ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI? – OR THE VICTIMS OF CIVILISATION IN PAT BARKER’S NOVEL THE GHOST ROAD: HISTORY, PSYCHOLOGY, AND THE SACRED
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
The article presets an analysis of “The Ghost Road”, the novel by a contemporary British writer Pat Barker, which is carried out with the application of the methodology of the psychoanalytic and reader-response criticism. The use of the cultural-historical approach for adequate understanding of the novel’s message is viewed as insufficient. The analysis of the novel is based on the archetypal image of the Father sacrificing his son, which functions in the text as a leading motif and is substantiated with historically reliable documentary proof and Biblical allusions. S. Freud’s view of civilization as an equivalent of an individual consciousness helps to reveal an unconscious motivation in the actions of the governments during World War I and to compare par-allel images of two civilizations – the European and Melanesian as represented in the novel’s plot structure. We come to the conclusion about profound subconscious roots in behavioral patterns of fathers in any society, re-gardless of the civilization’s level of development, as well as about the senselessness of victimization of our own sons in the war and reversal of gender roles.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
Зинченко, В.Г. Литература и методы ее изучения. Системно-синергетический подход: учеб. пособие / В.Г. Зинченко, В.Г. Зусман, З.И. Кирнозе. – М.: Флинта: Наука, 2011. – 280 с.
Barker, P. Regeneration / P. Barker. – New York: Plume, 1993. – 252 р.
Freud, S. Civilisation and Its Discontents / S. Freud / ed. and trans. by James Strachey. – New York: W.W. Norton, 1961. – 127 p.
Rosental, G. German war memories: narratability and the biographical and social functions of remembering / G. Rosental // Autobiography: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies / Ed. Trev Lynn Broughton. – London and New York: Routledge. – Vol. 3. IX. – Р. 208 – 232.
Barker, P. The Ghost Road / P. Barker. – New York: Plume, 1996. – 278 р.
Barker, P. The Eye in the Door / P. Barker. – New York: Plume, 1995. – 280 р.
Cushman, K. The Achievement of England, My England and Other Stories / K. Cushman // D.H. Lawrence. The Man Who Lived / ed. R.B. Partlow, Jr.; H.T. Moore. – Southern Illinois: University Press, 1980. – P. 27 – 39.
Szykierski, D. The Traumatic Roots of Containment: The Evolution of Bion’s Metapsychology / D. Szykierski // The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. LXXIX: 4, 2010. – P. 935 – 968.
Бродский, И. Остановка в пустыне: Стихотворения, поэмы / И. Бродский. – СПб.: Азбука-классика, 2004. – 256 с.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- M. RAGACHEWSKAYA, ВЛИЯНИЕ ПСИХОЛОГИИ НА ЛИТЕРАТУРУ В КОНТЕКСТЕ РУБЕЖА ВЕКОВ И МОДЕРНИЗМА, Vestnik of Polotsk State University. Part A. Humanities: No. 10 (2015)
- M. RAGACHEWSKAYA, THE INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY ON FICTION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY AND MODERNISM, Vestnik of Polotsk State University. Part A. Humanities: No. 10 (2012)