The novel The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas is structured around a complex mix of mythology, psychology, dream references, and archetypal images, and it includes real-life characters such as Sigmund Freud and is in fact based on a case-history written up by Freud. The imagery is often sexual in nature, derived from the fantasies and dreams of a girl named Anna who claims to have had a sexual relationship with Freud's son, though Freud says she never met his son and is only recalling a story he told her once about his son being in the military. Thomas's method in telling this story adds richness to the themes, characterizations, and structure, but it can also be daunting for the reader who must analyze images and decide whether they are real or imaginary as well a what they mean to Anna and to Freud. Much of the sexual imagery is linked, and in addition it links to earlier legends and myths suggesting that certain images and ideas are archetypical, residing in what Jung called our collective unconsciousness, meaning that they convey their meaning to generation after generation because they are manifestations of our deepest psychology. An examination of some of the sexual imagery in this novel shows how the story links back to mythical archetypes and so extends the meaning of the novel to all humanity.
The nature of the novel is noted by Milton, who points out that the novel deals with the fact that truth "is multiple, many-layered, and seldom final" (Milton 50), and that this gives the fantasies of the girl a universal appeal:
Freud translates the language of her dreams in terms of Mozart and Shakespeare: Greek myth and Christian tradition, Dante, Yeats, Pushkin, and Janacek form a sort of chorus of reference throughout the text, the voice of an entire culture about to vanish (Milton 50).
The gush of symbols and references is a unifying force rather than something that overwhelms the story, as Taubman points out when he write...