A Freudian Interpretation of the Tragedy in The Sound and the Fury 从弗洛伊德精神分析理论解读《喧哗与骚动》的悲剧文献综述

 2021-12-30 20:41:39

全文总字数：21061字

文献综述

1. Introduction1.1 Introduction to William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner (1897-1962), one of the most outstanding American writers of the 21st century, won the Nobel Prize in 1949.He was a prolific writer, writing 19 novels and more than 120 short stories, mainly about the history of the Old South.William Faulkner was born in a prominent family. His great-grandfather, known as the Old Colonel, was quite respected in the family. The great grandfather's great achievements and abundant life experience made him admired by the young Faulkner, and also exerted a great influence on Faulkners later fictional character creation. Sadly, Faulkner refused to use his father's name as a middle name, insisting on using William as his real name because his father was a mediocre and undistinguished man. But Faulkner was proud of his mother, who was strong-willed and dignified. Since his failed father and his strong mother were in stark contrast to each other, Faulkner was emotionally closer to and trusted more of his mother. He had deeper understanding of women which was different from the popular views of females in that time. In his childhood, Faulkner showed great interest in reading and continued to try to write. In 1925, Faulkner published his first novel, The Soldier's Pay. In the following years, he created many excellent works, such as Light in August, As I Lay Dying, and so on. The death of his younger brother in 1936 left Faulkner seriously ill. After his recovery, he completed his famous novel, Absalom! Absalom! In many of his works, the backgrounds took place in a virtual place -- Yoknapatafa County, and Faulkner successfully created the Yoknapatafa genealogy. Faulkner grew up with tales of his ancestors' bravery, honor, pride, and freedom. From an early age, pride and love of home sowed seeds in his deep soul. However, the rapid collapse of the South, the impact of the First World War and the spread of "confusion" in the American society after the war prompted him to reflect on the tradition. Facing the reality, he tore off the beautiful cloak of the spiritual heritage of the South and saw the evil of slavery in the South. This realization is undoubtedly very painful for Faulkner who is deeply attached to his home. Instead of shying away from the pain, he saw the facts with the keen eye of an artist, and he painted Southern society with such complex feelings to conceive his own art world.1.2 Introduction to The Sound and the FuryThe Sound and the Fury is one of the most important works of William Faulkner, a leading figure in American Southern literature. It is the first work to bring Faulkner great fame. It is also Faulkner's most devoted and favorite work. It was many years after its publication that the book attracted much attention for its complex structure and confusing content. The novel is about the family tragedy of the fallen landlords the Compson in the south. Old Compson was a loafer and a drinker. His wife was selfish, callous and complaining. The eldest son Quentin desperately clung to the old tradition, falling in love of his younger sister Caddy who lost her virginity when she was not married, and finally chose to drown himself. Jason, the second son, was cold and greedy. Benjy, the third son, was an idiot who, at thirty-three, only had the intelligence of a three-year-old boy. All through the inner monologue of the three sons, the story revolves around the downfall of Caddy, and finally is supplemented by the "limited perspective" of the first three parts by the black maid Dilsey. The Sound and the Fury contains intense emotional power, heavy moral sense, skillful writing and a rich variety of themes. In this book, Faulkner broke with the traditional clock chronology of the plot, and laid a foundation for the characteristics of "multi-angle narration" and "stream of consciousness" in his later works.William Faulkner focused his literary research on the spiritual world of southerners under the background of chaotic society is similar to Freud who aimed to bring psychological research into human spiritual world. The purpose of this study is based on the Freud's psychoanalytic theory, to analyze family tragedy of the Compson from the internal and external perspective, and to provide experiences and lessons for modern readers.1.3 Need of the studyOn the one hand, The Sound and the Fury is a brilliant psychological novel that uses the stream of consciousness to its extreme, fully revealing the pain and trauma which will inevitably harm the otherwise normal mind of its characters. Freud's early theory focused on human instinct, sex and unconsciousness to analyze people's psychological conditions, and his later theory focused on the personality analysis of id, ego and superego. Starting with the unconscious and ending with the mature personality, Freud's method makes a lot of sense as an effective way to understand characters, and thus the theme and meaning of the novel. On the other hand, the novel content which showed the decline and fall of southern society is only the surface, while the deep meaning which hidden behind the surface is to show concern for human and our spiritual values of human. Therefore, this paper is devoted to analyzing the reasons behind the tragedy of a family with psychoanalysis method, and paying more attention to the human spiritual world.2. Literature review The Sound and the Fury attracted considerable critical attention as soon as it was published. Scholars at home and abroad have researched its theme, creation techniques, characterization and space-time view from the perspectives of Marxism, regionalism, mythology, feminism and other aspects.In China, over 700 articles have been written on the subject of The Sound and the Fury from different angles in terms of technique and content. Examples are as follows: Li, a pioneer in Chinese studies and translations of Faulkner's work, once said that Faulkner impressed his sadness when human begins lost their spiritual pillar，and his worries about modern society by implying the four narrators in The Sound and the Fury. Therefore, he tends to analyze Faulkner's novel from the perspective of human beings and human society. These views make Li Wenjun outstanding. Tao's view represented the view of some feminists. In her opinion, Faulkner reflected on the tragic status of women in the southern United States at that time, and wrote and criticized the southern society and its wrong view of female which destroyed women.