Psychoanalysis and Anais Nin

When reading Freud and Lacan, I actually found a lot of their ideologies interesting despite their sexist views. Especially comparing it to the text I am studying Henry and June, I felt that psychoanalytic view on phallus is very important reoccurring themes. First, let me point out few things that stood out to me when reading Freud and Lacan. Their use of phallus as a symbol of desire was very interesting. Especially when Lacan mentions that, “The phallus is the privileged signifier of that mark in which the role of the logos is joined with the advent of desire” (Norton, 1187), I found the interconnection between language and phallus very important. Lacan goes to argue that it is a signifier because it is the most “tangible” element in the real sexual copulation. This is interesting because in Anais Nin’s text, it is all about intangible emotions and feelings that are put into writing and sexual relationships between two or more individuals.

In Anais Nin’s case, this is very true. She tries to overcome the issue of father being absent originally by writing a diary which is where my text comes from. Nin’s writing motive evolves from a letter to her absent father to writing itself to discover herself and later to observe others. In the text, she constantly analyzes herself as well to gain the knowledge of herself and others. In a way, like Freud’s idea of unconsciousness taking shape and civilized, she does the similar process in her text.

In Lacan’s theory, the center is called the Other, the Phallus. He believed that the self is constructed through relationship with others. The child tries to find the meaning and purpose of one’s self through interacting with other people and leaning about their desire, their phallus. This is a very interesting idea to discover because what Anais Nin does is she tries to figure out her own desire through interacting with the others. She is focused on her pleasure, her desire, her needs but she isn’t so concerned with merging with others and necessarily becoming one with them.

This is one of the conversations between her and her doctor:

From my dreams he culls the consistent desire to be punished, humiliated, or abandoned. I dream of a cruel Hugo, of a fearful Eduardo, of an impotent John.

“This comes from a sense of guilt for having loved your father too much. Afterwards I am sure you loved your mother much more,”…

I feel oppressed, as if his questions were thrusts. I am in a terrible need of him. Yet analysis does not help. The pain of living is nothing compared to the pain of this minute analysis. (Pg 131).

I believe that in here, she shows her side of the resistance as a woman. The man’s analysis that is based on male dominated society does not suit her. And later she gives her own analysis on her behavior based on the idea Allendy gives her: “I take Hugo to the rue Blondel and incite him to infidelity to punish myself for my own infidelities. I glorify June to punish myself for having betrayed her” (pg 133).

I think these two are interesting parallels. She accepts the psychoanalysis and she does not deny the power and logic of it. However, at the same time, she does believe that with women, there is far more than just “penis envy” and there is something more rising out of it. The desire to be woman is something that Freud could never fully fathom. And in Anais’ text, she takes the readers on an emotionally complex journey. We get to take a view into a woman who wishes to live like a woman but not by the society’s standard. She chooses to be a woman of her own. And this woman of her own is what the readers must discover through her diary.