Doris Lessing’in “19 Numaralı Oda’ya” Öyküsünde Dilin Özne Üzerindeki Gücü

Year 2019, Volume: 20 Issue: 20, 397 - 413, 20.10.2019

Elif Toprak Sakız

https://doi.org/10.30767/diledeara.635563

Abstract

Bu çalışma, Lacancı psikanaliz ve ilgili terminoloji çerçevesinde, Doris Lessing’in “19 Numaralı Oda’ya” adlı öyküsünde yer alan kadın kahramanın özne olma süreci üzerinde dilin baskın rolünü incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Lessing’in A Man and Two Women (1963) başlığıyla yayınlanan öykü kitabında yer alan hikayede, Susan Rawlings’in, Fransız filozof Jacques Lacan’ın terminolojisiyle, ‘özne’ olma arzusunu gerçekleştirmedeki başarısızlığını ele almaktadır. Kendi kişisel alanı olarak adlandırılan “Anne Odası”, ve sonrasında bir şehir merkezi otelinde, tek başına olma arayışında hayal kırıklığına uğramış olarak, en sonunda korkunç bir otelin 19 Numaralı odasına çekilmiş, ve kendi yaşamını sona erdirme derecesinde buraya saplantılı hale gelmiştir. Anlatı boyunca hüküm süren, ana karakterin içinde kendini boş bir yaşamın sınırlarında kafeslenmiş, hapsedilmiş gibi hissettiği klostrofobik bir atmosfer vardır. Öte yandan, Susan’ın ölüm nedeniyle ilgili sonun belirsizliği ilgi çekici bir durumdur. Bu nedenle, bu çalışma, Lacancı bir bakış açısı benimseyerek, başkahramanın süregelen ölüm arzusuna açıklama getirmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Başkahramanın son psikolojik parçalanmasıyla bağlantılı olarak anlatının, ‘konuşan özne’ ol(ama)ma kavramının yanısıra, arzu/mahrumiyet, öznenin dil ile bağlantısı, ‘ideal ego’ ve ‘ego ideali’ arasındaki ayrım ile Simgesel ya da dilsel dünyada yerdeğiştirme kavramlarını da içeren Lacancı bir terminolojiden yararlanarak, psikanalitik bir okumaya elverişli olduğu açıkta ortaya konmaktadır.

Keywords

Doris Lessing, Lacan, dil, özne, psikanalitik edebi eleştiri

The Power Of Language Over The Subject In Doris Lessing’s Short Story “To Room Nineteen”

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the predominant role of language in the subjectivization of the female protagonist in Doris Lessing’s “To Room Nineteen” within the framework of Lacanian psychoanalysis and relevant terminology. Published in her collection of short stories titled A Man and Two Women (1963), the story relates the failure of Susan Rawlings to fulfil her desire to be a ‘subject’ in the French philosopher, Jacques Lacan’s terms. Having been disillusioned in her quest for solitude in her personal space called “Mother’s Room” and later on in a downtown hotel, she is finally drawn into a hideous hotel room, Room 19, with which she is obsessed to the point of bringing her life to an end. Throughout the narrative, there is a prevailing claustrophobic atmosphere in which she feels as if she was caged, or imprisoned within the borderlines of an empty life. However, the ambivalence of the ending with regard to Susan’s suicidal cause has been an intriguing situation. Thus, the aim of this paper is to account for the protagonist’s lasting death-wish by adopting a Lacanian perspective. In line with the protagonist’s final breakdown, the narrative is manifested as liable for a psychoanalytical reading that will draw on the process of becoming a ‘speaking subject’ as well as other Lacanian terminology, including the conceptions of desire/lack, subject’s relation to language, distinction between ‘ideal ego’ and ‘ego ideal’, and the displacement from the Symbolic or linguistic realm. 

Keywords

Doris Lessing, Lacan, language, subject, psychoanalytic literary criticism

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