Pavesian subjectivity: Memory, temporality and the Oedipal process in the works of Cesare Pavese.

摘要

As an introduction to the works of Cesare Pavese, chapters 1 and 2 examine the chronological development of symbolism, myth and ethnology in works through Dialoghi con Leuco as the most important influences in these works' formation. Integrated with the discussion is a review of critical opinion.;In chapter 4, the failure of the Pavesian male subject to conform to the normativity of the Oedipal process is discussed first in terms of Freud's theory posited in The Ego and the Id, and then in terms of Pavese's rewriting of the myths of Oedipus, Ino/Leucothea and Meleager in Dialoghi con Leuco. The male subject's lack of normativity is then juxtaposed to Lacan's symbolic order, which is presented in terms of its linguistic and cultural inscription of male dominance.;Finally, the application of the symbolic order to feminist film theory is put in relation to the process of the female subject's coming of age in La bella estate, in which the visual objectification of the female subject is determined to be a precondition of adult female desire and subjectivity.;Chapter 3 is an application of Lacanian theories of psychological development to the cyclical notion of time implicit in Feria d'agosto's return to childhood through memory. Here the narrative subject of consciousness in Il compagno, La casa in collina and La luna e i falo is shown, by means of its return through memory to childhood, the maternal and the Langhe countryside, to exhibit the imaginary identification of the Lacanian mirror stage. The subject's imaginary identification is seen as a result to determine the foreclosure of the subject's consciousness of historical temporality.