Obsession and Death Drive in Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Story the Oval Portrait: A Psychoanalysis Study

Abstract

The research emphasizes the short story "The Oval Portrait" by Edgar Allan Poe through the lens of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Specifically, the study investigates (1) how the artist's obsession with immortalizing beauty reflects Freud's notion of the death drive, (2) how the narrator's attitude mirrors this obsession, and (3) how the obsession ultimately leads to the wife's self-destruction and death. Using a descriptive-qualitative method, the study identifies aggression and repetition compulsion as key manifestations of the artist's obsession and death drive. The findings suggest that the artist's repressed subconscious desires, dominated by the id, drive his obsessive-compulsive behavior and death drive, which in turn influence the wife's self-sacrifice and her death.