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Yas Kefenini Sökmek: Don DeLillo’nun The Body Artist Adlı Romanı

Year 2021, Volume: 15 Issue: 1, 163 - 174, 29.06.2021
https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.959407

Abstract

Don DeLillo’nun The Body Artist (2001) başlıklı romanı, bir beden sanatçısı olan Lauren Hartke’nin (36) yas sürecini, “Beden Zamanı” adlı bir sahne performansı biçiminde sunar. Bu beden performansının deneysel anlatımı özne ve nesne, içsel ve dışsal, beden ve zihin, zaman ve mekan, bellek ve sanat arasındaki sınırların yıkılışını yansıtır. Lauren, eşi Rey Robles’un (64), kaybının şokunu atlatamaz çünkü Rey trajik bir şekilde intihar etmiştir. Eşinin ölümünden sonra Lauren evinde, Mr. Tuttle adında, anlamsız bir bağlam içinde ve mekanik bir şekilde kelimeleri tekrar eden, fiillerin zamanlarını karıştırarak konuşup mekan ve zaman arasındaki sınırları yok eden, Lauren ve Rey’in seslerini taklit ederek aralarında geçen diyalogları yeniden canlandıran tekinsiz bir yabancıyla karşılaşır. Aynı anda hem içsel hem de dışsal ötekiyi simgeleyen Mr. Tuttle, Lauren’ın öznellik krizini sergiler. Lauren’ın yas süreci Jean Laplanche’ın psikanalitik kuramları ışığında incelendiğinde, Lauren’ın kaybettiği ötekine olan bağlarını, Freud’un yas süreci tanımında olduğu gibi, sanat yoluyla kendini iyileştirerek koparmadığı gözlemlenir. Aksine, kaybettiği ötekinden kendini, ona yeniden bağlanarak yeni bir öznellik kurmak için koparır. Laplanche bu süreci yas tutmak ve Penelope’nin kayınpederi Laertes için dokuduğu kefenin ilmeklerini örmesi ve çözmesi arasında bir benzerlik kurarak tartışır. Laplanche’a göre Penelope, Laertes’in değil, Ulysses’in yasını tutmak için bu kefeni örmekte ve sonrasında sökmektedir. Bu makale Lauren’ın yas sürecini travmatik hale getirenin, kayıp karşısında duyduğu suçluluğu bastırmak olduğunu iddia eder. Bu bakış açısına ek olarak, Laplanche’ın “bilmecemsi mesaj,” “sonradan etki” ve “örme/sökme” gibi kuramsal terimlerini kullanarak, bu makale, Lauren’ın beden sanatının, kaybettiği öznelliğini ötekiler üzerinden yeniden kurabilmek için çocukluk travmasını – annesinin erken ölümünü – nasıl çözdüğünü tartışır.

References

  • Brinkema, Eugenie. The Forms of the Affects. Duke UP, 2014.
  • Browning, Deborah L. “Laplanche on Après-Coup: Translation, Time, and Trauma.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, vol. 66, no. 4, Published online September 24, 2018, Issue published: August 1, 2018, pp. 779-794.
  • Caruth, Cathy. “An Interview with Jean Laplanche.” Postmodern Culture, vol. 11 no. 2, 2001. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/pmc.2001.0002.
  • DeLillo, Don. The Body Artist. Picador, 2001.
  • Di Prete, Laura. “Don DeLillo's The Body Artist: Performing the Body, Narrating Trauma.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 46, no. 3, 2005, pp. 483-510.
  • Freud, Sigmund. “On Transience.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, pp. 303-307.
  • Freud, Sigmund. “Mourning and Melancholia.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, pp. 237-258.
  • Hinton, Ladson. “The Enigmatic Signifier and the Decentred Subject.” Journal of Analytical Psychology, vol. 54, no. 5, 2009, pp. 637-657.
  • Kontoulis, Cleopatra and Eliza Kitis. “Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist: Time, Language and Grief.” Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts, vol. 12, no. 1, 2011, pp. 222-242.
  • Laplanche, Jean. Essays on Otherness. Routledge, 1999.
  • Laplanche, Jean. New Foundations for Psychoanalysis. Translated by Jonathan House, Unconscious in Translation LLC, 2017.
  • Naas, Michael. “House Organs: The Strange Case of the Body Artist and Mr. Tuttle.” Oxford Literary Review, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2008, pp. 87-108.

