Stories of the unconscious: sub-versions in Freud, Lacan and Kristeva

The book is a theoretical examination of the concept of the Unconscious with an analysis of three literary works as an illustration of the views of Freud, Lacan and Kristeva. The main goal is to analyze in detail a central concept in psychoanalysis – in fact, one of the «four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis», to quote Lacan – and then see its literary embodiment in protagonists, characters, scenes. In other words, the book will help the reader to overcome the difficulties in grasping some psychoanalytic ideas through the use of a very specific form of language, the language of contemporary fiction. Thus language, which the Unconscious «is» and which it resists, will be the prime mover in accessing this ultimately evasive concept.