Visions, nightmares and naval chords-obsessions of modernist literature

Abstract

This paper is a study of recurring images of the obsession with the navel signifying both union and separation. Drawing heavily on the theories of psychoanalysis developed by Sigmund Freud and others, modernist fiction inaugurated by Ulysses plunges into networking patterns of the contemporary cityscapes. The persistent allusions to vampires and rats penetrating and disrupting the extensive life veins of the urbane civilisation gets subliminally connected to the metaphor of the navel, serving as a point to return, a not that binds and ruptures as well. Joycean theme of leaving the home and returning to it has its centrality in the navel, omphalos theme and not entirely unconnected to fort/da game which Freud illustrates in his theories.