Abstract

Feminist film theory, with its strong moorings in psychoanalysis, has found wide-ranging applications-- it has been put to good use not only to study the visual arts but also to study literature. By exploring the concept of the GAZE it has been able to give very interesting reading of many Texts. The paper tries to give a psychoanalytic reading to Poe’s ‘The Oval Portrait.’ It has for its focus the concept of the gaze & tries to study how the gaze operates from various perspectives depending on the subject of the gaze (bearer of the book) and the object (that which is being looked at ). There is a detailed analysis of how voyeurism & fetishization operate in this story. The gaze is analyzed from the point of view of three ‘characters’ -- the narrator , the painter , & the woman in the portrait – and there has been an effort to bring out the nuances of this ‘monolithic’ concept , keeping in view the intentions of the bearers of the look. The language in the story also has been subjected to a psychoanalytic reading mainly to bring out the violence that is couched in it. The paper concludes with a few personal observations about Poe’s stance regarding the featuring of the woman in the story.