Sex, subtext, ur-text: Freud, Dora and the suggestive text

The intertextual analysis of Dora illuminates an aspect of the cultural matrix that informed Freud's theory-building. Specifically, the trope of the suggestive text, a literal and symbolic agent of transgressive influence, signals an intertextual relationship between the case history and a vein of literary fiction that includes novels by some of Freud's favourite authors: Cervantes (Don Quijote), Flaubert (Madame Bovary) and Zola (Page d'amour). It is posited that the suggestive text in Dora acts both as an literal agent of dangerous suggestion, and as a figurative symbol of the occult literary influence that intrudes upon the text, impacting Freud's formulation of his subject; his documentation of her case; and his ensuing conceptualization of the transference. The author ventures that literary fiction and other cultural products function as important objects, shaping our fantasy life, object representations, and transferences.