Imagined Human Beings. Bernard Jay Paris
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Imagined Human Beings
LITERATURE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS General Editor: Jeffrey Berman
The Beginning of Terror A Psychological Study of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Life and Work DAVID KLEINBARD
Loathsome Jews and Engulfing Women Metaphors of Projection in the Works of Wyndham Lewis, Charles Williams, and Graham Greene ANDREA FREUD LOEWENSTEIN
Literature and the Relational Self BARBARA ANN SCHAPIRO
Narcissism and the Literary Libido Rhetoric, Text, and Subjectivity MARSHALL W. ALCORN, JR.
Reading Freud’s Reading EDITED BY SANDER L. GILMAN, JUTTA BIRMELE, JAY GELLER, and VALERIE D. GREENBERG
Self-Analysis in Literary Study EDITED BY DANIEL RANCOUR-LAFERRIERE
The Transformation of Rage Mourning, and Creativity in George Eliot’s Fiction PEGGY FITZHUGH JOHNSTONE
Mastering Slavery Memory, Family, and Identity in Women’s Slave Narratives JENNIFER FLEISCHNER
Imagined Human Beings A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature BERNARD J. PARIS
Imagined Human Beings
A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature
Bernard J. Paris
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
© 1997 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Paris, Bernard J.
Imagined human beings : a psychological approach to character and
conflict in literature / Bernard J. Paris.
p. cm.—(Literature and psychoanalysis ; 9)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8147-6655-2 (clothbound : alk. paper).—ISBN
0-8147-6656-0 (paperbound : alk. paper)
I. Literature—Psychological aspects. 2. Psychology in
literature. 3. Psychoanalysis and literature. 4. Characters and
characteristics in literature. 5. Motivation (Psychology) in
literature. I. Title. II. Series.
PN56.P93P38 1997
809’.93353—dc21 97-4879
CIP
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Shirley still my inspiration
Contents
1 Applications of a Horneyan Approach
II Characters and Relationships
3 A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler
III Character, Plot, Rhetoric, and Narrative Technique
Preface
What fascinates me most about literature is its portrayal of human beings and their relationships. For many years I have been developing a psychological approach in which I try to understand the behavior of realistically drawn characters in the same way that we understand the behavior of real people. These characters are not flesh and blood creatures, of course, but are imagined human beings who have many parallels with people like ourselves. Numerous critics have maintained that it is inappropriate or impossible to explain the behavior of fictional characters in motivational terms, but I argue in chapter 1 that the rejection of psychological analysis has been a major critical error.
One reason why I find it possible