Namita Gokhale s The Book of Shadows presented in terms of its characters, the author s mind and the reader s mind. by Freud as a religion, as well as literature and the other arts (Abrams: 1999 can attend to the author of the work; to the work s contents; to its formal construction or to the reader. The author s life and emotions are analyzed and the literary work is seen to supply is unconscious desire in the text (Homer: 2005: 2). Lacan s Lacan s ideas and theories were influenced by various methods and theories ranging from wide ranging influence upon structuralism. He, in turn was influenced by Saussure s foundational distinction between language and an individual s speech. 2005: 36). Lacan s version of psychoanalysis was based upon ideas articulated in structural any simple notion of either self or truth, exploring instead how knowledge is constructed by neurological and thus natural causes for sexual development. Lacan on the other hand offered a more proper linguistic model for understanding the human subject s entrance into the social
an endless misrecognition of the Real because of our need to construct our sense of reality in eliant of our linguistic and social version of reality that the t the unconscious is structured like a language. Lacan s ideas also had references to Jakobson s distinction between metaphor and metonymy which he identified with Freud s categories of condensation and displacement mass of disparate material, as might formerly have been thought, but an orderly network, as mplex as the structure of a language (Barry 1995: 111). By relating metaphor to unconscious was structured like a language. Lacan also observes that Freud s dream analys leads to some kind of loss the child realizes here the difference between itself and its mother Lacan s Mirror Stage corresponds to Freud s stage of primary narcissism wher
at the EGO is formed. The ego emerges at this moment of alienation and fascination with one s own image The function of the ego is one of misrecognition; of refusing to accept the truth of fragmentation and alienation (Homer: self which is built on the idea of otherness. It is in the mirror stage that the child enters into for it (Barry: 1995:114). When the child begins to formulate some idea of otherness and a self identified with its own other, its own mirror image, the child begins to enter the symbolic become speaking subjects, and to designate ourselves by I. Whe ce of language s rules is aligned with the Oedipus complex. Thus the symbolic is made possible because of one s acceptance of those laws and restrictions
order to get rid of the separation between self and other. Derrida calls in the Centre of the s body). It is the repression of desire, and oneself to the inevitability of desire. As language articulates the fullness of the imaginary and Namita Gokhale s works are full passion, where she expresses herself through her she was a really serious literature student. I wanted to teach, to get a Ph.D. (Gokhale: 2002:1). She also says that I ve always had this thing for literature in college; it seemed as if I was on a perpetual high. I just wanted to read and read. It was all I lived for (Gokhale 1986:43). ce after an ugly showdown with her dead fiancé s sister. She reading, listening to Lohaniju s tales and taking walks in the nearby forests. In the house, she and seek refuge in Lohaniju s soft and consonated Pahari. i dialect. Later, as she comes across the missionary s journal in the house, she says: It is a contradiction of my situation and of many other academics, that we have hinders the sensibility (ibid: 33). These views are the same as Gokhale s who believes the English language is a barrier from the subject you write about, and then the whole experience and its baggage, which you have to dissociate yourself from (G okhale 202:2). Gokhale s stress
girl: In every classroom in the world, there is one disconcerting student with the gift of being t the wrong time Gokhale: 1999: 4). She also describes her as my least favorite student, the bane of my academic life (lbid: 220). in Gokhale s own resentment incident with her attendance and her optional paper, she says that it put her in reverse gear against the academic profession Gokhale: 2002:2). But, she recovers and says: in retrospecti followed (lbid: 2). I didn t realize that this was a book about pain. It s only after I finished the book surface, I looked graceful, there was a lot of anger inside me. That s what I Anand had committed suicide and Anand s sister blamed her for it. In the process, Anand s sister splashed a beaker full of acid on Rachits s face, disfiguring her physically, mentally and offshoot of her personal anger and hurt. Rachita s sojourn in the mountains is filled with pensive This house belongs to me, as I belong to this house we have closed ranks ties from her fast paced city life and society, preferring to spend her time in solitude and soliloquy to come to terms with what had happened (Ibid: 7). comes to the hills to heal, to hide, to forget. To forgive, to be forgiven (Ibid: 6). Gokhale reveals her feelings upon her husband s death in an article, where she says: I and corroded I inhabited an endless tunnel of grief and I was traveling it alone. (2000:
