This thesis has three central areas of preoccupation, each of which is made up of two elements whose interaction is explored: l)repetition and ambivalence; 2)psychoanalytic and literary discourse; 3)parents and children. Ambivalence is examined as a concept proposed by psychoanlysis, and as a force vitally at work within the writing and reading processes. Repetition is viewed as both productive of and produced by ambivalence, and is seen to sustain writing fiction in particular. Literary and psychoanalytic discourse are viewed as mutually unexcluxive ways of finding form for powerful need or desire. The thesis establishes that the overlap between the two modes of writing is considerable, and with special attention paid to the reader, proceeds to draw the fine line which divides the two. Parents and children are seen as defining themselves in relation, and particularly in opposition to each other. Attention is paid to parents (real or imagined) who have sought to repress or even kill their children; and along with this, attention is paid to the sophistication required for the simplest utterance, and equally the primitive aspects of highly developed or articulate speech. The thesis invariably proceeds, however, from specific examples, and starts with consideration of work by Franz Kafka. A text by the psychoanalyst Serge Leclaire and the 'oeuvre' of Maud Mannoni are subsequently the focus. The thesis then moves to consider Marcel Proust's novel A la recherche du temps perdu, and works by Samuel Beckett. Drawing its method from its matter, the thesis attempts to demonstrate and reveal the broad metaphoric scope and power of language. It shows how metaphor depends on significant difference, or otherness; and, by concentrating on the relational aspects of the speaking/listening and writing/reading processes, it shows how we all depend for our survival on such otherness as language -- and especially narrative -- offers.