The Voyeur and His Muse: Lewis Carroll and “Alice”

Abstract

Recent modifications in psychoanalytic theory are used to understand the creativity of Lewis Carroll. Experience in early childhood is mainly structured by egocentric subjectivity and preoperational thought, with objective operational thought playing a less dominant role. Reflective thought and self concept develop at the same time with anxiety experienced in the interpersonal context having a major influence on the availability to consciousness of the images from early subjective experiences. The life and works of Lewis Carroll are viewed as examples of creativity as a compulsion. Carroll had life-long problems accepting various aspects of his personality that found expression in his revulsion to maleness and his romantic idealization of prepubescent girls. Although fascinated with subjective experience, he failed to understand its meaning for him and finally renounced that part of his life to compulsively explore the meaning of logic.

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