Dreams as the Language of Emotional Neglect: A Freudian Reading of David Small’s Stitches

Abstract

This research focuses on the dreams depicted in David Small's graphic autobiography, Stitches, to explain the long-term psychological impacts of child emotional neglect and the ways to overcome them. The primary objective is to comprehend all types of emotional damage caused by neglect, particularly how these wounds are portrayed through the graphic novel’s style. Emotional neglect is not merely an abstract conceptualization but rather a condition that has been discussed and analyzed in Small’s life, characterized by specific traits such as the silent treatment, no acknowledgment, and an extended interval of emotional dormancy, among others, which manifest as manifestations of such neglect. A qualitative, interpretive approach is employed in the research, analyzing selected dream sequences in the memoirin accordance with Sigmund Freud’s dream work and wish fulfillment theories. This study employs an analytical framework based on Freud’s notions of displacement and symbolic transformation to examine how Small’s unconscious mind transforms fear, anger, and longing into visual metaphors. Through illustrations, this study examines the mechanisms of the protagonist’s psychological development, which is affected by the suppression of emotions. The study ultimately maintains that the primary reason for analyzing Stitches is that the autobiography demonstrates that emotional neglect often produces unarticulated psychological effects, and that comic book stories possess the power to reveal such invisible injuries. This research, which utilizes dream interpretation as a means of visualizing the unconscious, highlights the similarity between Stitches and the metamorphosis of voiceless pain into a readable and self-healing narrative.