SOURCE: Hadda, Janet. “‘Gimpel the Full.’” Prooftexts 10, no. 2 (May 1990): 283-95.

In the following essay, Hadda applies the clinical methods of “post-Freudian Self-Psychology” to a reading of Singer's short story “Gimpel the Fool.”

This essay continues my reflection on the use of psychoanalytic theory and technique in literary analysis. Elsewhere, I have discussed both the validity of employing psychoanalytic methodology for literary elucidation and the important insights that can be gained from psychoanalytic thinking. Now, I take my argument further, showing how post-Freudian Self-Psychology, with its different view of development, yields a deeper, fuller, and more compassionate understanding of humanity than traditional Freudian psychoanalysis.¹ Furthermore, the theories of Self-Psychology, when exposed to interaction with literature, provide new and more resilient perceptions than the Freudian ideas that have counted—and been discounted—as psychoanalysis for literary application. Here, as in my previous work, my literary investigation proceeds along the same...