The Tax Inspector: An Entrapment or an Endless Memorial Search for the Loved One

Abstract

This article attempts a psychoanalytic reading of The Tax Inspector (Carey, 1991). It studies specifically the mother-infant relationship and the emotions involved in this complex love-bond affinity as it is depicted in the life of one principal character. Using some of Freudian ideas about the castration complex, and the various ways in which psyche redirects and recreates concealed delusions and dreams, it will be discussed that The Tax Inspector reflects the role of the mother in the process of forming characters’ personality. Introducing the mother, it also introduces two hitherto neglected aspects into the critical investigations of Carey’s novel which are disintegration of the family and child sexual abuse. I believe that the recognition of these conflicts enable us to see the characters’ troubled mind as the origin of these psychic battles. The psychological origins of negative feelings, rejection of personality that one sees in this novel have not yet been traced back far enough. Moreover, these psychic issues are often treated in relative isolation and not within a form that would reveal the possible connections among them. Anyway, the human psyche is fragile, and easily crumbles, and separation from the mother is unimaginably painful. So, it is important to understand this relationship, for he begins life within it, lives his life through it, and ends where he began. As such, the novel can be read as an endless memorial search for the loved one.