Reading Charles Burns`s Black Hole Psychoanalytically.

This article is concerned with the psychoanalytic framework of graphic novels in regards to Freudian notions of the Dreamwork. I explore the ways in which Charles Burns aesthetics delve into the foundations of primitive psychoanalytic theory offering a detailed analysis of the ways in which these two disciplines intersect.

Interpretation and the Psychosexual Space: Reading Black Hole Psychoanalytically

Charles Burns`s Black Hole, a 12-issue comic published between 1995 and 2005, is set in the suburbs of Seattle in the mid 1970s. The series follows a group of teenagers who have contracted an unknown sexually transmitted disease known simply as `the bug`, causing them to develop horrifying mutations. There is very little written on Black Hole in literary criticism. Despite this, the text opens up a variety of ways in which it can be interpreted. A psychoanalytic reading of Burn`s text is useful in trying to discern the aesthetics of the graphic novel, whilst also formulating a conclusion to the texts methodical approach to dissecting the unconscious sexual psyches. The concepts of psychoanalysis have often been collapsed into narrative and poetic structures without directly referring to the authorial psyche at all, an interpretation which has often been associated with Lacan`s assertion that the `unconscious is structured like a language`. As Céline Surprenant has demonstrated, `psychoanalytic literary criticism does not constitute a unified field.however, all variants endorse, at least to a certain degree, the idea that literature is fundamentally entwined with the psyche`. As psychoanalysis has developed into a heterogeneous interpretive tradition so have the works of literature that discuss the field.

Drawn in pen and ink, Black Hole establishes a film noir detective story, emphasizing the mysterious nature of the text. Psychoanalysis has been questioned through a noir analysis, which is based on a positive and negative aesthetic. Black Hole is essentially noir psychoanalysis aestheticized. The highly stylized set of frames, which travel through the dark and obscure matter of the unconscious, signify not only the horror and hostility of the mind, but also mirror much of the founding principles of psychoanalysis. The comic specifically interacts with sexual development, particularly with regards to sex organs and their physical functions. Interpreting Black Hole through psychoanalysis reveals the psychodynamic and developmental processes of ego and sexual formation. In Black Hole, the formation of the ego is generally understood as forming a continual psychic and dynamic development through a symbolic framework, in which the structures, functions and agencies of adolescence are in constant states of becoming. More than an allegory for sexual disease, it is a story enveloped in the dark matter of psychoanalytic thought, which functions to capture the elusive moments of a teenagers` entry into the adult and symbolic kingdoms of consciousness.

Interpretation is at the heart of the Freudian doctrine and technique. To interpret is a means of analytic investigation, which brings out the latent meaning in what the subject of analysis says or does. Freud defines the latent content as a group of meanings, which are revealed upon the completion of analysis of a product of the unconscious, particularly a dream. As Storr notes, `the ultimate aim is to identify the wish that is expressed in every product of the unconscious`. Burns`s text poses a paradigm of interpretation with regards to the visual dream-works depicted throughout the comic. The Dreamwork maintains, in essence, that it constitutes a symbolic order, which is identical with the dreamer`s latent content of the dream. The latent content possesses the symbolic meaning of the dream representing those unconscious ideas of the psyche. In a Freudian sense, Burn`s creates the form of a psychosexual narrative in Black Hole, a stream-of-consciousness Dreamwork melding and mirroring the individual horrors of sexual development into a shared and spatial psychosexual consciousness. Unconscious desires have particular importance in this framework. The shifts between image and language are crucial in texturing the relationships between pathological desires and the subjects of sexual object choice. Chris and Rob`s relationship represents much of the Freudian Dreamwork. In the chapter, SSSSSSSSSS, Rob`s dream is littered with phallic images. Rob`s body transforms into a snake, his head remaining fully intact whilst constricting and penetrating his lover, Chris. For Freud, the snake is primarily a phallic symbol representing the penis and the male sex drive. As outlined in The Interpretation of Dreams (1919), Freud suggests that the incorporation of snake imagery in one`s dream empathizes and extends male sexuality, inviting the dreamer to consider inner conflicts during their sexual experiences. As Burn`s presents it, the snake is an image of the abject which he incorporates into Rob`s sexual desire for Chris.

Jung furthered the Freudian notion suggesting that a dream involving snakes indicates `a discrepancy between the attitude of the conscious mind and [the] indistinct`. The snake is thus the indistinct personification of the threatening aspect of inner sexual conflicts and acts. For the analyst, however, the presence of this natural reptile (in Jungian terms) denotes nature`s path. For Jung, `the snake is the symbol of the great wisdom of nature...what nature wants us to do is to move with a snake like motion`. Metaphorically speaking, Burns invites us to witness a natural and terrifying sexual transformation in Chris and Rob as well as the metamorphosis into adolescence. By combining the image of Rob (the phallic) and Chris (the vaginal), Burns places us into the role of the analyst, forcing us to decipher the Dreamwork of this hostile sexual landscape. Once the sexual act has been consummated, a single frame pictures Chris with shedding skin. The shedding of the skin symbolizes natural transformation, which has been propelled by Rob`s metamorphosis into the `naturally moving` snake. By combining Chris and Rob in opposing frames, the symbolic representation of animals and skin denotes and extends this notion of natural and sexual transformation.

