“…and thought she heard voices inside…” : A Psychoanalytic Assessment of Shirley Jackson’s “The Daemon Lover” Anonymous College

Shirley Jackson’s “The Daemon Lover” is analogous to a dream that explores the narrator’s fundamental psychological issue: Fear of being abandoned by her lover and the aspiration to find a man to love her. The narrator’s apprehension is revealed in the dream whereby all she sees is Jamie in her apartment waiting to marry her. She loses her fortitude waiting for Jamie, and goes looking him in the streets and his apartment, asking each person she meets on the way if he or she has seen Jamie. All the unconscious thoughts about Jamie come at a time when the narrator is sleeping (so the whole story, arguably, is a dream).Most of the happenings in the story take place when the narrator is half conscious. The narrator’s lover is not real (Jamie); the inclusion of the word Daemon (which denotes an imaginary voice in one’s head) permits a psychoanalytic reading of Jackson’s short story.

The narrator does not know how Jamie looks. To elaborate, Shirley Jackson writes, “she tried to think of Jamie and could not see his face clearly, or hear his voice. It’s always that way with someone you love, she thought, and let her mind slip past today and tomorrow.” This passage offers evidence that the “The Daemon Lover” is not existent; he is...