A structural and intertextual reading of Freud's "On Dreams"

By using the framework of a "quest" narrative based on literary allusions t o Virgil's Aeneid and Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Freud tran sformed the 500 pages of The Interpretation of Dreams into some fifty pages entitled "On Dreams. " This paper elucidates the narrative means by which Freud achieved the feat of turning a highly complex, lengthy theoretical wo rk into an engaging narrative. Its main plot, provided by a specimen dream, reveals Freud's working through of the personal and professional conflicts of his life up to 1901, and serves as a practical demonstration of and par adigm for the process of working through in psychoanalysis.