Abstract: For the past century, literary individuals have been investigating short stories according to their structural and textual identities. However, few are scrutinized based on the author-to-text connectivity and Sigmund Freud’s concept of psychoanalysis. To address the fewness of expressive and psychoanalytical analysis of short story, an investigation is conducted on the representative masterpiece. Sylvia Plath's “Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams” is the center of investigation. This study uses qualitative method of discourse analysis. The investigation focuses on two aspects: the author's presence in the text and the psychological viewpoints of the character and the author. This paper further uses historical-biographical theory and psychoanalytical theory to buttress the study's objective. The investigation on the author’s presence in the text is supported by historical-biographical theory while the interpretation on the psychological viewpoints of the character and the author is underpinned by psychoanalytic theory. The study gathers two focal results: this literary piece portrays author's narration of self in the text, and shows behavioral perspectives of the character and the author. Based on the thorough investigation and findings of the study, it is concluded that Plath's short story reveals binary significations which are anchored on the selected theories of literature.
Keywords: Sylvia Plath, short story, psychoanalytic theory, historical-biographical theory, binary signification, literature, criticism.
Title: Understanding Sylvia Plath’s “Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams”
Author: Kimberth D. Obeso
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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