An Analysis Of Margaret Drabble’s Novels From The Perspective Of Freud’s Anxiety Theory

Margaret Drabble(1939—)is one of the most accomplished British writers in the postwar period. She went into the literary world in the sixties when the feminist movement was so prevailing. Thus her novel-writing career was affected by some feminist writers such as the Simone de Beauvoir. She explored the female social status, self-construction, their awareness of self-liberation and the choice between career and love, etc. Her focus was expanded from the concerns of intellectual women to a variety of political and moral dilemmas in British society.This thesis aims to interpret the three novels written by Margaret Drabble based on Freud’s anxiety theory. Sigmund Freud was one of the greatest analysts in the western world, and his theory had an effect on the world. He analyzed human beings’ mind and found the causes of anxiety and the solutions to it and also explained the phenomenon of dreams. In his opinion, anxiety problem was the most crucial problem in psychoanalysis, and studying the anxiety problem could be helpful to analyze people’s psychology. According to the source of anxiety, Sigmund Freud divided anxiety into three types: reality anxiety, moral anxiety and neurotic anxiety. Reality anxiety referred to people who became anxious and fearful when they met the dangerous situations in daily life. When people did things against their internalized value and morality, they would become anxious, which was called moral anxiety. Sometimes people were anxious and upset but they didn’t have definite fearful goals or they were frightened by the things imagined by them. When people felt anxious, they would find some ways to reduce the degree of anxiety continuously, so the Ego-defense Mechanisms come out. Identification, displacement, depression, regression, projection, sublimation, reaction formation were the common ways that people use to reduce the degree of anxiety.The focus of this study is mainly laid on the analysis of Margaret’s three novels whose protagonists are all anxious people. The Millstone was the representative book of her early works, in which she dealt with the fate and life of women. In order to finish her thesis and get more female experiences, Rosamund became an unmarried mother. From pregnancy to the birth of the baby, she bore huge pressure, and she was so anxious most of the time. Reality anxiety, moral anxiety and neurotic anxiety left their marks on Rosamund Stacey. Economic problems and the illness of her baby brought her realistic anxiety, and the internalized morality brought her moral anxiety, and strong spiritual stress and a series of continuing terrible incidents had Rosamund got neurotic anxiety. Drabble discussed the lost mental state of human beings in The Ice Age, and she created a male protagonist in this novel. The main character Anthony experienced success and failure in career in a short time, and the departure of his wife and children, and the terrible things which he had to face with his lover Alison who made him very depressed and anxious. The poor Anthony Keating suffered from reality anxiety and moral anxiety. As a result, he was so unhappy all the day and at last he was put into the prison abroad. The Red Queen was a historical and time-travel story told by the ghost of the red queen. The red queen was sent into the palace as the queen of Prince Sado when she was a child. With the growth of the red queen, she experienced the conflicts between the prince and the king, the death of her husband, the rule of his son. The red queen was so anxious in the ups and downs. Another anxious woman was from modern British society, who was Barbara Halliwell. As with the red queen, Professor Barbara had a depressed husband, even worse, her lover died in her chest, which was the root of her anxiety. Margaret Drabble discussed a lot of themes in this novel such as multicultural communication, morality, the lost mental state of modern human beings. It’s worth mentioning that Margaret Drabble cared about the spiritual process of the growth of men, and showed two anxious men who lived in the shadow of their fathers, Prince Sado and Peter Halliwell.Studying the anxiety problems in the main characters in Margaret Drabble’s novels not only contribute to the interpretation of her works deeply but also make us understand modern people’s spiritual description and exploration of Margaret Drabble. The modern men suffer from all kinds of pressure such as finding a job, studying, and supporting their family etc., which makes more and more people feel anxious and depressed. Therefore, this thesis would be helpful for modern man to get rid of their anxiety.