her. She says she sensed something cloying and fetid in her mourning, My stubborn ceaseless flow of the present (Ibid: 106). Like Rachita, w ho prefers to hide and soak abandoned all sense of hope and restoration after Rajiv s death. Before coming to the she was an overgrown student masquerading as an academic. (Gokhale: 1999(a): 4). lacking. But we find a sense of absence and emptiness in Rachita s life. For example, although she taught literature, she admitted that she was just masquerading and she e was merely being clever and gassing a bit The first page of the novel points towards Rachita s idea and awareness of the imaginary introduced to the concept of Lacan s imaginary stage in an individual, where the imaginary is precisely the realm of images (in this case, the people in Rachita s life s next to the cafeteria This was my first day in college after Anand s death. I saw her in the mirror, her face almost at my shoulder, and turned This moment in Rachita s life is symbolic of her j would encounter the clash between Real and Reality in an individual s development. Rachita s refuge from all the tormentors in the world of her reality : many happy summers here I already belong to it. It has t
house was a repository of my youth, the custodian of my dreams. I had been here as a child, and I am determined to be that again; to forget Anand s imaginary order, consisting of Anand s death. The pesky Zenobia Desai and Rachita s pseudo academic life is a world of unfulfilling desires. Rachita s retreat to the house on the hill can be occasional interactions with Lohaniju. It is in the house, with Lohaniju s comforting presenc that Rachita s growth as an individual begins. The house where she retreats to is a metonymy for change in Rachita s life. Her childhood days, filled with innocence and happiness are revived in this house and Rachita s journey from the symbolic to the i Lohaniju s more symbolic. At first, Rachita seeks a way of escaping from reality by occupying herself with Lohaniju s stories and folk tales of the hills and the old house. vulnerable way (Ibid: 16). yellowed children s paperbacks. I was still hungering for a happy ending, so I devoured the fairy tales first, but I always abandoned them halfway. I wasn t
had acquired, achieved, possessed herself again. Thus in this way, it is possible to demonstrate the presence of Lacan s concepts of the Imaginary and the Symbolic in her ease the grief and anger she felt after Rajiv s death. She compares Rachita s situation to that city, perhaps have a plastic surgery and live on. But somewhere along the way, I realized that this wouldn t happen. She would live on in that house in the hills. well, I won t say psych let s say, in the world of the spirit. In a ain character Rachita and herself. Gokhale s brush with death when she cause of her constant reference to death and morbidity. She remarks: A small reminder of d in any work of art adds to the pleasures of life. I ve been sitting with death for a long time hat Priya is not my alter maintaining, preserving notes (Gokhale: 2007(b): 2). But there are some instances in the novel
le s real life habits. For instance, Priya describes how she would commode, in the shop, in the crevices of my mind I covered sheet after sheet neat spiky handwriting I scribbled on the backs of envelopes, on Gokhale s own confession about her compulsive wri is similar to Priya s : I got compulsive about writing. I wrote on backs of envelopes, scraps of at airports, in crowded places. It s a downloading experience (Gokha marriage, her academic let down, her brush with death, and her husband s death had perhaps left learnt the value of doing your own thing, unashamedly from her grandmother (Gokhale: in her novels. Gokhale s characters are thus a reflection of her own independent and rebellious text, apart from getting closer to the writer s mind. It also enables us to bring out the uniqueness, lie a lot of revelations about Gokhale s personal feelings. The angst felt by Rachita Tiwari is an expression of Gokhale s own angst in her this book reveals a lot about Gokhale s own state of mind. Lacan s emphasis on language, his theory of the individual s growth and development as g meaning of the author s mental landscape.