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In Imagined Human Beings: A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature, Bernard Paris continues his life's project of analyzing literary characters and texts through the lens of Karen Horney's theories. Although he operates under a double handicap—he knows that psychologically analyzing literary characters is not fashionable in the postmodern academy, and that Karen Horney lacks cultural presence today, even within (maybe especially within) the discourse of psychoanalysis—fortunately Paris has not been deterred in his now three decades long undertaking. Having read several of his previous works with pleasure, particularly his (1991) Bargains with Fate: Psychological Crises and Conflicts in Shakespeare and His Plays, I looked forward to his analyses in this book of many of my favorite characters in Western literature, ranging from Sophocles' Antigone to Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Shakespeare's Shylock, Chopin's Edna Pontellier, and Emily Brontë's Cathy and Heathcliff. I was not disappointed. Paris has in Imagined Human Beings presented often untraditional and original readings of 11 major texts of the Western tradition with unfashionable lucidity and insight.
Paris is the author of a recent biography of Karen Horney and Director of the International Karen Horney Society, and has long defended her continuing relevance. He argues that Horney's theory of personality structure is particularly well suited for literary