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Unholy Families: The Oedipal Psychopathology off Four Expressionist Ich‐Dramen 1
Author(s) -
Sheppard Richard William
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1986.tb00556.x
Subject(s) - psychoanalysis , exegesis , philosophy , confusion , subject (documents) , hero , power (physics) , oedipus complex , freudian slip , literature , psychology , art , theology , psychoanalytic theory , quantum mechanics , library science , computer science , physics
Summary The psycho‐analytical theory of Jacques Lacan, combined with Vladimir Propp's theory of the folk‐tale, enables us to arrive at a more abstract, structural understanding of four key Expressionist Ich‐Dramen ‐ Kaiser's Von morgens bis mitternachts , Hasenclever's Der Sohn , Sorge's Der Bettler and Johst's Der Einsame ‐ which have, until now, been relatively impervious to exegesis. In Lacanian terms, all four plays can be read as multilevelled attempts to free the castrated “hero” from the power of the Father/Law which inevitably fail because of the subject's neurotic confusion of the signified with the signifier. Conversely, the tragic endings to which all four plays tend can be seen as the inevitable outcomes of the Lacanian “psychology of lack” and thus used as the basis of a critique of the fundamentals of that psychology.