Reading Alice Munro with Jacques Lacan / Jennifer Murray.

Author
Murray, Jennifer [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
  • Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2016]
  • ©2016
Description
x, 194 pages : illustration ; 24 cm

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks PR9199.3.M8 Z79 2016 Browse related items Request

    Details

    Subject(s)
    Summary note
    "This work examines Alice Munro's writing from the perspective of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. The project is based on the recognition that Munro's talent lies largely in her intuitive grasp of the complexities of human subjectivity, and in her ability to make those subtleties and ambiguities perceptible. The Lacanian approach to the analysis of the human psyche allows the reader not only to perceive those human complexities, but to understand what underpins them. In its attention to the place of language in the formation of the subject, Lacanian theory provides the necessary framework for a close textual reading that targets the libidinal structuring of the text. (The Lacanian concept of jouissance involves enjoyment, orgasm, but also a compulsion to transgress and go beyond the pleasure principle, thereby bringing inevitable pain.) Each Munro story chosen for analysis deals with particular aspects of the desires and enigmas of feminine subjectivity. This involves a progression that corresponds, logically speaking, to internal conflicts or questionings appropriate to different moments in life. The book begins by looking at stories in which the main character is a child, confronted by the inscrutability of parental injunctions, desires, and symbolic functions. Part II offers analyses of stories that deal with adult perspectives, notably in the field of love relationships, where desire, jouissance and love are examined in a serious effort to follow the logic of the texts to their point of impossibility : there where meaning stops. The final section draws certain conclusions from the analyses and extends their implications to other works by Munro, seeing in the writing the trace of the particular 'fixion' (a combination of fiction and fixation) of Munro's textual narratives."-- Provided by publisher.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-186) and index.
    Other format(s)
    Issued also in electronic formats.
    ISBN
    • 9780773547810 ((cloth))
    • 0773547819 ((cloth))
    OCLC
    948339385
    Statement on language in description
    Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...
    Other views
    Staff view

    Supplementary Information