Regression as a Psychological Process in the Novel Hawwii

Abstract

Scholars in the area of psychology and criticism contend that psychoanalysis can help us better understand human behavior. Literary texts reflect issues related to human behavior. Hence, psychoanalysis helps us understand literary texts which are about human behavior in giving profound clues towards solving a work‟s thematic and symbolic mysteries and serving as a best tool for reading literary texts beneath the line. The aim of this article was to analyze a female character in a novel Hawwii, from psychoanalytic lens. Psychoanalytic approach is employed to analyze the female character in the novel focusing on regression as a psychological process. Textual analysis was used as a tool to obtain information from the text and to examine the psychodynamics of the character. After a close reading of and
analysis of the characters, it is found out that the protagonist Hawwii is depicted to be a depressed person like “an orphan” in the symbolic realm. She found to oscillate between the past and the present for she is engulfed by abjection. Regression, rather than helping the character as therapeutic element to forget the current situation in which she was, it
rather forced her enter to abject state which in turn pushed her to attempt suicide. Therefore, as regression is helpful in enabling one forget unpleasant situations someone is at present, it is also damaging if it takes one to unpleasant moments of the past.

Keywords: Abject; Analysis; Hawwii; Psychoanalysis; Regression