Fear of Flying

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a medical doctor and founder of psychoanalysis. He was interested in the scope of human experience and began his career using hypnosis to treat hysteria. When he realized that the benefits did not last, he turned to the use of “talk therapy” to help patients uncover past traumas that he believed caused their present emotional pain. The novel begins with Isadora and her analyst husband, Bennett, traveling to Vienna for the opening of the Freud Museum; she has been a patient of six different analysts for the past 13 years. Thus, she is well-versed in psychoanalytic terminology and frequently refers to Freudian constructs and concepts throughout the work. An understanding of Freud’s ideas helps the reader to understand the main characters, including Isadora herself.

Isadora regularly associates her husband, Bennett Wing, and the analyst with whom she has an affair, Adrian Goodlove, with elements of Freud’s theoretical model of the mind. Bennett is connected with the superego, the aspect of the psyche that regulates behavior according to internalized societal rules and norms. Bennett is always trying to get Isadora to live up to an ideal as a wife and a woman, wielding guilt like a weapon when she fails to meet his expectations.