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Abstract
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This research addresses a priority area within contemporary literary studies by introducing Lacanian psychoanalysis into critical discourse on Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul. While memory studies and trauma theory dominate existing scholarship on the novel, Lacanian theory remains largely absent despite its proven relevance to questions of repression, symbolic law, and divided subjectivity. Scholars such as Slavoj Žižek and Shoshana Felman demonstrate that Lacanian psychoanalysis offers conceptual tools capable of articulating the ethical and psychic dimensions of historical catastrophe beyond representational models (Žižek 101; Felman 17). By situating Shafak’s narrative within this theoretical framework, the present study expands methodological horizons within Turkish and Armenian literary studies and challenges prevailing interpretive paradigms that privilege sociopolitical explanation over psychic structure.
Moreover, the research reframes historical trauma as a constitutive absence within the Symbolic order rather than as a recoverable narrative of suffering. Trauma theory often emphasizes testimony and witness, yet Lacanian theory conceptualizes trauma as an encounter with the Real that resists symbolization (Lacan, Four Fundamental Concepts 55). This distinction enables a more precise analysis of denial as a psychic defense rather than solely as ideological strategy. Such an approach aligns with Dominick LaCapra’s call for analytic rigor in trauma studies that distinguishes structural absence from historical loss (LaCapra 48). By applying this distinction to The Bastard of Istanbul, the research contributes to interdisciplinary dialogue among psychoanalysis, memory studies, and narrative theory.
Finally, the study advances debates on identity by moving beyond celebratory accounts of hybridity. Lacan’s theory of lack and desire offers a framework that exposes fragmentation and antagonism beneath cultural synthesis. This intervention holds significance f
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