<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This paper explores Gail Honeyman’s 2017 novel Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine from the perspective of Abraham and Torok’s concept of the psychic crypt. On one level the protagonist Eleanor, a thirty-year-old urban single woman searching for love, resembles a chick-lit heroine; however, Eleanor is deeply lonely, apparently autistic, suicidal and a survivor of childhood abuse and trauma. The paper argues that Eleanor’s difficulties can be understood as the consequences of encryptment which, in Abraham and Torok’s terms, is a disease of mourning where the dead loved one is incorporated rather than introjected into the psyche.</p></abstract>

This paper explores Gail Honeyman’s 2017 novel Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine from the perspective of Abraham and Torok’s concept of the psychic crypt. On one level the protagonist Eleanor, a thirty-year-old urban single woman searching for love, resembles a chick-lit heroine; however, Eleanor is deeply lonely, apparently autistic, suicidal and a survivor of childhood abuse and trauma. The paper argues that Eleanor’s difficulties can be understood as the consequences of encryptment which, in Abraham and Torok’s terms, is a disease of mourning where the dead loved one is incorporated rather than introjected into the psyche.

Speaking with the Dead: The Sick Chick and the Psychic Crypt in Gail Honeyman’s <italic>Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine</italic>

Gender Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Speaking with the Dead: The Sick Chick and the Psychic Crypt in Gail Honeyman’s 

This paper explores Gail Honeyman’s 2017 novel Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine from the perspective of Abraham and Torok’s concept of the psychic crypt. On...

Speaking with the Dead: The Sick Chick and the Psychic Crypt in Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Published Online: Dec 27, 2021

Page range: 46 - 58

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/genst-2022-0004

Keywords
crypt, introjection, loneliness

© 2021 Catherine Macmillan, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Speaking with the Dead: The Sick Chick and the Psychic Crypt in Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Published Online: Dec 27, 2021

Page range: 46 - 58

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/genst-2022-0004

Keywordscrypt, introjection, loneliness

© 2021 Catherine Macmillan, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords
crypt, introjection, loneliness