THE REPERCUSSIONS OF CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES AND THE RESULTANT NEUROSIS: THE HEIGHTS OF CRIMINALITY AND FIXATION IN SHOBHA DE'S STRANGE OBSESSION

Abstract

The research paper examines the eccentricities and neurotic persona of an abnormal female character in Shobha De's Strange Obsession who is strangely obsessed for an attractive young lady Amrita, travelled from Delhi to pursue a career in modelling. Strange Obsession is a tale of a psychosomatic woman named Meenakshi Iyengar (Minx) who had a miserable and troubled childhood, being a single child of an Inspector General of Police and a social worker mother. Because of her imbalanced development in childhood and being a spoilt child of a powerful Police authority, Minx starts extracting pleasure by exploiting people as a compensation for her own anxieties and insecurities. The heights of alternative homosexuality and criminality are skilfully presented through manipulative strategies and merciless behaviour of neurotic Minx. Moreover the paper emphasizes Simone de Beauvoir and Sigmund Freud' theories of lesbianism and fixation to understand the afflicted psyche and the resultant neurosis with an amalgam of the stark realities of higher-strata modelling world and sadistic homosexual tendencies.