The Life Death Drives
Cengiz Erdem
Supervisors
Jon Cook and Denise Riley
A thesis in The School of Literature and Creative Writing submitted to The Faculty of Arts and Humanities in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of East Anglia.
May 2009
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………..…….2
Table of Contents………………..…..………………………………………………………..4
Abstract………………………………….……………………………………………….…7
Introduction: The Cont®act Between Deconstruction and Affirmative Recreation
1. Overview……………………………..………… ……………………….……………..8
2. Objective……………………………….………………………………………………14
3. Method………..……………………….…………………………………………….….17
4. The Cont®act……….…………………..…………………………………………..….24
5. Structural Summary of The Thesis………….………..…………………………….…..26
PART ONE: Twilight Psychedelia
Chapter I: Life and Death in a Raving New World………………..…………..………….33
1. Freud and Einstein………………………………………………..…………………….33
2. The Void, Drives, Automata……………………………………………………………37
3. The Subject and Power…………………………………………………………………41
4. The Imprisoned Creators of Our Times…….…………………………………….……43
5. The Nietzschean Subject……………………………………………………….………49
Intermediation 1….……………………………………………………………………..53
Chapter II: The Controversy……………………………………………………………54
1. Nature, Culture, and Lacan…………………………………………………………….55
2. No Replica?……………………………………………………………………………………61
3. The Significance of Klein’s Fantasies………………………………..………….……63
4. Klein, Lacan, and Psychosis………………………………………………….…………66
5. Klein, Derrida, Deconstruction…………………………………………………………73
Conclusion of Part I……………………………………………………………………..78
PART TWO: Crafty Cuts
Chapter III: Cinema and Psychoanalysis ……………………………………….…….84
1. Cinematic Apparatus and The Psyche…..……………………………………………..84
2. Dream, Fantasy, and Film….…………………………………………………………..89
3. Projective Identification and Introjection ..……………………………………………95
4. Cinema and Fetishism…………………………………………………………………99
5. Butterfly Effect……….………………………………..……………………………….104
6. The Island…………………………………………….………………..………..……108
Intermediation 2……………………………………..…..………………………..……111
Chapter IV: Cronenberg, Burroughs, Deleuze………………….………….……………112
1. Passing Across The Dead Zone and Moving Towards The Dread Zone…………….112
2. Narcissus Revisited………..……………….…………..………………………………117
3. The Mantle Twins…………………………………..…………………………………119
4. Consequences of Messing With Nature………………………………..………………125
5. Naked Lunch and The Body Without Organs………………………………………..131
6. The Evil Spirit and The Spiritual Automaton…………………………………………140
7. From Metaphor an Towards Metamorphosis…………………………………………145
Conclusion of Part II..…………………………………………………………………152
PART THREE: Post-traumatic Writing Disorder
Chapter V: Creativity and The Unconscious….…….….…….……………………………155
1. Surreal Faces of The Unconscious……………………….………..…………………155
2. A Pineal Eye Soliloquy…………………………………………….………………….162
3. Is Pineal Eye an Organ Without a Body?………………………….…………………166
4. Artaud, Deleuze, and the Will to Nothingness…………..……………..……………170
5. Artaud and The Shaman………………………………………………………………180
6. Beckett……………………………………………………………………………….181
7. Krapp’s Last Tape………………………………………………….…………………189
Intermediation 3…..………………………………………………………..………….194
Chapter VI: Literature, Psychoanalysis, and Trauma…………………………………195
1. Architecture of The White Hotel………………………………………………………195
2. Is Everyman an Island?…………………………………………………….…………205
3. Projection-Introjection Mechanism in Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans….…. …..210
Conclusion of Part III…………………………………………………..….………….219
Consequences Beyond The Life Death Drives..…………………………………..…. 221
1. The Immortal Subject Beyond The Life Drive…………………………………..……221
2. The Immortal Subject Beyond The Death Drive.…………………………..…………227
3. Expulsion of the Negative and Affirmation of Life are Mutually Exclusive………..233
4. Cont®action is not the same as imposing one order upon another…………………..236
5. Epictetus? Yes………………………………………………………………………………………………..237
6. To What End Last Words? To what end suffering……………………………………240
AFTERWORD…………………………………………………………………………244
1. The Unhappy Consciousness……………………………………………………………………………244
2. Conversation Around Nietzsche……………………………………………………………………….254
Filmograpy & Bibliography………………..……………………………………………282
