Interpreting The Denizens of The Hundred Acre Wood : Freudian & Lacanian psychoanalytical concepts in Winnie-The-Pooh

Abstract: In this paper I have strived to provide a new view on a timeless classic of children’s literature, Winnie-The-Pooh. In psychoanalytic literary criticism concepts and theories of psychoanalysis is implemented while interpreting literature; in this paper, I have interpreted the novel incorporating concepts of the psychoanalytic schools of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan while arguing that the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood are manifestations of parts of the narrator’s unconscious. The first two sections of the paper present the theories and concepts of the two major schools of psychoanalysis as an introduction aimed at increasing the readability of the interpretation. The individual interpretations of each character are then presented separately, every section in some way involving psychoanalytic theory. Kanga, Roo, Piglet, Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin, Rabbit, Owl and Eeyore are shown to be repressed memories, feelings or thoughts. Included theoretical concepts are the Oedipus complex, the sexual development of infants, the journey of children towards consciousness, Lacanian desire and lack, Freudian dream interpretation and the conception that the unconscious is structured as language, among others.