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Shattered Voices: Lacanian Psychoanalysis and the Literature of Survival: Mrs. Dalloway, The Bell Jar and The Other Truth: Diary of a Misfit
Gregorio, Alice
Gregorio, Alice
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Abstract
This thesis looks at how the themes of psychological suffering, trauma, and identity construction are addressed in the writings of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Alda Merini. The work asks how writing can become a tool of survival and resistance for female subjectivities marked by mental suffering and institutional exclusion. A psychoanalytic theoretical framework is used to build the analysis, specifically utilizing a Lacanian lens and its fundamental concepts of the Real, the Symbolic Order, and the fragmentation of the subject. The thesis is based on the idea that psychological distress is not simply an internal condition, but something shaped by larger forces—such as institutional systems, cultural expectations, and the limitations built into language itself. The first chapter focuses on Mrs. Dalloway, revealing how Clarissa’s identity is both defined and constrained by social obligations and Symbolic expectations. Her feeling of estrangement is interpreted as the result of a language system that is unable to express her interiority. The Bell Jar, which is discussed in the second chapter, interprets Esther Greenwood’s crisis as a reaction to the medicalization of deviation and the imposition of gender standards. Her silence and detachment from the outside world appear to be symptoms of a Symbolic exclusion. Lastly, The Other Truth: Diary of a Misfit, written by Alda Merini from inside the asylum experience, is examined in the third chapter. Her poetic and disjointed language is read as a tool for self-reappropriation and a critique of institutional violence. Ultimately, the thesis argues that in all three texts, writing does not aim to cure trauma but to give it form, making visible what dominant discourse tends to silence.
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Thesis (B.A. in English Literature, Minors in Creative Writing and Communications)--John Cabot University, Spring 2025.
Date
2025
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Keywords
Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf), Bell jar (Sylvia Plath), L'altra verità (Alda Merini)
Citation
Gregorio, Alice. "Shattered Voices: Lacanian Psychoanalysis and the Literature of Survival: Mrs. Dalloway, The Bell Jar and The Other Truth: Diary of a Misfit". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2025.