Hugh McLean (Slavicist) (1958) is a noted example of a psychological study of this novella;[34] he identifies the running motif of sexual fulfillment resulting in punishment in this Gogol collection, so that when the student Khoma engages in the ride of the witch, "an obviously sexual act", death is meted out as punishment.[35] A supplementary understanding of this schema using Lacanian analysis is undertaken by Romanchuk (2009), where Khoma's resistance using prayer is an enactment of his perversion, defined as Perversion is "a wish for a father's Law that reveals its absence".[36] McLean's analysis was poorly received by Soviet scholars at the time.[37]
- Psychoanalysis
Due to the psychosexual nature of the central plot, namely Khoma's killing of the witch and her subsequent transformation into a beautiful girl, the novella has become open to various psychoanalytical (Freudian) interpretations,[38] thus the attempt by some, to interpret Khoma's strife with the witch in terms of Oedipal desires and carnal relations with the mother.[39][h][40]
Viy was proclaimed "the image of an inexorable father who comes to avenge his son's incest", in a comment near the end given without underlying reasoning, by Driessen (1965)[i][41] This was modified to "a condensation of the [witch] who was ravished by [Khoma] Brut and the sotnik/father who has vowed to take revenge against the ravisher of his daughter" by Rancour-Laferriere (1978),[42] though Rancour-Laferriere's approach has been characterized as "an interesting extreme" elsewhere.[34]
- Vision
Leon Stilman has stayed clear of such psychoanalytic interpretations, and opted to take the eye motif as symbolic of Gogol's own quest for gaining visionary power (an "absolute vision" or "all-seeing eye").[43][44] However, his study is still characterized as "psychosexual" in some quarters.[34]
- Viy and the witch's eye
The close relationship between the witch and the Viy has been suggested, based on the similarity of her long-eyelashes with the Viy's long-eyelids.[45] And the Ukrainian word viy glossed as 'eyelid'[46] incorrectly, has been connected with a hypothetical viya or viia meaning 'eyelash'.[47][49][j]
Further proposed etymology entwines connection with the word vuy (Ukr. 'maternal uncle'), suggested by Semyon Karlinsky [53] This establishes the blood relationship between the two for some commentators.[54]
