Growing Up Wild: Reflections on Early Middle Childhood as Captured by Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Abstract

A pattern of psychic fragmentation followed by consolidation occurs throughout life and can be seen in all developmental stages. Using Neil Gaiman’s novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the authors focus on the experience of disorganization and re-organization in early middle childhood. The frequency with which young boys use fantasy to contain affects and impulses makes the literary genre of magic realism especially well-suited for the exploration of psychological states during early middle childhood.

Keywords:

• Early middle childhood
• latency
• growth
• oedipal
• psychic fragmentation
• reconsolidation
• projection
• omnipotence
• defenses
• literary analysis

Notes

1 Unless otherwise indicated, page numbers reference The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jean Vogel

Jean Vogel, M.D., is a graduate of the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, Assistant Clinical Professor at the Wisconsin College of Medicine, and Associate Director of the Wisconsin College of Medicine – Central Wisconsin Psychiatry Residency in Wausau, WI.

Mary Ayre

Mary Ayre, M.D., is a graduate and faculty member at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis and is a consultant for Hartford Hospital and the Institute of Living in Hartford, CT.