In Search of “Humanity Before Law”: A Lacanian Reading of the Dead End in Nelly Arcan’s Whore
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
บทคัดย่อ
This research article examines Nelly Arcan’s Whore (originally Putain in French) by drawing from the theoretical frameworks of psychoanalysis by Jacques Lacan and poststructuralist feminism by Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Judith Butler. Departing from an interpretation that the unnamed narrator in Whore fails to reach what Lacan terms the mirror stage, the article counters that claim and argues that the narrator does, in fact, achieve the mirror stage where her dead older sister, Cynthia, retroactively functions as the idealizing mirror image. As a result, the narrator proceeds to the next stage that is the entrance into the symbolic order. However, the narrator’s problem lies in her longing to fully transcend the Name-of-the-Father and go completely beyond the symbolization of the existing order. As a result, she finds herself in a dead end, reflected by the novel’s repetitive and circular narrative form, where she is traumatized at a glimpse of the impossibility of the Real.
Downloads
Article Details
อนุญาตภายใต้เงื่อนไข Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
เอกสารอ้างอิง
Arcan, N. (2005). Whore (B. Benderson, Trans.). Black Cat. (Original work published 2001).
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
Felluga, D. F. (2015). Critical theory: The Key Concepts. Routledge.
Henry-Tierney, P. (2019). The whore and her mother: Exploring matrophobia in Nelly Arcan’s Putain. In L. Bourdeau (Ed.), Horrible mothers: Representations across Francophone North America (pp. 23-39). University of Nebraska Press.
Homer, S. (2005). Jacques Lacan. Routledge.
Irigaray, L. (1985). This sex which is not one (C. Porter & C. Burke, Trans.). Cornell University Press. (Original work published 1977).
Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjection (L. S. Roudiez, Trans.). Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1980).
Lacan, J. (1977). Écrits: A Selection (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Norton. (Original work published 1949).
Lacan, J. (1991). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, book 1: Freud’s papers on technique 1953-1954 (J. Forrester, Trans. & J.-A. Miller, Ed.). Norton. (Original work published 1975).
Paccaud-Huguet, J. (2006). Psychoanalysis after Freud. In P. Waugh (Ed.), Literary Theory and Criticism: An Oxford Guide (pp. 280-297). Oxford University Press.
Smart, P. (2017). Writing herself into being: Quebec women’s autobiographical writings from Marie de I’Incarnation to Nelly Arcan. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Watkins, S. (2001). Twentieth-century women novelists: Feminist theory into practice. Palgrave.
Delvaux, M. (2005). Histoires de fantômes: Spectralité et témoignage dans les récits de femmes contemporains. Presses de l’Université de Montréal. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pum.9376
Hanania, C. (2010). Putain de Nelly Arcan: Texte écran et « je » de miroirs, une écriture de la dépersonnalisation. Dalhousie French Studies, 92(Fall 2010), 113-125. http://www.jstor.com/stable/41705540
Laurin, D. (2015). La première fois, la dernière fois. In C. Larochelle (Ed.), Je veux une maison faite de sorties de secours. VLB.
Sperti, V. (2014). L’Émoi douloureux du regard divergeant chez Nelly Arcan, de Putain à Burqa de chair. Francofonia, 66(Primavera 2014), 39-53. https://www.jstor.org/stable/90000932