(1992) Liu analyzed Faulkner's two unique styles of "multi-angle narration" and "lengthy sentence" in The Sound and the Fury to interpret this classic from another perspective.(2004) However, although Freud's psychoanalytic theory was widely accepted as early as the early 20th century, the domestic interpretation of the causes of the tragedy of the Compson from the perspective of psychoanalysis is not comprehensive enough. For example, Wang (2009) only proved and explained the numerous links between The Sound and the Fury and Freud's theory from the perspective of psychology. Cao, going further from the perspective of Freud's psychoanalytic criticism, focused on the character of each character and the collapse of Their spiritual world, and revealed Faulkner's "wilderness complex" and the struggle theme of the novel, but she did not continue to reveal the reasons for the family tragedy.(2012)Similarly, in abroad, The Sound and the Fury has also attracted the attention of many scholars. According to statistics, the number of books and papers on Faulkner published in the United States in recent years ranks second only to Shakespeare (1997) and first among American authors (1993). Theoretical studies abroad have preferred Lacan's psychoanalysis to Freud's. Nancy Ellen Batty, for example, used Lacan's psychoanalytic concepts, particularly those of desire, sound, and grass, to find a way to discuss the personal texts of Faulkner and Toni Morrison.(1994) In addition, critics also pay more attention to the Compson brothers' incestuous love for Caddy. Quentin was unable to reconcile the shackling of external ethics with his inner desire for Caddy. In Kathleen Moore's opinion, Jason's dedication to his mother made him mentally disabled and established his hopeless, vague and short-sighted view of life.(2000) Although some writers have noted the connection between Freud's theory and Faulkner's work, they still have limitations. Carvel Collins, who wrote an essay on The Sound and the Fury, argued that "Faulkner seems to have organized most of the three inner monologues, not on the anatomy of the human body, but on Freud's map of the human personality". (1953) Although he applied Freudian theories to his analysis of The Sound and the Fury, he did not integrate them closely, nor does he go into the root cause of tragedy.Generally speaking, from the domestic and foreign studies on the relationship between The Sound and The Fury and Freud's psychoanalysis theory, scholars have paid more attention to the spiritual world of the characters and the analysis of their personalities, instead of exploring the reasons for the collapse of the spiritual world. Therefore, this paper will analyze the twisted spiritual world of the Compson and the reasons behind the whole tragedy under the framework of Freudian psychoanalysis theory.3. Freudian Psychoanalysis3.1 Definition and backgroundSigmund Freud (18561939) was an Austrian psychiatrist and also the founder of the school of psychoanalysis. He brought the research of psychology into the human spiritual world, showing a brand new field for modern psychology. In terms of its influence, the psychoanalysis theory initiated by Freud has impacted all aspects of modern western social consciousness and social life. Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, the first complete psychoanalytic work, in 1900. Freud's psychoanalytic criticism was first introduced into literary study in the 1920s and 1930s and still exists today. Freud's theory of personality, which mainly includes the structure of personality, the motivation of personality development and the stages of personality development, is a systematic and complete theoretical system and contains many reasonable elements. The American psychologist Hergenham once commented: "His theory is the forerunner of the personality theory, and all the subsequent personality theories can be regarded as the reaction to Freud's personality theory."3.2 Freuds Personality StructureAccording to Freud, personality is a whole, in which there are interrelated and interacting parts. Early Freud divided human psychological mechanism into three systems, namely: conscious, subconscious and preconscious. In his opinion, consciousness is only a small part of the surface of human spiritual activities, representing the surface of personality. However, unconscious is the spiritual subject of human beings, out of the deep psychological layer. Thus Freud declared that "the first unsatisfactory proposition of psychoanalysis is that mental processes are primarily unconscious, and that the mental processes of consciousness are merely separate parts and actions of the whole mind." In his later years, Freud revised and improved his personality theory again, and proposed that personality is composed of id, ego and superego. According to Freud, id is a primitive, innate and unorganized structure, which is the only personality that a person has at birth and is also the foundation on which a person's personality is built. Id comes from instinct. It is hidden and obscure, but when a person is in an impulsive state, his id comes out naturally. To a certain extent, the id is immoral. It follows the principle of happiness, regardless of all ethics and morality, regardless of all external conflicts and crises, and pursues the satisfaction of instinct and seeks to vent.Freud clearly defined the concept of ego as the psychological part of the human consciousness that everyone has and that is consciously active. As the intermediate link between id and the external environment, ego follows the principle of reality, and its role is to regulate the conflict between the id and the external environment, control and suppress the irrational impulses of id, and at the same time try to satisfy the id desire under the premise of rationality and reality.The superego, which is also moralized ego, consists of moral ideals and conscience. The superego, following the principle of ideals, is the representative of all moral limits. The superego defines the standards of moral behavior through the self-paradigm, whose main function is to control and whose purpose is to conform to social norms. Under normal circumstances, id, ego and superego are in a state of coordination and balance, so as to ensure the normal development of personality. If the three disorder and even