Lacanian Desire, Anxiety and the Other in Buchi Emecheta’s The Bride Price

Year 2025, Volume: 5 Issue: 2, 1 - 15

Zeliha Işık

Abstract

This study analyzes Buchi Emecheta's The Bride Price, exploring the themes of desire, anxiety, and death as they manifest in the character of Aku-nna, through the framework of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. After the death of her father, Aku-nna moves with her family to Ibuza, a traditional Nigerian community characterized by strict cultural norms that dictate her value and existence, particularly concerning marriage, the bride price, and education. Aku-nna resists being “castrated” by the symbolic order of Igbo culture. Instead, these constraints spark her desire for independence and a life with her forbidden love, Chike, who represents an escape from these societal restrictions. While she achieves her desire to be with Chike and leaves Ibuza, her journey ends not in liberation but in profound anxiety, leading to a symbolic death within the Lacanian Real. This anxiety stems from her failure to fully achieve symbolic castration and being too close to her objet petit a. By rejecting Igbo society's symbolic order, Aku-nna confronts the unresolved question of the Other's wishes, as symbolized by Ibuza's traditions, and draws disconcertingly close to her own unmediated desire, intensifying her anxiety. From a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective, I examine how Aku-nna’s journey intertwines themes of desire, anxiety, and death, illustrating the psychological and cultural conflicts that shape her fate in The Bride Price.

Keywords

Desire , Anxiety , Castration , the Other , The Bride Price

Buchi Emecheta' nın Başlık Parası Eserinde Lacanyen Arzu, Kaygı ve Öteki

Abstract

Bu çalışma, Buchi Emecheta'nın Gelin Fiyatı romanını Lacancı psikanaliz teorisi çerçevesinde ele alarak Aku-nna karakterinde arzu, kaygı ve ölüm temalarını inceler. Babasının ölümünden sonra ailesiyle birlikte Doğu Nijerya’daki geleneksel bir topluluk olan İbuza’ya taşınan Aku-nna, özellikle evlilik, başlık parası, eğitim ve yas konularında katı toplumsal normlara boyun eğmeye zorlanır. Aku-nna, İgbo kültürünün sembolik düzeni tarafından kastre edilmeyi reddeder. Aksine, bu kısıtlamalar, bağımsızlık arzusu ve toplumsal sınırlamalardan bir kaçış yolu temsil eden Chike ile birlikte olma arzusunu körükler. Aku-nna, Chike ile birlikte olma arzusunu gerçekleştirip İbuza’dan ayrılmayı başarsa da yolculuğu özgürlükle değil, Lacancı Gerçek içinde sembolik bir ölümle sonuçlanan derin bir kaygıyla sona erer. Aku-nna’nın kaygısının, sembolik hadım edilme sürecini tamamlayamamasından ve “nesne küçük a” ile fazla yakın olmasından kaynaklandığını savunuyorum. İgbo kültürünün sembolik düzeninden kopması, onu Öteki’nin, yani İbuza’nın geleneklerinin, ondan ne istediği sorusuyla baş başa bırakır ve kendi arzularına rahatsız edici şekilde yaklaşmasına neden olur. Bu bağlamda, Lacancı psikanalitik perspektiften, Gelin Fiyatı’nda Aku-nna'nın hikayesinin arzu, kaygı ve ölüm temalarını nasıl iç içe geçirdiğini ve onun kaderini şekillendiren psikolojik ve kültürel çatışmaları inceliyorum.

Keywords

Arzu , Kaygı , Kastrasyon , Öteki , Gelin Fiyatı

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