Metamorphosis of readers to writers a psychoanalytic study of Harry Potter fan fictions

Abstract

Fan fiction can provide a platform for exploring the various aspects of creative writing, including the motive behind the reading and writing processes. Despite various researches from a pedagogical perspective, there have not been studies that concern the mechanisms of creative writing by discerning the unconscious psychological processes. This research attempts the curious question of how and why a fan reader would transform into a fan fiction writer. It attempts to bring out the phases through which a fan reader would develop to produce a fan fiction, with the prominent theories in psychoanalysis, reader-response and fan studies. For the same, the research focuses on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and its fan fiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky and the James Potter series by G. Norman Lippert. Employing psychoanalytic reader response theories and fan theories, each chapter of the thesis aims to understand the phase through which the fan reader passes. “The Pre-Venture Phase” looks into the psychological responses of the fan reader to the source text and the unconscious fantasies that drive the responses. It is discerned that the creative urge is a need of the psyche. Emphasizing the importance of gaps in the source text, “The Venture Phase” looks at what prompts the reader to venture and explore the gaps. Further delving into the psyche of the reader reveals that the reader goes through various stages of psychosexual development before producing a fan fiction. Further progression in psychosexual development is evident in “The Post-Venture Phase”, in which the fan writer has attained the unconscious fantasies through proper defense mechanisms. The thesis concludes on the note that the metamorphosis of the fan reader into fan fiction writer is a three-phase process which is accompanied by psychosexual progression. The research is significant in bringing out the deeper psychoanalytic aspects in the mechanisms of creative writing.