Delusion and Dream: in Jensen's Gradiva (an Interpretation in the Light of Psychoanalysis of Gradiva)

Delusion and Dream in Jensens Gradiva German: Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensens GradivaSigmund Freud1907 Delusion and Dream in Jensens Gradiva (German: Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensens Gradiva) is an essay written in 1907 by Sigmund Freud that subjects the novel Gradiva by Wilhelm Jensen and especially its protagonist to psychoanalysis.The novel is about a young archaeologist Norbert Hanold who comes to realize his love for his childhood friend through a long and complex process mainly by associating her with an idealized woman in the form of the Gradiva bas-relief.Freud considered the novel as providing a prime example of something which might be called cure by seduction or cure by love as well as evidence that the Oedipus complex is still active in normal adults too. An isolated unworldly individual Hanold has repressed the memory of a girl Zoë Bertgang with whom he has grown up and to whom he had been affectionately attached but is unconsciously reminded of her by a bas-relief depicting a young lovely woman with a distinctive gait. He calls her Gradiva which means the woman who steps along.After a dream about Gradiva and the destruction of Pompeii Hanold leaves for Pompeii where he meets a young woman very much alive whom he takes for Gradiva. In the course of the meetings that follow he organizes his mania stalking and interpreting signs (Gradiva appears at noon the ghost hour and the like). Gradiva seeks to cure him by gradually revealing her identity to him.The woman is of course Hanolds childhood sweetheart Zoë and fortunately his Gradiva is as shrewd as she is beautiful. Zoë the source of his malaise also becomes the agent of its resolution recognizing Hanolds delusions for what they are she restores him to sanity disentangling his fantasies from reality- it is only Zoë who can tell him that his archeological interest is sublimated desire for her.With respect to the final paragraph in which Jensen has Hanold asking Zoë to walk ahead of him and she complies with a smile Freud put Erotic...foot interest...By walking ahead of him in imitation of Gradiva on the plaque she finds the key to his therapy.