase ‘I would never dream of it’. This is because Frankenstein is ‘slated to marry his “more than” sister”’ who also now doubles up as his mother as she is the maternal figure left in his life. The embrace could signify an inner conflict of Victor between the embrace of a lover and the embrace of a mother. Freud discusses ‘the dream of having sexual intercourse with one’s own mother’ (Freud, p. 260), as usually being disguised. Thus, it is not explicit that the dead figure is actually Victor’s mother, but he may just wish it to be. The kiss of life could signify the disguising of a deeper sexual act in Victor’s dream, one of which his manifested guilt and instability of his ego stops from happening due to the embraced figure becoming a distorted symbol of death. Victor’s ego is striving for satisfaction due to the absence of his mother, the incestuous element of his mother could therefore also be backed up as a wish fulfilment by Peter Sloane who states that dreams of ‘people of whom we are fond’ often ‘deal with forbidden or unacceptable sexual and aggressive fantasies such as incest’.
At the beginning of The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud incorporates Volkelt’s statement that ‘dreams’ ‘are especially unbridled in sexual matters’. This statement can be applied to Coraline and Alice in Wonderland, as well as the undertones of sexual incest that Victor experiences discussed in the previous paragraph. Alice and Coraline both venture into dream-like worlds, which signify a journey of coming of age. Freud states that ‘every door suggests a bodily aperture’ (Freud, p. 227), alluding to the symbol of a door being opened having sexual meaning. Both Coraline and Alice journey through doors. Coraline rebels against her parents by her curiosity to go through the door, ‘opening’ up the bodily aperture’ (hole) which therefore symbolises her increasing sexual interest, which leads her to the other mother’s world, ‘she pushed (the key) into the keyhole’ and ‘went through the door’. Furthermore, the other mother’s world represents the idea of a ‘familiar room in a house... divided into two’ alluding to the symbol of ‘two separate openings’ (Freud, p. 234) of Coraline’s body and this, therefore, furthers the sexual meaning. .Likewise, Alice finds herself confronted by ‘doors all round the hall’ and found a ‘tiny golden key’ in which she ‘opened the door’ which ‘led into a small passage’. This is just after Alice falls ‘down, down, down’ (Carroll, p. 3) the rabbit hole. Freud also relates the act of falling in a dream as being ‘more frequently characterised by anxiety’, and that ‘when they occur in women’ it is a ‘circumlocution for giving way to an erotic temptation’ (Freud, p. 257). Laurence Talairach-Vielmas further supports this view by stating that after entering the door, ‘Alice has reached the gardens of temptation’ where there are ‘beds of bright flowers’ (Carroll, p. 6). Freud also states that a flower ‘symbolises the human sexual organs’ (Freud, 248). Alice’s persistent urge to enter this garden “I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!” (Carroll, p. 9) despite the fact she has to distort her body into different sizes with the consumption of the food and drink, signifies ‘the preoccupation of the imagination with one’s own body’ and it can be ‘traced to sexual curiosity’ (Freud, p. 227). Hence the need that Alice feels to enter the garden of flowers, due to its connotations with her sexuality which she wants to explore.
