Lacanian Transference in A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This article explores the intersection of Lacanian psychoanalysis and subaltern theory in Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, focusing on the female protagonists Mariam and Rahel. It examines how each woman internalizes the figure of the Other which is mediated through their respective mothers, Nana and Ammu, within both familial and socio-political contexts. The transmission of subaltern identity and maternal trauma positions Mariam and Rahel as silenced, marginalized subjects shaped by patriarchal and colonial power structures. Nana and Ammu, cast out and silenced for their transgressive relationships with Jalil and Velutha, respectively, become emblematic of the abject maternal Other. Their social exclusion prefigures the daughters’ own descent into silence and passivity. Drawing on the Lacanian concept of desire and the mechanism of transference, this article argues that Mariam and Rahel inherit not only their mothers' pain but also the social conditions that render them voiceless. Nana and Ammu’s marginalization, resulting from their socially transgressive relationships with Jalil and Velutha, becomes a formative force in shaping their daughters’ inward, subdued identities. The emotional and social consequences of these maternal experiences are transmitted to Mariam and Rahel, who come to embody the silence, shame, and dispossession inherited through maternal bonds. Transference, in both novels, emerges as a process through which the structures of domination reproduce themselves within the psyche, binding the personal to the political. Therefore, the fusion of Lacanian and subaltern perspectives provides a critical framework for analyzing how desire, power, and colonial legacies shape feminine subjectivity in postcolonial contexts.