A Psychoanalytic Analysis of the Thematic Preoccupations of Dhaba Weyessa's Godaannisaa and Gadisa Birru's Kuusaa Gadoo
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Date
2010-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Psychoanalytic literary criticism serves as a tool to excavate the landscape
of any literary work. Following Freud's concept of psychoanalysis as a
method to examine the workings of the human mind, there are motives and
meanings that become center of attention among the classical
psychoanalytic critics. The classical psychoanalytic critics treat a literary
text as a dreamlike and the literary analysis as a dream interpretation.
The literary characters are also the imaginary beings that the repressed
desire of the author is incarnated into.
On the basis that any literary work can lend itself to any critical
approaches, the two Oromo novels: Dhaba Weyessa's Godaannisaa ("The
Scar" and Gadisa Birru's Kuusaa Gadoo ("Cumulative Grudge") are under
examination of the established principles of psychoanalytic literary
criticism. It is also the objective of the study to analyze the psychoanalytic
approaches to the thematic preoccupations of the two works. The
researcher attempts to analyze the thematic obsessions that revolve
around the main characters. As psychoanalytic literary criticism is often
coupled with other literary theories, due attention is also given to
psychoanalytic feminism and psychoanalysis and Marxism.
The two novels, which are written in the aftermath of the transitional
government of Ethiopia, in post 1991, appeared with recurrent themes and
hence they are selected to be examined from psychoanalytic perspectives.
Using techniques of criticism and hermeneutics a thorough textual analysis
and interpretation is made in order to attain the objectives set to the study.
The two works reflect the unconscious motives of the authors which are
repressed in their unconscious and later projected into the characters in
the imaginary world-the novels. The central male characters who are
coupled with women characters characterize the traumatic life experiences
of the Oromo people, particularly during the Dergue regime. The repressed
wounds, unresolved conflicts and bitter memories appear with such
mechanism repression, projection and symbolism.
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Thematic Preoccupations