“마음 저 내면의 혼돈을 들여다보기 위해”: 로렌스 단편에 나타난 신경증의 양상

Abstract

This paper proposes to explore the psychological basis of modern subjects, specifically some aspects of neurosis, described in Lawrence’s two short stories: “The Rocking-Horse Winner” and “The Princess”. Neurosis can be a literary concept which gives us pregnant implications in our “insane civilization”, and the theories of Freud and Lacan, such as “Oedipus Complex” and “The Name of Father”(Φ) among others, also function as a way of articulating the subtle relationships in the family in Lawrence’s stories. In addition to that, both of the psychoanalytic thinkers laid much emphasis on the indispensable role of language and narrative in treating neurotics, thereby suggesting the healing effect of literary work. In this sense, Lawrence, who firmly believed in the novel as the highest complex of subtle interrelatedness, tried to investigate “the inner chaos of the mind”, and furthermore gave us clues to get out of the state in his work. In “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, it is money that drives all the family into neurosis; the house is whispering “there must be more money” all the time. While the father is totally absent on the surface of the story, the desire of mother to have luck, lucre, or money leaves a pivotal, and ineffaceable impact on her son, Paul. They boy overwrought to ensure his streak of good luck continues by riding the rocking-horse finally dies just before the Derby. The story ironically casts a skeptical look on our civilization in which money has replaced the name of the symbolic father. “The Princess” is a much more complex story, in that it goes far beyond the boundary of the family. After depicting the uncanny relationship between father and daughter, it explores if Dollie can meet Romero half-way. After the fierce battle of wills on the Rockies, the dead father finally wins back his daughter, because Dollie refuses to get out of the neurotic frame which her father has made for her.