The panels throughout flow into one another and are sequenced to intertwine recurring motifs. The snake is a recurring motif, symbolizing the phallic and this quest for natural and symbolic transformation. In `Summer Vacation`, the snake reappears in the same form in Chris`s dream. Chris exclaims, `I know where I`m going` whilst being led into the water by the growing snake (25). Water is a symbol for change, representing turning points in the narrative. Chris`s immersion in water in `Summer Vacation`, and by the novel`s end, is a sign of new life and purity, which has been led by the natural wave-like motion of the snake. Her dream becomes an almost uncanny reality from her previous unconscious states. Eric Berlatsky has argued that the space between the frames, which he terms the `gutter` are always constitutive of a graphic novels methodology. `Gutters` as he argues `are the spaces between comic book panels`. In his analysis of Scott McCloud, the `gutters` between panels generate meaning for the reader. The wavy panels that signify Chris`s entry into the dream kingdom enact a symbolic order to the stream-of-consciousness narrative. This order is led by the snake, forcing Chris in the direction of her newfound desires, leading her, (as well as the other characters and arguably the reader) towards a new sexual wisdom and consciousness. This wisdom bleeds into the narrative, depicting the developmental processes of the psychosexual ego through the lens of the unconscious. The gutters between the wavy frames of the Dreamwork create an intense layer of meaning. As I mentioned earlier, Burns`s is directly stimulating the reader into the role of the analyst. We are actively participating in the Dreamwork, deconstructing the meaning of it through a direct interpretation of the narrative between the frames. Sex is not only a threat or disease as other critics have noted but is also highly symbolic of the natural human condition. The combination of symbolic motifs and the natural is an allegory for the horrors of adolescence. Their physical scars (i.e. the loss of Chris`s skin) remind us that in these singular moments the characters` lives have dramatically shifted into the realm of a sexually fused adulthood.

Further, the use of the stream-of-consciousness Dreamwork allows Burns to format a deeper psychological resonance with the reader by utilizing Freud`s notion of the Uncanny. Traditionally, the stream-of-consciousness is layered upon a multiple narrator format. Such is used in Black Hole to fuse concepts of dream deja-vu and aesthetics. Freud based his notion of the uncanny on these exact principles. He theorized that through artistic repetition the audience can become aware of `something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated through the process of repression`. In other words, through Burns`s aesthetics we are actively forced to remember minute details and symbols through art. By allowing a stream-of-consciousness narrative to be recounted by multiple narrators, Burns temporarily disorientates his readers, aligning them to the experiences he poses in the text as well as the character`s personal subjectivities. Chris and Rob, for example, relive their sexual encounter in the graveyard repeatedly throughout the book. Their dreamworks, as highlighted earlier, are surrounded by an array of symbolic motifs, which act to remind the reader of their previous sexual encounters, both in reality and the imaginary: the repeated images of eggs, skin, snakes and wombs for example. Through the novels aesthetic, Burns invites us to remember those awkward moments from their own sexual pasts, which constitutes their own modes of self-repression as well as their highly symbolic dreams. Burns is undoubtedly aware of these multiple layers of the subconscious and conscious mind, as the imagery he poses stems from the psychoanalytic language his text communicates.

Andrew Arnold has described the bodily scars and mutations of Burns`s characters as `corporeal manifestations of their inner souls`. In this light, the characters have their unconscious fears represented through their physical ailments. A prime example of this representation is Rob`s smaller mouth on the base of his neck. Burns places a particular importance on the second mouth by drawing it in extreme close ups. The closer we are to the mouth the more we are aware of his repressed and inner feelings. In `Who`s Chris`, the little mouth refers to Chris as Rob`s girlfriend Lisa responds by saying `you may know how to lie but that little mouth on your neck sure doesn`t` (6). The revelation posed by the neck suggests a psychological desire that needs unleashing from Rob`s unconscious. These small instances are very telling of pubescent mentality. Chris, for example, struggles in her transformation into adulthood. The restrictive nature of the unconscious is telling of the social landscape she inhabits. As we learn throughout the novel, Chris is not trusted in her new role as a young adult. She can neither use the telephone nor can she leave without the permission of her parents. The shedding of the skin is not just a metaphor for transformation but also suggests her fears related to change and growth. Through the unnamed disease Burns crafts, his characters are forced to exhibit the unconscious fears that are associated with puberty in a universally understandable style. Burns transcribes the images, which reflect these transformations, through a voyeuristic lens. The physical horrors of the pubescent teenager are dramatically posed. Chris is a prime example for how Burns separates the unconscious from conscious and mind from body. This Cartesian psychoanalytic aspect of Chris`s maturation emphasizes the dualistic nature of her transformation.