There are however some weaknesses that come with this approach Freud takes to exploring sexual symbolism in dreams. His analysis tends to become a lot narrower, Jung stating that Freud sticks to ‘a fixed significance of symbols’ rather than looking more widely at a ‘combination of points of view’, to achieve ‘a more complete conception of the nature of dreams’. Jung also says that in sticking to these fixed symbols, Freud only looks at the causal point of view, rather than Jung’s final point of view, which looks at all ‘multiplicity of instincts, needs, desires, and physical and psychic conditions’. One of Jung’s theories of dreams which encompassed a much wider perspective was his idea of archetypes, which employ aspects of mythology in a worldwide context and therefore discuss dreams as being involved in a ‘collective unconscious’ which is ‘not individual but universal’. These archetypes are linked to feelings of instinct and physiological urges. One of these archetypes is ‘the widely varying types of mother-goddess’. This archetype is present in both Coraline and Alice in Wonderland, with Coraline’s other mother and the Queen of Hearts for Alice. These archetypes, however, do not relate to the normal characteristics of a divine mother, but instead ‘connote anything secret, hidden, dark… anything that devours… is terrifying and inescapable like fate’. The other mother in Coraline can be seen as the ‘evil symbol’ of the archetypal ‘witch’. Gaiman directly alludes to this representation in the text as the other mother is referred to as ‘the beldam’ another word for hag or witch, who devours the souls of children by taking away their eyes and their souls. Thus Coraline is enticed in with delicious food, similar to fairy tales such as Snow White, where she is tempted into desire by a witch to eat the apple. The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland is an older female figure and therefore maternal but has an extreme temper. When Alice talks back to the Queen “how should I know?” it shares similarities to that of a rebellious child. The Queen of Hearts then declares “off with her head!” (Carroll, p. 66) as a defence mechanism.
Even though Jung’s theory of archetypes holds some recognition of its own and can be applied to these literary texts to unearth some meaning, Jung strays away from the focus of the dreamwork that Freud is loyal to, focusing generally more on the ‘mythological background’ of dreams. On the other hand, the sexual symbolism that Freud details is narrow in that it does not have a ‘twofold approach’ that includes the ‘dreamer’s associations’.
In order to explore the anxieties associated with sexual symbolism and archetypal figures on a deeper level, Freud’s 1919 essay on ‘The Uncanny’ offers an analytical approach towards looking at anxiety dreams concerning the notion of the uncanny. Freud describes this psychological experience as ‘something long known, once very familiar’ which alludes to Coraline’s ‘other mother’ in her world. This is because her mother ‘looked a little like Coraline’s mother’ yet ‘her skin was white as paper’ (Gaiman, p. 34). Coraline clearly recognises her other mother, and yet is alarmed by her appearance simultaneously. A most obvious distinction is the fact she is referred to as ‘the other’, a direct reference to the uncanny ‘double’, which is a ‘vision of terror’, and therefore relates to Coraline’s dream world representing an anxiety dream. The double in Coraline links to the double that is also in Frankenstein, as previously mentioned, the monster representing Victor’s repressed self, which therefore shows Freud’s notion of the uncanny is demonstrated in these literary texts in terms of an anxiety dream.
The double ‘has its counterpart in the language of dreams’, as it can be seen as ‘representing castration by a doubling’. The castration element in Coraline is the other mother wanting to replace her eyes with buttons, as the ‘fear of damaging or losing one’s eyes in a terrible fear of childhood’. In Freud’s uncanny essay, he relates this idea of castration to E. T. A. Hoffmann’s ‘The Sandman’, a literary text which is also about ‘the idea of being robbed of one’s eyes’, as the figure in this text sprinkles sand over children as they sleep. This, therefore, shows that Coraline incorporates this idea of Freud’s uncanny, through the fear of getting her eyes replaced with buttons, showing that it could be an anxiety dream about the fear of castration.
Alice in Wonderland also links to the fear of castration that Freud depicts due to the Queen of Hearts within the text, who constantly threatens Alice and those around her by saying “off with her head!” In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud relates two dreams of having one’s head separated from the body linking to dreams of castration. This therefore further shows that the dream worlds that Coraline and Alice experience cater to Freud’s notion of the uncanny, presenting fears of castration that present them as experiencing anxiety dreams.
Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland and Coraline all employ the aspect of children and how they can portray the idea of the uncanny themselves. With the central protagonists both being young girls, it is initially more obvious in Alice in Wonderland and Coraline: Alice becoming uncanny as well as her surroundings, such as the incessant changes that occur in her sizing, which therefore becomes distorted. Likewise, in Coraline, there is a threat to her appearance becoming uncanny, as ‘the other mother’ is desperate to sew buttons into her eyes, and her other mother simply ‘looks like her mother’ but is not quite her mother. In Frankenstein, the creature shares qualities to that of a child. It is inquisitive, needs to learn from other people, and is vulnerable. When Victor first beholds the appearance of his creation, his description of its appearance has a stark contrast between elements of beauty such as its ‘lustrous black hair’ and elements of decay and death such as ‘yellow skin’ (Shelley, p. 59). These uncanny representations of children, therefore, all link to the concept of anxiety dreams as the uncanny experiences the characters go through can relate to the idea of an identity crisis. This is because dreams themselves can be seen as uncanny as ‘one does not know where one is’. When Alice is asked who she is by the Caterpillar, she states that “I hardly know, sir, just at present” and that “I’m not myself, you see” (Carroll, p. 36-37). Coraline has this same uncertainty, as ‘she was not entirely sure who she was’ (Gaiman, p. 81). This identity issue both characters experience could be due to ‘the destabilization of the boundary between waking life and nightmarish fantasy’ which causes a ‘fear of losing one’s way, mind, and self-identity’, Freud states that there is a ‘sense of helplessness sometimes experienced in dreams’. his therefore also proves how the uncanny can be applied to the anxiety dreams that these characters appear to experience.
When exploring every aspect of a dream, there is often a mix of both anxiety and wish fulfilment. As discussed previously, Victor’s first dream can initially be seen as a wish fulfilment of being able to see his sister and embrace her, only for the dream to become warped into a nightmarish depiction of his dead mother which highlights his anxious thoughts. We can relate this shifting of dream purpose to Coraline since her initial delight at being entertained by her other mother quickly turns into a horrific nightmare as her real parents are taken away and Coraline has to solve the situation. Freud states that it is anxiety dreams that ‘children are so often haunted’ and also that ‘it is in children that you found the wish-fulfilment dream in its most obvious form’ (Freud, p. 46). This explains the crossover Coraline experiences between a wish fulfilment turning into an anxiety dream. This viewpoint is apparent in both Frankenstein and Coraline since all the characters are going through a journey, in which they are constantly trying to figure out what it is their unconscious minds want. This conflict could also be seen as a struggle or even competition between the conscious and unconscious minds of Coraline and Victor. ‘Thoughts that originate during the day’s conscious state but are suppressed’, could be Victor’s waking admiration for Elizabeth which has a repressed side of anger and rebellion, and Coraline’s repressed desire to rid herself of her parents. This repressed side therefore comes out in their dreams, which is an ‘infantile, pleasure-seeking thought process’ in our unconscious minds, which seeks to fulfil their wishes, but also has ‘contradictory thoughts existing simultaneously’, some of wish cater to the notion of the wish fulfilment turning into an anxiety dream.
Victor’s first anxiety dream occurs just after he has brought his monster to life. This proceeds to follow a dramatic downfall in his sanity as he becomes more and more cursed with the abnormal creature he has brought to life, and his guilty conscience reflects this in his troubled dreams. This is because the monster represents Victor’s distorted wishes, which are only able to come out in his dreams as an expression of his repressed self in his unconscious mind. Going back to the highly documented dream of Irma’s injection, we can draw a similarity between Victor’s description of his sister’s decaying appearance in the dream when she ‘became livid with the hue of death’ (Shelley, p. 60) and of the appearance of Irma following her injection in Freud’s dream, who is covered in ‘whitish grey scabs’ (Freud, p. 20). Both dreamers here have undertaken a type of medical advance just before the dreams have taken place, in terms of Victor testing nature with the creation of a new being, and Freud feeling the backlash of an ill patient. The dreams express two different approaches to their practices. Irma’s injection expresses Freud’s anxiety about his competency to be a psychiatrist, and Victor’s disturbed dream of his decaying sister symbolises his plagued mind in creating such an unnatural creature. Victor’s dream could also represent his anxieties relating to his inadequacy of being a scientist, as he creates such a hideous creation, even though he had ‘selected (its) features as beautiful’ (Shelley, p. 59). The similarity in the dream content is the descriptions of death and decay in which his seemingly exaggerated use of Gothic descriptions in the dream content could be since ‘every sin committed in our dreams brings with it at least a vague minimum of guilt’. In Victor’s dream, as described in a previous paragraph, embracing his sister is similar to his enthusiasm to create his creature. The sin committed in the dream is, therefore, the embracement of this creature which then creates guilt, as the figure in the dream becomes characterised by death. In Freud’s dream, Irma’s physical appearance is so warped due to Freud’s anxiety of feeling the guilt for her illness, yet the dream manages to shift this guilt onto other people. This shows that the dreams experienced here by Victor and Freud share similarities in content and both relate to guilt over feeling responsible for the medical effects of two living beings.
