Yasaman Mokarrami Rostami; Alireza Farahbakhsh
Abstract
Introduction: In Julia Kristeva’s conception of the abject, anything that falls outside the normativity of a dominant system is dubbed as repulsive and deplorable. Abject subjects are the subjects who are rejected by society because of their heterogeneity; ironically, sometimes they resort to crime ...
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Introduction: In Julia Kristeva’s conception of the abject, anything that falls outside the normativity of a dominant system is dubbed as repulsive and deplorable. Abject subjects are the subjects who are rejected by society because of their heterogeneity; ironically, sometimes they resort to crime to get back into the society, but the transgression usually lead to further exclusion and abjection. The present research endeavors to trace and comment on the manifestations of Kristeva’s notion of abjection in Gholam Hossein Saedi’s The Dump (1966) and realize how certain characters of the narrative are abjectified and how they respond to their sense of abjection. Background Studies: There have been only a few studies on Saedi’s The Dump and most of the relevant critical surveys have tried to expose its realistic and naturalistic overtones. In their “Psychological Analysis of Characters of Three Stories from Gholam Hosein Sâedi (Beggar, Destitute, and Garbage Can) According to Karen Horney’s Theory,” Jalil Shakery Jalil and Behnaz Bakhshi focus on social and psychological issues and discuss the detrimental effects of poverty on the life of a number of Saedi’s characters. In her “A Comparison between the Story of Ashghalduni (Dustbin) and the Adapted Movie Dayere-Ye Mina (The Cycle),” Zahra Hayati adopts a sociological critical approach and probes into the impacts of trauma in Saedi’s selected works. In “A Criminological-Victimological Analysis on ‘Dump’ (‘Ashghaldooni’): A Long Symbolic Story by Gholam Hossein Saa’edi,” Mehrdad Rayejian Asli and Ali Molabeigi deal with notions such as delinquency and felony in Saedi’s The Dump, focusing on the close relation between literature and criminology and the formation of identity in light of social interactions. In their “The Visual Capabilities of Gholam Hossein Saedi’s Grave and Cradle in Iranian Cinema,” Fataneh Ghajaghi et al. have delved into the prevalence of social ills and evils in Saedi’s works and inspected the role they play in his characters’ identity crisis.Methodology and Discussion: The present study draws upon Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection, formulated in her seminal book Powers of Terror: An Essay on Abjection (1982). Abjection blends such notions as power dynamics, linguistics, sociology, and psychoanalysis, and by emphasizing the role of the mother’s body in the formation of the subject’s identity, it also uses feminist concepts and criticizes oppression and patriarchy. This research analyzes the relationship among the society, characters, and language with what is defined and treated as abject in Saedi’s The Dump, highlighting the conflicts between the semiotic and the symbolic in the social context.Conclusion: This Kristevean reading of Saedi’s The Dump reveals that the major characters of the novel are all abjectified by the dominant power dynamics and social normativity. They are marginalized and reduced to non-citizens since they simply cannot climb the social ladder and purge themselves of their socially-imposed manifestations of abjection. Although they are driven by such innate stimuli as instincts of survival and life-force, they fail to return to the security and purity of the symbolic stage (chora or the semiotic space) and all their desperate attempts push them more deeply into depravity and abjection. They even resort to conformity and abject objects, jobs, and lifestyles, but again, what they end up with is nothing but exclusion and alienation. It can be argued that in Saedi’s The Dump, the society as a whole is a dump and the characters of the novel are its abject and foul-smelling garbage. Keywords: Abject, Semiotic Order, Symbolic Order, Kristeva, Saedi, The Dump
Rakhshandeh Nabizadeh-Nodehi; Shideh Ahmadzadeh Heravi
Abstract
Abstract In Shakespeare’s portrayal of madness, mind and body are not considered as binary opposites; on the contrary, they appear to be closely intertwined. A number of the most memorable characters in Shakespeare’s dramatic works suffer from mental disorders. A study of these characters’ ...
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Abstract In Shakespeare’s portrayal of madness, mind and body are not considered as binary opposites; on the contrary, they appear to be closely intertwined. A number of the most memorable characters in Shakespeare’s dramatic works suffer from mental disorders. A study of these characters’ mental problems on the basis of new psychological perspectives reveals that many of their mental obsessions and anxieties result from considerations pertaining to body. The interrelation between psyche and soma is most clearly discernible in the process of subjectivity in the course of which speaking subjects have to demarcate the territory of their independent and autonomous self primarily through separation from the maternal body and by constructing an independent, clean and proper body of their own. Such a body has a clear territory and exact borderlines. Besides, it has a distinct sexual identity. The subject’s effort to construct such an image of his/her body is not merely a personal and private matter. It is influenced by social, cultural, and biological standards since the subject tries to harmonize this image with these norms. Therefore, body in this sense is not just a material or biological entity; it turns out to be a social and cultural issue. The present study is an attempt to analyze the interrelationship between psychological tensions and corporeal considerations in the male subject’s psyche through studying the mental obsessions of Hamlet, as one of the most outstanding of Shakespeare’s mentally disturbed characters. To fulfill this purpose, some of his inner conflicts are analyzed in the light of Julia Kristeva’s theories regarding abjection, confrontation with the abject and the role of these procedures in the formation of subjectivity in order to gain a better understanding of the latent causes of Hamlet’s psychic trauma’s and mental disturbances. Viewed from this perspective, it is revealed that anxieties and concerns about the body of the masculine subject and cultural measures for the sexual identity of the male sex are at work behind the symptoms of Hamlet’s madness. The psychological crisis which Hamlet has to deal with after his father’s death has got several dimensions some of which will be analyzed in this research in reference to Kristeva’s notion of abjection. In this regard, Hamlet’s desperate battle to reassert his male identity, his quest to restore purity and purge himself and the whole world from corruption, as well as his hatred and fear of female body and sexual desire as a source of contamination and a serious threat to his manhood are most significant. In addition to the effeminizing effect of the female heterosexual love and the contaminating contact with the female body, the female kind’s power of regeneration terrifies Hamlet as well. All these features contribute to Hamlet’s identifying the female body as abject and lead to his repudiation of any attachment to it. Thus, it is possible to explain why Hamlet dedicates himself wholly to the sacred mission of revenge and solidifies homosocial bonds with his male companions since through these strategies, he believes he can confirm his autonomy and independence as a masculine subject and secure the territories of his clean and proper body.