Psycho-Sexual Obsession in The Company of Women

Abstract

This thesis seeks to study evils and vices of repressive sexual desires and its effects on the people that Khuswant Singh is trying to present through his novel The Company of Women. It examines the destructive effects of repressed psychosexual desires where the characters suffer from alienation, humiliation, nightmare, fragmentation, melancholy and death. In particular, it also highlights how the protagonist, Mohan, involves himself into sexuality and brings his life into destruction by himself. As a theoretical methodology, the dissertation applies the concepts developed by Sigmund Freud, Helene Cixous, Philip Rieff, Jacques Lacan and other thinkers to explore the negative impacts of repression of obsessive psychosexual desires which has haunted the protagonist throughout his life. Furthermore this project digs out the unproductive lives of the characters because of the evils of sexuality. Mohan dies of HIV due to his reckless sexual contacts. Thus, this thesis claims that the psychosexual, obsession, repression and melancholia are under the dominance of ‘id’, the pleasure principle which create disorder in person’s psyche and always affect the activities in one’s life as Mohan gets infected with HIV due to his unsafe sexual contact with women he hires. As Mohan is guided by both Eros and Thanatos, he has love instinct, and death conquers him ultimately.