New Aspects of Infantile Trauma

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (36) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alma H. Bond
Keyword(s):  
Infantile Trauma

Great Expectations: “the ghost of a man's own father”

PMLA ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 436-449
Author(s):  
Lawrence Jay Dessner
Keyword(s):  
Complex Relationship ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Great Expectations ◽  
Father Figures ◽  
Freudian Theory ◽  
Psychoanalytic Approach ◽  
Infantile Trauma

Critical difficulties with Great Expectations prompt a psychoanalytic approach and consideration of the literary use of Freudian concepts and of the complex relationship between Dickens and Pip, dreamer and dream. Edmund Wilson stressed biography and the trauma of the blacking warehouse. Freudian theory stresses infantile trauma of the sort the novel’s first scene hints at: the death of brothers and parents. The intensity of Pip’s ambivalence and of his guilt and self-abasement suggests that Pip’s story projects and explores feelings of his creator. Many characters in the novel exhibit or parody Oedipal antagonisms. There are many father figures, deprived children, and allusions to patricide. Magwitch is the “father” Pip craves, the best giver and receiver of both punishment and forgiveness. Joe Gargery does not punish though Pip urges him to. Jaggers insists on neutrality. Magwitch fills Pip with excessive dread; his death, loving Pip and being loved by him, satisfies Pip’s psychic needs.

Infantile trauma, narcissistic injury and agoraphobia

1972 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian L. Stamm
Keyword(s):  
Narcissistic Injury ◽  
Infantile Trauma
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