The alterity in Philippine culture: Finding the real in Vicente Groyon's On Cursed Ground and Other Stories

• Main Author: Rivera, Kay Blanca.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Subjects: Fiction
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/2675
• Institution: De La Salle University

This paper presents a psychoanalytic study of selected short stories from Vicente Garcia Groyon's first short story collection, On Cursed Ground and Other Stories, through Catherine Belsey's Theory of Culture. This framework studies culture in relation to Jacques Lacan's concept of the Real which enables one to interrogate the unknown yet existing aspects of culture. In light of this framework, this paper aims to identify the main Subjects' different encounters with the Real and how these instances alter the stories' discourse on culture. This paper elicits that Groyon's stories allow the resistance against the common perception that culture is foundational. This becomes possible as the Subjects continue to desire as a response to the lack brought about by the Symbolic Order.