Unweaving the Shroud of Mourning: Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist

Year 2021, Volume: 15 Issue: 1, 163 - 174, 29.06.2021
https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.959407

Abstract

Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist (2001) presents Lauren Hartke’s (36), a body artist, work of mourning in the form of a stage performance called “Body Time”. The experimental narrative of the body performance reflects the collapse of the boundaries between subject and object, internal and external, body and mind, time and space, and memory and art. Lauren cannot overcome the shock over her husband’s, Rey Robles (64), loss because he tragically commits suicide. After her husband’s death, she discovers an uncanny stranger, Mr. Tuttle, in her house, who mechanically repeats words in a nonsensical context, dissolves the boundaries between space and time through confusing grammatical tenses, and reanimates the conversations between Lauren and Rey by mimicking their voices. Signifying simultaneously an external and an internal other, Mr. Tuttle exhibits Lauren’s subjectivity-in-crisis. When Lauren’s work of mourning is analysed by using Jean Laplanche’s psychoanalytical theories, it is observed that Lauren is not detaching herself from her lost other, as is in Freudian definition of the work of mourning, by healing herself through art. On the contrary, she detaches herself from her lost other to re-attach herself to the other in order to construct a new form of subjectivity. Laplanche discusses this process by drawing an analogy between mourning and Penelope’s weaving/unweaving a shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes. For him, Penelope is weaving/unweaving this shroud to mourn Ulysses, not Laertes. By identifying a similar relation between Lauren’s mourning and her body art, this article argues that what renders Lauren’s mourning traumatic is the feeling of guilt she represses in the face of loss. Through the use of Laplanche’s theoretical concepts such as “enigmatic message,” “afterwardsness,” and “weaving/unweaving,” this article further discusses how Lauren’s body art unweaves her childhood trauma, her mother’s early death, to weave her subjectivity in relation to her dead others.

References

  • Brinkema, Eugenie. The Forms of the Affects. Duke UP, 2014.
  • Browning, Deborah L. “Laplanche on Après-Coup: Translation, Time, and Trauma.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, vol. 66, no. 4, Published online September 24, 2018, Issue published: August 1, 2018, pp. 779-794.
  • Caruth, Cathy. “An Interview with Jean Laplanche.” Postmodern Culture, vol. 11 no. 2, 2001. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/pmc.2001.0002.
  • DeLillo, Don. The Body Artist. Picador, 2001.
  • Di Prete, Laura. “Don DeLillo's The Body Artist: Performing the Body, Narrating Trauma.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 46, no. 3, 2005, pp. 483-510.
  • Freud, Sigmund. “On Transience.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, pp. 303-307.
  • Freud, Sigmund. “Mourning and Melancholia.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, pp. 237-258.
  • Hinton, Ladson. “The Enigmatic Signifier and the Decentred Subject.” Journal of Analytical Psychology, vol. 54, no. 5, 2009, pp. 637-657.
  • Kontoulis, Cleopatra and Eliza Kitis. “Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist: Time, Language and Grief.” Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts, vol. 12, no. 1, 2011, pp. 222-242.
  • Laplanche, Jean. Essays on Otherness. Routledge, 1999.
  • Laplanche, Jean. New Foundations for Psychoanalysis. Translated by Jonathan House, Unconscious in Translation LLC, 2017.
  • Naas, Michael. “House Organs: The Strange Case of the Body Artist and Mr. Tuttle.” Oxford Literary Review, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2008, pp. 87-108.
There are 12 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Literary Studies
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Selen Aktari Sevgi

Publication Date June 29, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2021 Volume: 15 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Aktari Sevgi, S. (2021). Unweaving the Shroud of Mourning: Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist. Cankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 15(1), 163-174. https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.959407

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