Abstract: This thesis has attached importance to Herzog’s suffering from the intellectual crisis. First, it has points out that the historical and cultural circumstances condition the self of Herzog in the grip of modern society. Secondly, it holds that Herzog suffers intellectual crisis. He feels void from modern society and thinks he can intellectually resolve all of the complex issues of his age or at least control his situation, solely through an intellectual awareness of it. But neither can he resolve the problem, nor can he control his situation. Moreover, the thesis illustrates the folly of Herzog’s grasping at lofty ideas to avoid coping with his own practical problems. Finally, this chapter finds that Herzog is in socially induced disintegration. While Herzog has a conviction that if he submits himself to the demands society imposes on him, he will lose his identity and will be reduced to fraction, which pits him against the external world and people he is in contact with. He stands away from the crowd. By repulsing the socially prescribed values, he is in turn rejected by the crowd. He is a self in a situation, where others provide no support to himself. Herzog has no self object support.
Keywords: Herzog, intellectual crisis, selfobject.
Title: The Obsessed Individual in the Intellectual Crisis: A Kohutian Reading of Herzog
Author: Qiutao Fan
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3164 (online), ISSN 2348-3156 (Print)
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