damage, mental diseases will produce and the development of personality will be endangered.3.3 The Stages of Personality Development The development of personality, mainly is the development of instinct which is more of a sexual instinct, so Freud divided the development of personality into five periods, namely the lip period, anal period, sexual organ period, latent period and reproductive period. One striking idea is that during the sexual phase, children usually develop an Oedipus complex that drives them to love opposites-sex parents and dislike same-sex parents, so that boys may see their mothers as sexual targets and their fathers as rivals. However, in the end this complex or unconscious impulse will be constrained by external conditions, so the instinct may try to find another outlet after the repression, which is called displacement. Daydreaming and literary creation are two important transfer methods. In The Sound and the Fury, daydream-like talking can be seen everywhere. The proper handling of the conflicts in the rational stage is an important factor affecting the sound development of personality. According to Freud, the conflicts in this period are not easy to be solved, so there are many chances of lingering, which are the cause of many bad behaviors in the future, such as aggressive personality and abnormal behavior. Every child goes through these sequential stages of development, and the experiences he or she acquires during these stages determine his or her personality. 6. ConclusionWilliam Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is a history of family decline and the collapse of Southern society. The main story is the tragedy of the Compson family. Many of Faulkner's own experiences are reflected in this book, as well as his multiple reflections on the human, social and spiritual world.The cause of this family tragedy is complicated. Not only the personal character, the external environment also makes this family have to go to the end. This paper analyzes this tragedy from two aspects: external reason and internal reason. The first reason was family. The Compsons were a lifeless, loveless family. Mr Compson was, above all, a shadowy figure. He was nostalgic for the good old days, but he was cowardly, impractical and idealistic. He lived forever in the shadow of the shrewd General Compson. His inferiority made him dare not face the reality. He would take some irrelevant theory of nihilism and wine to anesthetize himself, rather than take up the responsibility of father. Tormented by his own internal anxiety and pain, he was unable to show true love and care for his children, let alone give them a sense of security and protection. On the contrary, he wanted his children to take care of him. When Caddy got married and left home, she asked Quentin to take good care of Benjy and his father. And Mrs. Compson was an extremely selfish mother. She did not love anyone and moaned all the time. She had no real love for any of her children. She thought Benjy was God's punishment; Quentin and Caddy were always conspiring stealthy against her. Jason was her own child, her pride. But Jason, who had been brought up by Dilsey, had no maternal feelings for Mrs. Compson. As explained in Freud's theory of personality structure, childhood experiences and family education are crucial to the formation of a person's character. Growing up in this oppressive, loveless, and unwarm family environment, boys in the Compson family all had character defects that cannot be ignored. The second reason is internal personality. The Compson boys represented Freud's ego, id and superego, respectively. They had huge flaws in their character that made them unable to properly deal with the shadow of their childhood experiencesthat is, they all developed an Oedipal complex due to a lack of maternal love, and they turn to other women in the family to compensate for the lack of maternal love. As much as Dilsey loved and cared for them, she was never on the children's list for moral support because she was a black woman who was looked down upon in the old Southern tradition. Therefore, the only thing boys can satisfy their needs is Caddy, and this attachment turned into Oedipal complex. Then boys begun toget Caddy's attention in unconscious competition. All the Compson brothers wanted to own her completely. However, Caddy was just a little girl, without her mother's careful guidance, she could not even find her own way out. Everyone in this family was under great pressure, and they all wanted to turn to Caddy for help. However, Caddy had no time for herself under the shackles of the ethics of Southern Ladies. Finally, her corruption was the last straw to break up the family.This paper analyzes the family tragedy from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis, in order to draw people's attention to the harm caused by the lack of the spiritual world. The characters in the novel were unable to balance their spiritual world with the external environment, and eventually were all defeated by themselves and destroyed by the outside world. At the same time, this article calls on everyone to pay more attention to the significance of family and children's education, a pair of incompetent parents will bring far more harm to the family than imagined. When there is no way to release the inner pressure, people often want to return to the safest period. Quentin, who was so troubled by the inner pressure, finally committed suicide and drowned to death. Like the title of a novel, The Sound and Fury, the tragedy of the Compsons is confusing and meaningless.7. ReferencesBatty, N, Ellen. (1994).Economies of desire: Reading between Toni Morrison and William Faulkner. Diss U of Western Ontario.Collins, C. (1954). The Interior Monologues of The Sound and the Fury, English Institute Essays. Ed. Alan S. Downer. New York: Columbia UP.Cao, S., An Introduction to The Sound and the Fury, in A Faulkner Miscellany. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.Freud, S. (1920). A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Charleston: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. Freud, S. (1998). Interpretation of Dreams, Beijing: Chinese Peoples University Press.Hergenhahn, B, R. (1980). An introduction to theories of personality. Englewood cliffs: Prentice Hall.Moore, K. (2000). Jason Compson and the Mother Complex. The Mississippi Quarterly, 53(4), 533-550.曹曦颖（2012），精神荒原上的挣扎精神分析批评视角下的《喧哗与骚动》人物群像，《西华师范大学学报(哲学社会科学版)》，03：106-110。

