The Crack-Up of the Signification of Gatsby : The Impossibility of History in The Great Gatsby

概要

論文の詳細を見る
Based on Freudian psychoanalysis and Cathy Caruth's claim about “the language of trauma,” this paper explores what is repressed and excluded in the universalization/idealization/iconization of Gatsby in Nick's narrative. By relocating and highlighting what is repressed and repudiated as alterity in the figuration of Gatsby, one can highlight and politicize the traumatic exteriority in the process of creating an American collective image. Traces of resistance against the hegemonic ideology can be made visible through this process. In this study's interpretation, these repressed alterities (excluded voices) harbor and haunt even after the death and seemingly “complete” idealization of Gatsby as the myth, serving as an intersection between cultural translations. Though excluded from the universal (Nick's national narrative), these repudiated voices maintain a ghostly presence and are still claiming their voices to Nick's narrativization and are always resisting being signified and incorporated into the universal. The past is “present” in the way that it is totally absent and is seemingly already past and lost.論文
2012-03-27