The function of intertextuality in D.M Thomas' novel The White Hotel

D. M. Thomas’s novel The White Hotel is one of the most controversial intellectual projects of the post- WWII period. It contains the distinctive traits of a postmodern work. The White Hotel is remarkable for its blend of history, fantasy, poetry, clairvoyancy and psychoanalysis. But what makes the text unique, is the multiple intertextuality. D. M. Thomas uses other authors’ works in his novel which can be considered as plagiarism but this fact manages to hide the border between history and fiction and portrays the violence of this era.

The text offers the reader borrowings from the libretto of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, Pushkin’s poem Eugene Onegin, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard, Anatoli Kuznetsov’s Babi Yar and D. M. Thomas’s poems, and excerpts from Freudian letters and books.” This “sharing” illustrates the intertextual condition of all literary texts and, indeed, of the entire cultural domain. “ ( Kostova, L. ) . The role of the letters is very important because they introduce the constant merging of historical and fictional text. D. M. Thomas includes in his work a letter of Ferenczi in the prologue because he is convinces that he ought to commence the way back first of all and not with Freud or even with Jung, but with Ferenczi on the journey of the analysts to America. Regarding Babi Yar, D. M. Thomas bought Kuznetsov’s historical-documentary novel only because it was a fat book and he was going on a journey but later he finds a metaphorical connection between Babi Yar and the poem that opens The White Hotel. In the novel can be also found intertextuality with Dora’s case, through which Freud imposes his general theories on individual subjects regardless of their particular histories and symptoms. Using the Freudian texts D. M. Thomas acquires a Freudian style of writing. It can be observed even in the way that he brings in cultural allusions, quotations from poetry, which is very Freudian and which according to D. M. Thomas is a sign of humanism of this analyst, which is admired deeply by D. M. Thomas.

The aim of the letter of Ferenczi in the prologue is to reveal the relationship between Freud and Jung. Ferenczi writes to Gisela that “there has been a little tension between Jung and Freud....” (Freud and “The white Hotel”, 1959) This discloses the contradictions between the two psychoanalysts. The talking of Jung about the "peat bog corpses" that have been found in northern Germany can be considered as extraordinary coincidence when one thought of the other kind of peat bog corpses which later in the century the Germans were desperately trying to dig up to try and cover their traces of Babi Yar.

The other letters in the epistolary prologue discuss a specific case and its patient’s writings which describe actual historical characters and circumstances. This intertextuality set the stage not only for the central role of psychoanalysis and its emphasis of eros and thanatos, but it also introduce the constant line between historical and fictional text. There are themes that come out later in The White Hotel from D. M. Thomas’s poem Viennia, Ziirich, Constance. One of the themes is this of the paranormal knife blade snapping or the knife which snaps in Emma Jung's kitchen drawer. “In Emma's kitchen-drawer a knife blade quietly snapped.” ( Freud and “The white Hotel”, 1957). This is not directly inserted in The White Hotel but it is implied in the section where Freud and Jung are arguing for the paranormal and the telepathy and they hear this bang in the cabinet. This scene is another proof of their contradictory relations because Freud claims that there will be another bang, they hear the bang again and the reader is told that Freud did not quite trust Jung after that.

Concerning the intertextuality with Dora’s case, Freud’s diagnosis and the corrective footnotes suggest that Lisa’s case must be read as a commentary on Dora’s case. Dora was never permitted to speak, but D. M. Thomas allows Lisa to speak on her own behalf. This intertextuality and the approach of the author question Freud’s abilities and become a symbol of psychoanalysis’ limitation. This freedom of Lisa to speak undermines psychoanalysis’ authority, supported by the quote of Heraclid that the soul of man is a far country, which cannot be approached or explored.With the repetition of the quote D. M. Thomas emphasize on the connection with the massacre at Babi Yar.

The texts that D. M. Thomas introduces in The White Hotel are intermixed with his own discourse, so he should not be considered to be a plagiarist. The texts taken from the Freudian letters and books aim to make the reader acquainted with the subject of the psychoanalysis. On the other hand the fictional extension of this subject aims to challenge the psychoanalysts and to display the limitation of their abilities. The strong influence of The White Hotel upon the novel of John Kerr A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein cannot be missed. The book obtains most of its themes from D. M. Thomas’s novel and its poems. This is another proof that The White Hotel is one of the most remarkable novels of the British literature and an inspiration for contemporary directors and writers.



Work Cited:

Type of Entry In-Text Citation Form Works Cited Form
Electronic source:
Article form a Journal (Freud and “The
white Hotel”, 1959)

(Freud and “The
white Hotel”, 1957) BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL VOLUME 287 24-31 DECEMBER 1983
Medicine and Books
Freud and the "White Hotel"
D M THOMAS
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pmc/articles/PMC1550192/
pdf/bmjcred00586-0057.pdf

Article (Kostova, L.) SOME THOUGHTS ON THE WHITE HOTEL
Ludmilla Kostova,
University of Veliko
Turnovo,Bulgaria