This chapter analyses Esther Tusquets’ EMM and VUN, by looking at the emotional transformations that the different protagonists undergo throughout the novels.16 It provides insight on topics such as auto-fiction, autobiography, truth, women’s writing and the importance of psychoanalysis in women’s development. The chapter’s main analysis tracks the female protagonists, E.’s and Elia’s, individuation process from EMM to VUN in a sequence of emotional experiences that lead to a more stable identity. These emotional experiences in EMM include E.’s lesbian relationship with Clara, leaving her husband and dealing with her mother’s role in her life. It also includes, returning to her childhood home and reconnecting with the past and her lost love, to find new strength in the present. In VUN, it includes: dealing with the abandonment of her husband and her writer’s block, as well as, claiming her role as a mother in her son, Daniel’s life. Much like the previous novel, Elia is forced to re- evaluate her life through great disappointment. By revisiting a past mind-set, she eventually exits victoriously.
Relating auto-fictional, autobiographical and elements regarding the significance of truth are relevant here, to help in showing that Tusquets novels reflect elements of
16 VUN considers only Elia as its main protagonist and will therefore forego the additional characters in
her personal life. This chapter hopes to show that, aside from the protagonist’s individuation, the novels also provide insight into the author’s own individuation progress. Women’s writing and psychoanalysis, further underpin the previously made arguments, by allowing Tusquets’ literature to be seen from a female developmental perspective, with psychoanalysis lending a helping hand in situating Tusquets and her literature more accurately in relation to Kristeva’s identity analysis.
The underlying hypothesis, here, is that the emotional experiences that both protagonists undergo, impact on their emotional constitution and identity. This includes: leaving their husband, or being left; re-orienting themselves sexually and trying to come to terms with the past and the loss of love. It consequently brings them more into themselves. In addition, this chapter hopes to establish that the emotional transformations, which the protagonists undergo in each novel, are different in nature. Both novels support the argument for identity formation to differing degrees and ends. It will be argued that EMM only shows indications of change, while the protagonist never embraces her transformation entirely and that the protagonist of VUN successfully accomplishes what Kristeva describes, in her interview with Sellers, of temporary stability in her identity (Sellers 1989 133).17 At adequate stages, I will establish a connection between Tusquets as an author and her novelistic plots, demonstrating how, through her own personal experiences, Tusquets gave shape to her protagonists and novelistic plots and how they could be interpreted as a reflection of herself.
The analysis outlined above, will be supported and facilitated by an application of Kristeva’s theory on le sujet-en-procès (The subject in process) (SIP). I would like to allow for Judith Butler’s criticism of Kristeva’s semiotic disruptions theory here, by arguing that my intention, in this thesis, is not to demonstrate a conclusive identity
17 While Elia in VUN does not succeed at implementing all theoretical arguments that Kristeva’s theories
outline, her transformational record is overall positive. Please refer to the conclusion of this chapter for more detail.
constitution in the protagonists. My aim is to illustrate that Kristeva’s semiotic disruptions theory is capable of triggering a desire for emancipation in the protagonists. Hence, Butler’s criticism of Kristeva’s theory, being a questionable emancipatory ideal, does not really apply here, for it is never used for this purpose (Butler 1991 124, 125).18 Furthermore, I also discuss theories that stand in relation to Kristeva’s SIP which are of relevance in identity formation. This is because I believe that the inter-relatedness of said theories is necessary to achieve a change in the protagonists’ identities. Consequently, among these theories are, the concept of abjection, which Kristeva outlines as an on-going process that does not respect the boundaries of the subject and thereby constantly disrupts its sense of self, being forced to oppose and reject all that appears foreign to itself (Kristeva 1982 2). Abjection follows from semiotic disruptions because for the subject to defend its constitution against the abject, it requires an already preliminary sense of self, which will only be established through semiotic disruptions. Thus, it concerns itself with identifying the various disruptions to the self and comments on the resulting progress achieved by the subject. Melancholia is also a critical element in my discussion, as it analyses the subject in its mourning for the lost love object. It directly concerns the subject’s constitution of self and more specifically it focuses on the consolation of the self after the loss of the love object (McAfee 2007 60). For the purpose of this thesis, I will pay close attention to how the subject deals with this loss and whether it emerges from the loss with an increased sense of self.19 By pursuing this
18 Please refer to section 2.2.2.
19 According to Lechte, Kristeva relates that melancholia is often directly related to the mother-daughter
relationship in women (Lechte 1990 34). While I regard the mother-daughter relationship as significant in female development, I have in this thesis, refrained from analysing its impact in great detail. Additionally, this chapter takes an alternative view-point on the love object that melancholia discusses. It allows for the equity between the mother figure and a more general love object, such as a lover or a husband, given that
Kristeva’s theory allows for this interpretation as well (Kristeva 1989 81). This is particularly because my
thesis focuses, in more details, on the impact that the romantic lover has in Tusquets’ literature. This is particularly so because my thesis focuses on the impact of the figure that the romantic lover has in
line of argument, melancholia fulfils the last step in the constitution of identity that the subject must master in order to arrive at a more stable and stronger identity.