Introduction
Anais Nin's A Spy in the House of Love is a novel which employs surrealism, which is defined as "a modern movement in art and literature in which an attempt is made to portray, or interpret the workings of the unconscious mind as manifested in dreams...[usually] characterized by an irrational, fantastic arrangement of material" (Neufeldt 1348). The novel succeeds in doing so by presenting the dream-like/unconscious realm of Sabina, Nin's main female character in the novel. The novel particularly focuses on a shift in identity from the conscious to the unconscious realms of Sabina. In particular, when Sabina is with Alan, her husband, it is as if she is in the conscious realm, but when she is with her many lovers, she has more freedom and autonomy as seen in her unconscious state. Although in Sabina's unconscious state, she is portrayed as passive, her repressed identity is displayed as she has freedoms that men had during the time period in which the novel was written; the early 1960s. Freud, in his The Interpretations of Dreams, would diagnose Sabina as having unconscious sexual desires and repressed wishes. This paper discusses how this is true as seen in A Spy in the House of Love.
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Introduction
Conscious vs. Unconscious Realms
Freud's Theories Applied to Sabina's Mind
Conclusion
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