Find a copy in the library
Finding libraries that hold this item...
Details
| Additional Physical Format: | Online version: Brink, Andrew. Obsession and culture. Madison [N.J.] : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press ; London : Associated University Presses, c1996 (OCoLC)603724265 |
|---|---|
| Named Person: | Hermann Hesse; Hermann Hesse; John Fowles; Hermann Hesse; Vladimir V Nabokov; John Updike; Herbert G Wells |
| Document Type: | Book |
| All Authors / Contributors: |
Andrew Brink |
| ISBN: | 0838635962 9780838635964 |
| OCLC Number: | 32737923 |
| Description: | 254 p. ; 25 cm. |
| Contents: | Introduction: The obsessive imagination in writers -- H. G. Wells: The confessions of a sexual rebel -- Herman Hesse and bisexuality -- Love and death in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita : a fantasy analysis of an obsession -- Female sacrifice in the novels of John Fowles -- Eros and death in John Updike's fiction -- Obsession: The driving force of culture. |
| Responsibility: | Andrew Brink. |
Abstract:
Obsession and Culture proposes that male sexual obsessions are the driving force of culture and are most clearly seen in fiction. Examples could be multiplied many times, but the main objectives of this study are to show how the work of five male authors coheres within a framework of psychodynamic theory and to stimulate enquiry along these lines. Many twentieth-century novelists speak for a male psycho-class needing imaginative externalization of obsessive sexual fantasies of control of women. Attraction, avoidance, and guilt are powerful motivators for writers and readers alike, and the moral ambiguity of serial monogamy, as well as other forms of exploitative sexuality, prompt certain writers to construct symbolic expiation and repair in fiction. Psychobiography is combined with fantasy analysis to suggest the pervasiveness in modern fiction of the wish to conquer and to control women and to atone for the guilt.
Reviews
User-contributed reviews
Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers.
Be the first.
Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers.
Be the first.
Tags
Add tags for "Obsession and culture : a study of sexual obsession in modern fiction".
Be the first.
Similar Items
Related Subjects:(30)
- English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder in literature.
- American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
- Hesse, Hermann, -- 1877-1962 -- Criticism and interpretation.
- Fiction -- Male authors -- History and criticism.
- Man-woman relationships in literature.
- Sex in literature.
- Men in literature.
- Hesse, Hermann, -- 1877-1962 -- Critique et interprétation.
- Roman anglais -- 20e siècle -- Histoire et critique.
- Névroses obsessionnelles dans la littérature.
- Roman américain -- 20e siècle -- Histoire et critique.
- Roman -- Histoire et critique.
- Relations entre hommes et femmes dans la littérature.
- Sexualité -- Comportement compulsif, dans la littérature.
- Hommes dans la littérature.
- Écrits d'hommes -- Histoire et critique.
- Fowles, John.
- Hesse, Hermann.
- Nabokov, Vladimir V. -- Lolita.
- Updike, John.
- Wells, Herbert G.
- Besessenheit.
- Bisexualität.
- Erotik (Motiv)
- Frau.
- Liebe.
- Literatur.
- Opfer.
- Sexualität.
