Abstract—The Austrian novelist Zweig’s Letter from an Unknown Woman is a well-known novella and one of his masterpieces. The heroine loved the man for lifetime and tried again and again and gave multiple hints to let him recognize her, but he didn’t. This paper will analyze the heroine in Letter from an Unknown Woman and discuss the deep reason hiding behind her amazing affection to the novelist from the perspective of Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theories. I. INTRODUCTION Letter from an Unknown Woman is a well-known novella written by the Austrian novelist Zweig and is one of his masterpieces. And it was also highly praised by Gorky. The novel tells a story as follows. A famous novelist R received a letter without a signature and address on his 41st birthday, from a dying woman telling an unforgettable love story, and the male protagonist of the story was the one who received the letter. The story began several years ago. When she first met the man, she was still a 13-year-old child. After that, she obsessed him as a girl and loved him as a woman, and even gave birth to their son. In order to meet him and raise up their son, she endured poverty and humiliation to her body. But she never changed her love for him. What made her sad for a few times was that the novelist never recognized her. She decided to confess before she died. So she wrote this letter to tell the novelist about her life-time love for him. The only thing she beg him was to believe what she said in this letter. Zweig was born in a wealthy Jewish family. He studied philosophy and literature in Vienna and Berlin in his youth, traveled around the world later, and made acquaintance with Roman Roland, Freud, etc. He was engaged in anti-war work during World War I. In 1934, he was expelled by the Nazis and was exiled to the United Kingdom and Brazil. And he committed suicide in Brazil in 1942. He had been writing poems, novels, dramas, literary theories and biographies. His best known achievements are those in biography and novels [1]. Zweig's novels mainly focus on themes of emotions, and describe the complex emotional activities and mental states of the characters delicately.These features have made his works unique and attracted a large amount of readers. Zweig himself appreciates Freud very much. Letter from an Unknown Woman is a successful practice of Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Thus, it is reasonable to use Freud’s Manuscript received January 13, 2020; revised March 17, 2020. Siyu Wang is with Northwestern Polytechnical University, China (e-mail: [email protected]). psychoanalytic theories to analyze this novella. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is the founder of psychoanalytic psychology. He is an Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist and literary critic. In the book The Ego and the Id, Freud further improved his Pre-consciousness theory. He described the personality structure as “id”, “ego” and “superego”. The most basic level of personality structure is “Id”, which is at the bottom layer of mind. It is animal's instinctive impulse that people were born with, especially refers to sexual impulse, which acts according to the “Principle of Happiness”. The top layer is “Superego”, which represents a defender who strives to be perfect. The main responsibility of “Superego” is to guide “Id”, to limit the instinctual impulse and to suppress “Id”. “Superego” act according to the “Principle of Perfection” [2]. The middle layer is the “Ego”, which is differentiated from the “Id” due to the reality. The part that clarifies the current affairs. “Ego” acts according to the “Principle of Reality” It is the contradiction that can be based on the surrounding environment to adjust itself between “Id” and “Superego” [3]. According to Freud, “Libido” is a kind of power that instincts use to accomplish its purpose [4].The word “Libido” is taken from the theory of emotions. It is used to refer to the instinctual energy associated with everything contained in “love”. The core of “love” is sexual love, but this “love” includes friendship, self-love, parental love, etc. as well. Libido is related to sexual impulses. It sometimes manifests itself as sexual instincts, namely the basic desire for sex.To sum up, Libido is the driving force of individual instinct expression and satisfaction [5]. “Identification” means one’s identification to a person who is in higher status or has more achievements, in order to eliminate the anxiety caused by the inability to achieve success or satisfaction. There are several types of identification. For example, fantasy identification is based on a hero or an idol, as you imagine someone you want to be. Identification to an ideal image or an object is to imitate someone who you think is great. This kind of defense also exists among those who are passionate about superstition. They imitate the leader to act in order to escape from unpleasant emotions [6]. This paper will analyze the heroine in Letter from an Unknown Woman and discuss the underlying reason hiding behind her obsessive affection to the novelist from the perspective of Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theories. “ My boy died yesterday”repeated several times implies that she began to tell him about a new stage of her life. Her life after she met the writer can be divided into three periods: childhood (as a child), adolescence (as a girl) and adulthood (as a woman). Interpretation of the Heroine in Letter from an Unknown Woman with Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theories Siyu Wang International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, Vol. 6, No. 1, March 2020 51 doi: 10.18178/ijlll.2020.6.1.249 Index Terms—Freud’s psychoanalytic theories, Letter from an Unknown Woman, zweig.
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Abstract—The Austrian novelist Zweig’s Letter from an
Unknown Woman is a well-known novella and one of his
masterpieces. The heroine loved the man for lifetime and tried
again and again and gave multiple hints to let him recognize her,
but he didn’t. This paper will analyze the heroine in Letter from
an Unknown Woman and discuss the deep reason hiding behind
her amazing affection to the novelist from the perspective of
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theories.
I. INTRODUCTION
Letter from an Unknown Woman is a well-known novella
written by the Austrian novelist Zweig and is one of his
masterpieces. And it was also highly praised by Gorky. The
novel tells a story as follows. A famous novelist R received a
letter without a signature and address on his 41st birthday,
from a dying woman telling an unforgettable love story, and
the male protagonist of the story was the one who received
the letter. The story began several years ago. When she first
met the man, she was still a 13-year-old child. After that, she
obsessed him as a girl and loved him as a woman, and even
gave birth to their son. In order to meet him and raise up their
son, she endured poverty and humiliation to her body. But
she never changed her love for him. What made her sad for a
few times was that the novelist never recognized her. She
decided to confess before she died. So she wrote this letter to
tell the novelist about her life-time love for him. The only
thing she beg him was to believe what she said in this letter.
Zweig was born in a wealthy Jewish family. He studied
philosophy and literature in Vienna and Berlin in his youth,
traveled around the world later, and made acquaintance with
Roman Roland, Freud, etc. He was engaged in anti-war work
during World War I. In 1934, he was expelled by the Nazis
and was exiled to the United Kingdom and Brazil. And he
committed suicide in Brazil in 1942. He had been writing
poems, novels, dramas, literary theories and biographies. His
best known achievements are those in biography and novels
[1]. Zweig's novels mainly focus on themes of emotions, and
describe the complex emotional activities and mental states
of the characters delicately.These features have made his
works unique and attracted a large amount of readers. Zweig
himself appreciates Freud very much. Letter from an
Unknown Woman is a successful practice of Freud's
psychoanalytic theory. Thus, it is reasonable to use Freud’s
Manuscript received January 13, 2020; revised March 17, 2020.
Siyu Wang is with Northwestern Polytechnical University, China (e-mail: