Home> Archive> 2011> Volume 1 Number 4 (Nov. 2011)
IJSSH 2011 Vol.1(4): 305-310 ISSN:2010-3646
DOI: 10.7763/IJSSH.2011.V1.56

The Manifestation of Subjectivity in the Unconscious of Victorian Imagination

Roya Nikandam

Abstract—This study will trace Lacanian psychoanalytic principles narrowed down to the symbolic order and its processes. It examines the unconscious of Victorian cultural traditions in the construction of Tess’s identity as commodity in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’ roUrbervilles, in light of Julia Kristeva’s maternity, thereby exploring the female capability to threaten the unconscious of Tess’s identity in the Victorian symbolic era. . By investigating these theoretical observations, I hope to highlight the continuing issue of commodifying the value and dignity of women which can be observed in the patriarchal system of the Victorian era. A patriarchy can choose to terminate women’s existence through exclusion, in order to ensure the stability of the symbolic order. Yet psychoanalytic feminists allow for a paradoxical triumph and show the awareness of women’s struggles in the world of patriarchy. In Hardy’ novel, it shows the reader that it is not the inferiority of women which leads to their oppression, but instead the attempts of subduing them, in light of tension they can cause to the patriarchy. They could overcome this inferiority and recover it through assigning the capabilities of their potential body, as the feminist psychoanalysts suggest they unconsciously do.

Index Terms—Maternity, psychoanalytic feminists, thomas hardy, victorian age, women

Roya Nikandam is with the University of Malaya, Departments of English, Faculty of Arts and Social Science. 50603: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (phone: 0060126573397, e-mail: Roya_200358@ yahoo.com).

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Cite: Roya Nikandam, "The Manifestation of Subjectivity in the Unconscious of Victorian Imagination," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 305-310, 2011.

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