SCARLET REALITY

Psychoanalytical Reflections About Mourning from the Perspective of the Character Wanda Maximoff

Abstract

Freud is willing to talk about mourning in his writing called Mourning and Melancholia (1917 [1915]), but the subject permeates human existence from the moment we are faced with some change, a break in the relationship, a loss of an object in which we direct our affection; this object, however, does not necessarily have to be someone or their respective cathexis, ranging from job loss, love relationships that ended or even a natural catastrophe that destroys the subject's home. Contemporary authors, such as Dunker, add to the Freudian view that mourning has, in essence, different ways of being experienced, including avoiding experiencing it. Among these possibilities, one can mention sublimation, fixation or even infinite mourning. Wanda Maximoff, from the miniseries WandaVision, is a character that can be analyzed in her experience as a real and fictional human being, living with the loss of loved ones and her freedom since the beginning of her life, demonstrating the vivid presence of mourning. The work described here intends to discuss the triangle of mourning, psychoanalysis and the story of the main character of the miniseries WandaVision, Wanda Maximoff. To this end, authors such as Freud, Lacan, Kübler-Ross and Dunker will be used in order to support the analysis of the miniseries and its references to the psychoanalytic context of mourning.