«The Return of the Repressed»: Uncovering Family Secrets in Zola's Fiction: An Interpretation of Selected Novels

by Rita Oghia-Codsi

Overview

This book analyses Zola's fiction from a psychoanalytical standpoint, focusing in particular on the author's family secret. The study scans for sub-textual issues of sexual insecurity and anxiety, which are analysed through the psychoanalytical theories of Abraham, Toroks, Freud and Lacan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783034319829
Publisher:	Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Publication date:	11/24/2015
Series:	French Studies of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries , #35
Pages:	325
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 8.86(h) x (d)

About the Author

Rita Oghia-Codsi obtained a doctorate in nineteenth-century French studies from Royal Holloway, University of London for a thesis on the return of the female phantom in selected novels from Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series. Her main research interests are the relationship between psychoanalysis and literature, feminist literary theory, comparative literature and the history of philosophy. Her recent publications include ‘Exploring the Origins of Creativity in Zola’s La Fortune des Rougon’, for the Bulletin of the Emile Zola Society. She is currently working on Henry James, Octave Mirbeau and Emile Zola.

Table of Contents

Contents: The Function of the Unconscious in the Selected Novels of Emile Zola – The Death-Drive and the Return of the Repressed in La Fortune des Rougon, Thérèse Raquin and Madeleine Férat – The Function of Dreams in La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret and La Bête humaine – Prostitution and Nineteenth-Century «Female Discourse» in La Curée and Nana – The Connection between Gestation and Heredity in Le Docteur Pascal, or the Secret Exposed – The Nature of Truth in Vérité – Conclusion of Arguments Presented on Zola’s Language.