Representation of Violence from Imaginary to Symbolic: Identity Formation in John Banville's The Book of Evidence
Makaleler > Tam Makale · 2023
Yazarlar: AYRIM, Oğuzhan
Bitig Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, Uluslararası, 2023
Özet
This article proposes to read John Banville’s The Book of Evidence, a crime story narrated from the protagonist’s first-person gaze, from a Lacanian perspective by referring to his mirror stage theory. As an extension of testimonial literature, the novel is deemed to be a narrative of introspective self-examination, thus introducing a creation of “the self” paralleling the text. The protagonist’s mnemonic narrative is accompanied by the idea of an alternative world of not only self-expression but also self-depiction and presentation as in Lacan’s Imaginary. This self-creation, however, may not be as innocent as it seems. The reason for this is that although the mirror phase involves a transition from the Imaginary to the Symbolic, it presupposes the role of the other, biologically (m)other, in order to accustom the subject to the law of society, the symbolic. However, just because the protagonist, Freddie, mentions his mother’s presence as “nothing”, there is no soothing force for his adaptation to the societal laws. Here, Freddie is subject to what Lacan sees as a minor prototype who lives in a society, and yet, is attached to his own rules as the first principle of male violence associated with this novel. Therefore, this article also tries to find answers for Freddie’s performance of male violence within the axis of psychoanalytic postulations elaborated on Lacan’s identity theory.