Wij zitten in een klem' : argetipiese verhoudingspatrone in 'De verwondering' van Hudo Claus

Through textual references Hugo Claus combines in his dense, Modernist novel De verwondering the vegetation myths of James George Frazer's The Golden Bough and Freud’s reading of the myth of Oedipus to cast the characters in what could be viewed as archetypal patterns of inter-subject relations. This novel is interpreted by identifying the archetypal patterns which form the depth structure of inter-subject relations in the novel, and discussing the implied mechanisms of these relations in the light of on psychoanalytic theories on subject formation and the rote of phantasms in the development of the mind. A proper reading of the intertexts of De verwondering initiates a discourse on human relations, death and sexuality. It is implied in the text that the relationship between the sexes is informed by primitive man’s experience of reality and the mysteries of sex and death.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Afrikaans and Netherlandic Studies

Year dc:date.issued

1998

Author dc:creator

• Smith, Francois Alwyn Harbin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wolfswinkel, Rolf

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13041

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13041