Toward a Freudian theory of the representation of labour in the novel: Some tentative hypotheses
Abstract
This article seeks to explore, from a theoretical perspective, the issue of the representation of labour in the novel. The first paragraph discusses «the plainness and iterativeness of work», which are the two aspects that, according to James Agee, make it such a peculiarly complicated narrative theme. The problem is thus theorized in terms of how the theme of iterative work can be effectively expressed in novels.
The second paragraph is functional to the argument developed in the third and last paragraph and deals with a non-literary problem. Through a meta-psychological reading of Weber’s Protestant Ethic, it offers an interpretation of capitalist ethics from a psychoanalytic conceptual framework.
The third and last paragraph discusses Francesco Orlando’s Freudian theory of literature, Orlando’s take on the notion of «return of the repressed», and his theorization of the representation of obsolete objects. Finally, I argue that it might be possible to recognize, in literary language, mechanisms that express the instances of the Super-ego.
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