Primitivity, the repressed culture and the lost object of desire: A pyschoanalytic analysis of Nick Joaquin's short fiction

• Main Author: Sales, Michael Justine D. J.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Philippine fiction > History and criticism
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_honors/396
• Institution: De La Salle University

This thesis explores the ways in which Lacanian concepts might be used to understand the role of pre-colonial culture in selected short stories (specifically) Three generations , May day eve , Mass of Saint Sylvestre and Summer solstice written by Nick Joaquin. It will argue that the narratives gothic understones guise the existence of paganist and primitive culture as the return of the repressed-- aspects of pre-colonial culture expelled yet nevertheless existing in the new social order through metaphorical relations. Tensions in the narratives arise from the co-existence of pre-colonial and colonial culture and they occur side-by-side with the conflicts in the narratives. The thesis will also argue that these selected stories deal with specific objects of desire and various psychological dilemmas. Hence, concepts such as objet petit a, imaginary fixation, the symbolic, repetition compulsion, melancholia and female represssion will be used to articulate the kind of psychological dysfunctions that these works are essentially dealing with. For Three generations it is the failure to resolve a troubled past in May day eve and Mass of Saint Sylvestre fixation with Lacanarian imaginary and melancholia for the former lastly, female repression in Summer solstice. The primary goal of this thesis is to bridge the gap in criticism by observing and analyzing the intimate connections of the psyche with its cultural condition. Hence the goal of dissecting post-colonial ideas imbibed in these works through Lacanian and post-Lacanian concepts.