Hossein Sabouri; Ali Zare Zadeh; Abolfazl Ramazani; Roghayeh Lotfi Matanaq
Abstract
The aim of this paper, in Morrison’s fictional novel, God Help the Child (2015), is to examine the detrimental impact of the hostile and violent mistreatment of a light-skinned mother who restrains from nurturing her Black daughter. Nancy Chodorow’s (1978) Object Relations Theory helps us ...
Read More
The aim of this paper, in Morrison’s fictional novel, God Help the Child (2015), is to examine the detrimental impact of the hostile and violent mistreatment of a light-skinned mother who restrains from nurturing her Black daughter. Nancy Chodorow’s (1978) Object Relations Theory helps us determine how patterns of gendered-parenting and early-childhood development contribute to the reproduction of traditional sex roles. Her theory includes three basic “affects”, namely attachment, frustration, and rejection, in which the female identity is chiefly based on the inextricable attachment to the mother, and the status of women in culture is defined by the tie between the mother and daughter. These “affects” are universal emotions that are vital for infantile identity formation. Drawing upon her Psychoanalytic theory, the overarching argument of this paper is that the mother is the initial object for the infant to gratify its desires; however, from Freud’s (1926) standpoint, her breast, as the source of nurturance, is the first object. For our purposes, traditional theory of Freudian Oedipus Complex is not the primary concern of this paper and Chodorow’s (1978) contemporary Object Relations Theory is applied, for Psychoanalytic Feminism contributes to examining the ambivalent nature of motherhood. Our findings indicate that Chodorow elucidates the essence of motherhood in terms of the social constructions in lieu of biological ones. Given both Chodorow’s and Freud’s (1926) viewpoints, the inextricable maternal bond between Sweetness and Bride, the mother and daughter of the novel, is traumatically distorted once the mother deprives her infant of the maternal milk.
3. Applied Literature
Amin Khanbazian; Hossein Sabouri
Abstract
As one of the outstanding works written in the late twentieth century, Paul Auster’sMoon Palace is the extension of the prominent discussion existing in his works,which concerns the issue of identity formation and the characters’ involvement in the expedition toward self-acknowledgment. Looking ...
Read More
As one of the outstanding works written in the late twentieth century, Paul Auster’sMoon Palace is the extension of the prominent discussion existing in his works,which concerns the issue of identity formation and the characters’ involvement in the expedition toward self-acknowledgment. Looking through the life of Marco Fogg as the main character of the novel, it has been desired to outline the existential points of view laid in the novel. Unlike the previously conducted studies, this paper is diverting the central focus of its analysis from the psychosocial perspectives introduced by James Marcia to the existential outlook by providing the notions of critical existential philosophers such as Heidegger and Sartre. Accordingly, the famous theory of identity formation that Marcia established has close parallels with the concepts that Heidegger and Sartre have discussed concerning the human beings who are considered beings-in-the-world, or, as it is called, “dasein.” Throughout this procedure, the main protagonist’s various identity formation phases have been investigated through existential concepts like “thrownness,” “nothingness,” and “bad faith.” And in the end, the outcome of such an analysis is tracking down the latent sides of existential concepts existing in the novel, which have not been the center of focus in previous studies.
3. Applied Literature
Hossein Sabouri
Abstract
Identity is seen as a cultural and social construct, which indicates how we have been embodied and how we might represent ourselves. The knowledge that identities are the outputs of discourses is a familiar characteristic of some societal concepts. Gender, as an identity or a sense of our identity we ...
Read More
Identity is seen as a cultural and social construct, which indicates how we have been embodied and how we might represent ourselves. The knowledge that identities are the outputs of discourses is a familiar characteristic of some societal concepts. Gender, as an identity or a sense of our identity we build for ourselves, rather than something we are born with, is a constructed cultural category and is based on power relations and social norms that are part of a social system. Through gender as well as cultural studies, this paper will curiously look at the motion of mobility of self (identity) as it has been constructed in culture. The researcher also wants to note that the discursive practices such as the normal beliefs, social systems, and substantial behaviors of a cultural, religious, or social group view identity not as a kind of recognition with a group having common characteristics but as a construction among hidden cultural, political, and ideological intentions. Therefore, it is said that identity is in process and can be shaped by culture, media, and public opinion.
