| Abstract: | The death of a parent is at once the most poignant of human experiences. Taking Sydney Smith's (1977) notion of the "golden fantasy" as a point of departure, the wish to have all of one's needs met in an idyllic relationship haloed by perfection is applied to a case of early parent loss. Whereas the golden fantasy is thought of as a wished-for paradise, it is proposed that in cases of parent loss in childhood, there is an eviction from paradise, the fall, which is real and sets off endless, regressive, and often self-destructive efforts to initiate this wishedfor idyllic state. This article explores the autobiographical novel My Life as a Dog, by Reidar Jonsson (1983), and its charming film adaptation as representing a compelling need on the part of the author to symbolically reclaim the lost parent in the real world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
