WOMEN, THE UNCONSCIOUS, AND THE GOTHIC MIND: A PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO DONNA TARTT’S FICTION

Abstract

This paper offers a psychoanalytic exploration of the portrayal of female characters in Donna Tartt’s three major novels The Secret History (1992), The Little Friend (2002), and The Goldfinch (2013) with a particular focus on how these characters are shaped by and reflect Gothic literary conventions. Utilizing the theoretical frameworks of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Julia Kristeva, this study investigates how Tartt’s women embody psychic tensions related to repression, trauma, and unconscious desire. Rather than serving as mere secondary figures or passive muses, the female characters in Tartt’s fiction are shown to function as symbolic vessels through which the deeper psychological conflicts of the male protagonists along with the broader anxieties of modern existence are expressed and negotiated.The paper argues that these women inhabit a liminal space within the narrative: they are often positioned at the periphery of the plot or exist in the shadows of male-centered perspectives, yet they exert a powerful psychological presence that destabilizes linear notions of character development, identity, and agency. Their symbolic weight emerges through their association with death, memory, loss, and moral ambiguity key themes of the Gothic tradition. Tartt moves beyond Gothic tropes of madness by imbuing her women with psychological depth, interiority, and emotional nuance. In each novel, the Gothic atmosphere marked by decay, isolation, and psychological disintegration mirrors the internal worlds of both male and female characters. The fusion of Gothic form and psychoanalytic content enables Tartt to explore complex dimensions of grief, guilt, gender, and subjectivity. By closely examining specific female figures such as Donna in The Secret History, Harriet in The Little Friend, and Pippa in The Goldfinch this paper reveals how Tartt uses these women to externalize the unconscious processes of her protagonists and to confront unresolved psychic wounds.Ultimately, the study contends that the elusive and often haunting presence of women in Tartt’s fiction is not a narrative deficiency but a deliberate structural and symbolic choice. These figures function as keys to understanding the emotional architecture of the novels and offer a vital entry point into exploring how contemporary Gothic fiction can serve as a site for psychoanalytic engagement.