Exploration of Unconscious in Norman Mailer's The Deer Park

Abstract

Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park profligates the characters such as Eitel, Elena, Lulu and Sergious driven by the pleasure principle that germinates from the unconscious level of human psyche representing Id factor. The characters search for the perfect sexual partner since they are most of the time guided by their repressed desires of the unconscious so they swing from one person to another in the quest of complete sexual satisfaction and pleasure. But they never get into that position which foregrounds the situation of the characters’ repressed desire that always calls for the fulfillment of the ‘lack’ in terms of sex and sexuality. Since they never achieve that psychological ‘lack’ of permanent pleasure through sexual intercourse, they suffer from being unstable and dissatisfied that result into their traumatic experience of sex and sexuality in this novel.