You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Moss attempts to show that in Henderson the Rain King, Eugene Henderson's body is the central dramatic symbol when viewed in the light of freudian theory. Henderson is spirit-as-body and the movement of the novel is the progress he makes in coming to terms with his own body. All of Henderson's psychic experiences are manifested as physical symptoms, thus providing the basis for the author's use of freudian conversion theory as a way of understanding the novel. This works in several ways. First, Henderson's egocentricity is indicated by his preoccupation with his myriad physical symptoms. Second, certain physical states highlight his immaturity. (Like an infant, he is happy when his body is comfortable.) Third, Henderson's physical disorders are a key to his psychic disorder; his illness is clearly psychosomatic. And fourth, as he develops spiritually his physical condition improves. Henderson, the author contends, was never able to grow up before he had come to terms with certain things about himself: that he had always wanted unlimited (ultimately maternal) love without earning it; that he had always wanted to be freely aggressive (ultimately against his father) without responsibility; and that he had always attempted to deny his own mortality (his body). After the experience in Africa (himself), he is reborn and finally at age fifty-five, grows up.