Problematising Sex and Gender: Reconsideration of Freud concerning the Select Poem Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead

Abstract

The concept of Gender and sex is not unknown to literary studies, rather it is interdisciplinary. Meaning, in literary studies and specifically with the emergence of critical theory, literary interpretations have gone into sociological approaches. Gender and sex have always been at the center of literary discussions. The present paper highlights both of these notions referring to Freud and attempts to bring some attention to problems in understanding Gender and Sex. The central question is: what is the dominating force which decides human behaviour? If we go for Freud, he emphasizes human sexuality which is the driving force in the human psyche that decides human behaviour. Though Gender is a social construction, can human beings suppress sexuality in the choice of gender foregrounding? With the help of the selected poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the author has tried to rethink these notions.