In an original contribution to the psychoanalytic approach to
literature, Doreen Fowler focuses on the fiction of four major
American writers--William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Flannery
O'Connor, and Toni Morrison--to examine the father's function as a
"border figure." Although the father has most commonly been
interpreted as the figure who introduces opposition and exclusion
to the child, Fowler finds in these literary depictions fathers who
instead support the construction of a social identity by mediating
between cultural oppositions.
Fowler counters the widely accepted notion that boundaries are
solely sites of exclusion and offers a new theoretical model of
boundary construction. She argues that boundaries are mysterious,
dangerous, in-between places where a balance of sameness and
difference makes differentiation possible. In the fiction of these
southern writers, father figures introduce a separate cultural
identity by modeling this mix of relatedness and difference.
Fathers intervene in the mother-child relationship, but the father
is also closely related to both mother and child. This model of
boundary formation as a balance of exclusion and relatedness
suggests a way to join with others in an inclusive, multicultural
community and still retain ethnic, racial, and gender
differences.
Fowler's model for the father's mediating role in initiating
gender, race, and other social differences shows not only how
psychoanalytic theory can be used to interpret fiction and cultural
history but also how literature and history can reshape theory.
General
Imprint: |
University of Virginia Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
May 2013 |
First published: |
May 2013 |
Authors: |
Doreen Fowler
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 23mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards
|
Pages: |
192 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8139-3399-3 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8139-3399-4 |
Barcode: |
9780813933993 |
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