Obsession and culture
Subtitle: a study of sexual obsession in modern fiction
By: Andrew Brink.
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Madison [N.J.]; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 254
Subjects: Hesse, Hermann, 1877-1962 -- Criticism and interpretation.; English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Obsessive-compulsive disorder in literature.; American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Fiction -- Male authors -- History and criticism.; Man-woman relationships in literature.; Sex in literature.; Men in literature.
Description: 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-240) and index.