刘洊波（2004），《喧哗与骚动》的文体特征探微，《外语教学》，04：83-86。

陶洁（1992），《喧哗与骚动》新探，《外国文学评论》，04：32-39。

王钢（2009），潜意识对话:福克纳与弗洛伊德的文学渊源以《喧哗与骚动》的心理学阐释为例，《吉林师范大学学报(人文社会科学版)》，37（03）：88-90。

威廉福克纳（1984），《喧哗与骚动》（The Sound and the Fury）,李文俊译。

上海：上海译文出版社。

肖明翰（1997），威廉福克纳研究，北京：外语教学与研究出版社。

姚乃强（1993），福克纳研究的新趋向，《外国文学研究》，01：108-113.Outline1. Introduction 1.1. Introduction to William Faulkner 1.2. Introduction to The Sound and the Fury1.3. Need of Study2. Literature Review3. Freudian Psychoanalysis3.1. Definition and Background 3.2. Freuds Tripartite Personality Structure3.3. The Stages of Personality Development4. Tragic Motivations in Family Circumstances4.1. Mr. Compson: a Weak Nihilistic Alcoholic4.2. Mrs. Compson: a Selfish and Cruel Lady5. Tragic Motivations in Personality defect5.1. Benjy: an Idiot with No Sense4.1.1 Representative of the id4.1.2 Pursuing motherly love: Regarding Caddy as mother5.2. Quentin: a Struggling Saint5.2.1. Representative of the ego5.2.2. Pursuing motherly love: Regarding Caddy as lover5.3. Jason: a Cruel Revenger5.3.1. Representative of the super-ego5.3.2. Pursuing motherly love: Regarding Caddy as enemy6. Conclusion 7. References

剩余内容已隐藏，您需要先支付 10元 才能查看该篇文章全部内容！立即支付

以上是毕业论文文献综述，课题毕业论文、任务书、外文翻译、程序设计、图纸设计等资料可联系客服协助查找。

您可能感兴趣的文章