April, 1946: On Writing

Anais says that psychoanalysis is the basic philosophy of her work; she accepts its premise that the unconscious rules and shapes our lives. She is inspired to write and says that the arts of symphony, ballet, and painting serve as symbols for things that cannot be said in words. For Anais, there is no separation between her craft and her life; the form of her writing is the form of her life. Nothing is artificial. The story she is trying to tell in her novelettes is how childhood creates characters and patterns of neurosis, and life becomes a symbolic play.