Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is usually remembered as a story about good and evil, but psychologically it contains something more interesting. Jekyll attempts to separate the respectable parts of himself from the desires he finds unacceptable. Through a psychodynamic lens, the story becomes a warning about what can happen when we try to exile parts of ourselves rather than understand them.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is remembered as a story about a scientist who creates a monster, but psychologically the more interesting event occurs immediately afterward: Victor Frankenstein abandons what he has created. The creature enters the world searching for recognition, attachment, and belonging, only to repeatedly encounter horror and rejection. Through a psychodynamic lens, Frankenstein becomes a remarkable exploration of abandonment, shame, rage, and what can happen when the need to be loved repeatedly meets the expectation of rejection.

Jay Gatsby appears to spend The Great Gatsby pursuing Daisy Buchanan, but psychologically he may be pursuing something much larger than Daisy herself. His longing offers a remarkable illustration of idealization: the transformation of another person into the carrier of our hopes, losses, and fantasies about who we might become. Through a psychodynamic lens, Gatsby’s tragedy is not simply that he cannot obtain what he wants, but that no real person could ever become what he needs Daisy to represent.