This chapter, therefore, shows how anxiety dreams can be interpreted in several different ways and can merge alongside wish fulfilment dreams, despite the contrasting nature both types of dreams seem to originally entail. Anxiety dreams are therefore shown to be a complex element of Freud’s dream-work within these literary texts, alluding to elements of the uncanny and incorporating several different motives of the unconscious ego.
Conclusion
This Independent Study has demonstrated how Coraline, Alice in Wonderland and Frankenstein can be applied to Freud’s dream-work in Interpretation of Dreams. The exploration of Freud’s dream-work in these literary texts also demonstrates how several of the dream elements that Freud theorises can often merge into one dream. This Independent Study, therefore, presents the literary texts as including ‘dreams with one’s deepest anxieties’ and ‘desires’. Within Coraline, wish-fulfilment is what is most predominantly discussed, as Coraline is initially granted more excitement within her other mother’s world. Yet analysis shows that the same wish fulfilment can also develop into an anxiety dream, creating uncanny elements of distortion, in this instance within the changing appearance of Coraline’s other mother, who caused a shift in Coraline’s own approach to the dream. Frankenstein delves into anxiety dreams of gothic depiction, through the tormented mind of Victor Frankenstein who brings life to inanimate matter, yet when analysed further can also show elements of wish fulfilment. For instance, Victor’s repressed feelings relating to embracing his ‘more than sister’, links to incestuous desire. Within Alice in Wonderland, the idea of a dream having characteristics of a ‘picture-puzzle’ (rebus)’, is the main topic of exploration, as Alice enters a world of peculiar creatures and anthropomorphic animals, who ‘repeatedly break out into riddles, puzzles and rhymes’, yet this also coincides with aspects such as sexual symbolism, due to it also being a coming-of-age novel.
Whilst exploring all these elements of dream theory within the chosen literature texts, this Independent Study also shows some of the weaker points of Freud’s dream-work. ‘Freud’s over-enthusiastic remarks on symbolic interpretation’ for example, are much more narrow and limited dream analysis compared to his other theories, and Jung’s theory of archetypes adds more depth to this analysis and in other aspects of this Independent Study as well. However, Jung himself states that most aspects of the meaning in Freud’s dream-work can be seen respectively as ‘the first successful attempt in practice to find their real significance’. This supports the fact that this Independent Study can show how the dreams of the ‘fictional characters’ in the chosen literary texts can be seen as ‘representations of life’ when it comes to dreams which, therefore ‘can only be understood if we assume they are real’, through Freud’s dream-work.
Neil Gaiman captures the essence of how complex and informative Freud’s dream-work is when he states in Coraline that ‘it is astonishing just how much of what we are can be tied to the beds we wake up in in the morning, and it is astonishing how fragile that can be’. This Independent Study, therefore, explores Freud’s view on how ‘the unconscious mechanisms familiar to us in the “dream-work”’ can also be ‘operative in the processes of imaginative writing’. It does this by highlighting moments of weakness in Freud’s symbolism, and analysing how it can be applied to the literary texts through wish fulfilment dreams, anxiety dreams, and everything that comes between.
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