Reading beyond psychoanalysis: Transference effect of literature

Reading as an encounter refers to a resistance that calls for a reappraisal of the reading models centered on the reader's identity. This study attempts to trace the nature of this encounter by exploring the relationship between literature and psychoanalysis. Since the reader-centered critical theories assign a central role to the reader, implying the necessary presence of the reading subject, the dissertation investigates the possibility of self-forgetting in psychoanalysis. The study finds this possibility in Jacques Lacan's concepts of "transference" and "jouissance," especially as theorized in his late works. Lacan designates the subject as the subject of desire which manifests itself in "transference effect." According to him, this effect is love, whose narcissistic nature can be overcome by the analyst's refusal of the analysand's perception of him/her as the "subject supposed to know." The dissertation suggests that reading follows a similar path, starting with a narcissistic search in a literary work, and continuing with the possibilities of jouissance. The reading subject turns to be a self-forgetful subject both like the "ideal" analyst and the "whole" text in the course of reading. Expecting to satisfy his/her desire, the reader finds himself/herself in a real encounter which results in jouissance of reading. Since the force of resistance constitutes the basis of this dissertation, self-reflexivity and perversity of literary texts are discussed through the readings of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined letter" (1844), Henry James's "The Story in It" (1902) and Franz Kafka's "The Judgment" (1912). Despite their thematic and stylistic differences, all these short stories dramatize the resistant relation of literature to literalism opening at the same time the possibility of psychoanalytic readings. It is at this intersection that the importance of "reading beyond" appears. The dialogue between these texts and the reader is not based on a certain truth which requires the author's manipulative power or the reader's supposed knowledge. Under the performative power and the literary effect of these texts, the reader forgets who he/she is and what he/she reads, becoming and reading "beyond."...