THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

1.2 Fantastic Psychoanalysis and the Doppelganger The Avatar in Panama1934. 6 Perhaps the tardiness with which psychoanalysis spread in LatinAmerica compared with Europe contributed somewhat to the lesssophisticated development of the double as a literary theme.Theory notwithstanding, it is the method of psychoanalysis thatremains Freud’s most innovative creation. This new process dealt withthe unconscious via free association, a technique which requiredanalyst and patient to construct, through spontaneous verbalisation,something which led to the uncovering of repressed desires andtherefore beneficial, therapeutic consequences. 7 Freud’s “talking cure”as a psychological panacea was welcomed and it became acceptedthat he had revolutionised the doctor-patient relationship. 8 This factalone led to the establishment of specialised terms which wereembraced by the modern writers of the time. 9The impact of Freud's pioneering work The Interpretation ofDreams upon the artistic and literary movement of the time wasprofound. It broke down the boundaries between literature and scienceand enabled a more liberal approach to subject matter. There was achange in the way human behaviour and relationships were viewed andthis uncovered variety of genres for which Freudian analysis seemedmost apt. As a plausible tool for interpreting the fantastic genre ofliterature and absurd texts, psychoanalysis gave the reader anunderstanding of the writer’s unconscious drives. The assumption wasthat artistic or literary works were products of the artist’s imaginationand that they dealt with unacknowledged motivations and desires. Thenext step was to state that those feelings and desires represented in thetext originated from the text’s creator whose job it was to work withfantasy in its various forms. As a result, otherwise unexpected desiresrevealed themselves in a disguised rather than concealed way through6 Maria Luisa Muñoz and Rebeca Grinberg, “Spain”, Psychoanalysis International: AGuide to Psychoanalysis throughout the World. vol 1: Europe. 2 vols. Peter Kutter, ed.(Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1992) 251-252. (251-267). [This is asummarised version of the article by Maria Luisa Muñoz published by the AsociaciónPsicoanalítica of Madrid’s Revista de Psicoanálisis, no. 9, 1989, and updated byRebeca Grinberg].7Ellenberger 547-549.8 This relationship is often stereotyped and depicts, notably in Woody Allen films, thepatient on a couch free-associating while the psychiatrist takes notes.9Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane, eds. Modernism: 1890-1930(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1976) 60. “Broadly speaking, the term‘modernity’ can be taken as referring to that set of social, political and economicinstitutions brought into existence in the West some time during the eighteenthcentury, and which have become worldwide in influence in the twentieth century”.Anthony Elliott, Subject to Ourselves (Cambridge: Polity, 1996) 8.38