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The thesis of A Gorgon’s Mask: The Mother in Thomas Mann’s Fiction depends upon three psychoanalytic concepts: Freud’s early work on the relationship between the infant and its mother and on the psychology of artistic creation, Annie Reich’s analysis of the grotesque-comic sublimation, and Edmund Bergler’s analysis of writer’s block. Mann’s crisis of sexual anxiety in late adolescence is presented as the defining moment for his entire artistic life. In the throes of that crisis he included a sketch of a female as Gorgon in a book that would not escape his mother’s notice. But to defend himself from being overcome by the Gorgon-mother’s stare he employed the grotesque-comic sublimation, hiding the mother figure behind fictional characters physically attractive but psychologically repellent, all the while couching his fiction in an ironic tone that evoked humor, however lacking in humor the subtext might be. In this manner he could deny to himself that the mother figure always lurked in his work, and by that denial deny that he was a victim of oral regression. For, as Edmund Bergler argues, the creative writer who acknowledges his oral dependency will inevitably succumb to writer’s block. Mann’s late work reveals that his defense against the Gorgon is crumbling. In Doctor Faustus Mann portrays Adrian Leverk?hn as, ultimately, the victim of oral regression; but the fact that Mann was able to compete the novel, despite severe physical illness and psychological distress, demonstrates that he himself was still holding writer’s block at bay. In Confessions of Felix Krull: Confidence Man, a narrative that he had abandoned forty years before, Mann was finally forced to acknowledge that he was depleted of creative vitality, but not of his capacity for irony, brilliantly couching the victorious return of the repressed in ambiguity. This study will be of interest to general readers who enjoy Mann’s narrative art, to students of Mann’s work, especially its psychological and mythological aspects, and to students of the psychology of artistic creativity.
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A Gorgon’s Mask Psychoanalysis and Culture Editorial Board 12 J.J Baneke, M. Franchoo, H.G.C. Hillenaar, C.P. Nuijten, R.A. Pierloot, J.H. Scheffer, W. Schönau and T. Traversier A Gorgon’s Mask The Mother in Thomas Mann’s Fiction Lewis A. Lawson Amsterdam - New York, NY 2005 The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 90-420-1745-7 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam – New York, NY 2005 Printed in The Netherlands Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 I. Introduction 7 II. Early Works 29 III. The Magic Mountain 145 IV. Mann meets Freud 219 V. Joseph and His Brothers 235 The Beloved Returns:Lotte in Weimar 260 The Transposed Heads 285 Joseph the Provider 301 Doctor Faustus 313 VI. VII. The Holy Sinner 365 Confessions of Felix Krull: Confidence Man 377 The Black Swan 391 Confessions of Felix Krull: Confidence Man 398 VIII. Conclusion 411 Bibliography 415 Index 427 Acknowledgements Throughout the years the years spent on this project, I was buoyed, as always, by the love of my wife Barbara, our son John, and our daughter Rachel, her husband Don, their son Pat. My writing style has been considerably improved by the timely arrival of Pat, whose recent Lego constructions have taught me a thing or two about putting things together and t