Ali Smith Autumn Sparknotes

Throughout the literary novel Autumn by Ali Smith published in 2017, there is an immense amount of material to interpret about Daniel’s personality and unconscious desires by psychoanalyzing his dreams and fantasies. Daniel is a 101-year-old man who regresses into his past with multiple dreams throughout this story that give deeper meaning and detail to the main characterization. Throughout these dreams, Daniel has recollections of how his life used to be and how he possibly wishes it could be while in the state he is in. In the book Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, he states that “all dreams represent the fulfillment of a wish on the part of the dreamer and maintains that even anxiety dreams and nightmares are expressions of unconscious

Sweet the feeling of decency flooding him now” as if he has avoided negativity or karma that follows indecency. Daniel has multiple instances where he is avoiding judgement of others like when he has just woken up on the beach and is “shielding his face so if anyone can see him no one will be offended by him picking out what’s in the lining of his nose” (4). Another instance within the book that Daniel avoids indecency is when he is telling his sister Hannah the story of the “magic goatskin” (187). Hannah says, “thank you very much for telling me the story of the magic foreskin” and Daniel “blushes to the roots of his hair” as he observes her “[dancing] round the room shouting the word he could hardly say in her presence out loud himself”

To support this, Freud argues that “forbidden wishes lie at the heart of dream production.” Daniels’s reference to heaven clearly shows that his desire for the afterlife dream has been fulfilled which contradicts his earlier thought of death being a “sorry disappointment” (5). Regardless Daniel sticks to his morals and “doesn’t want to offend” despite achieving the desire of the “rotting rot [being stripped] away” and becoming “distilled” (7). Despite Daniel having the desire to be young again, he also has the desire to be decent. His desires within this dream have also been followed by memories of his past. Freud later states in Psychoanalytic Theory “Wishes, desires, needs and memories occasionally work their way into the preconscious from the unconscious mind” (816). Daniel’s desire to have the ability to sew and make the “green suit for himself out of leaves” brings back the memory of the postcard he had bought back in Paris. Despite the sadness behind the photo in the postcard it reminded him of how he had bought it for a woman he loved but didn’t love him back due to the age difference. It is ironic because he talks about how it was a “matter of profound mismatch, nothing to do with age” and later Elizabeth realizes after many partners that she is in love with Daniel regardless of the age gap. Also further alluding to the claim by Freud, there are multiple instances where his memory comes into play. Daniel then says how “He is always