Kim, Yea Ji ENGLISH 14

Villahermosa, Linus TTHS 5:00-6:00

Rilloraza, Mylene

Angel Manalastas

Psychoanalytic criticism “The Heart of Summer”

The short story “The Heart of Summer” is all about a man who is in obsession. The man met a woman in summer. He was fell in love at a glance. So, he try to win her love but she refused it. He was sad, sobbed. And he dreamed about her. He confessed to her but she refused it again. After he woke up, he just went to the beach to find her. He delude someone to her so he approach to her and try to capture her even the woman said she is not the one whom he looking for. In the end of the story, the man dead. The woman was trying to kick him and run away and he was sinking. He died because of he didn’t know how to swim.

In the conclusion, we can inference the hidden meaning as he died because he doesn’t know the method. He doesn’t know how to love so he obsess to her and it lead him to death. And he follows the pleasure principle where the ‘id’ is acting. He love her because he loves her even the woman doesn’t want. Also it can be the result of the denial; one of the defence mechanism. Denial is the refusal to accept reality or fact, acting as if a painful event, thought or feeling did not exist. He denied that she didn’t love him and find another girl who is similar with her then try to check love.

And, we can find two major symbolism in this story and I will critic it by using psychoanalytic approach.

One of the symbolism that we can find in this literature is color ‘yellow’. Yellow mentioned in this story so many time.

First, “Dreaming he saw the yellow brown house where she lived.” In the meaning of psychological way, yellow can make people to say what's on one's mind. And for brown is mixed color of red and green. It means it’s in the middle position of impulse and suppress. So it can interpreted as the unconsciousness of man. The man wants to tell about his mind that impulse to love her and suppress the love for her. After it, that yellow brown house is mentioned again and we can know that he didn’t stop his obsession toward her.

Second, “To the sea, to sea, he shouted. A sunrise drives to the yellow beach alley.” In this paragraph which contain the sentence, the writer uses the phrase ‘yellow beach’ so many times. The another meaning of color yellow is ‘caution’. It continuously warning about his death cause of his obsession.

And the other symbolism is “hide-and-seek”. It also mentioned in this story twice. For the first time it is just mentioned as children’s playing. But in the second time, the woman whom the man fell in love said “Come let us pay hide-and-seek” in his dreaming. Dreaming is one of the important factor in the psychoanalytic criticism because in the dreaming character’s unconsciousness is projected. And the meaning of hide-and-seek would mean the real situation of the man and woman. The man keep trying to find her and confess his love but she doesn’t want and run away from him.