The Biological Unconscious, Memory and Identity in Charles Fernyhough’s A Box of Birds
The Biological Unconscious, Memory and Identity in Charles Fernyhough’s A Box of Birds
Author(s): Maria MargaroniSubject(s): Fiction, Comparative Study of Literature, Cognitive Psychology, Comparative Psychology, Experimental Pschology, Neuropsychology, Psychology of Self, Psychoanalysis, British Literature
Published by: Universitatea Petrol-Gaze din Ploieşti
Keywords: Charles Fernyhough; forms of neuro-subjectivity; materialism; narrative models of identity; memory; consciousness; the biological unconscious; Jacques Lacan; Plato
Summary/Abstract: This essay proposes to critically engage with dominant materialist and narrative models of human identity, addressing the old, ‘tired’ question of subjectivity from a twenty-first century perspective. Drawing on contemporary neuroscientific theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis, I aim to read Charles Fernyhough’s A Box of Birds (2012) as a creative reflection on the nature of memory, consciousness and the unconscious. As I shall demonstrate, what lies at the heart of Fernyhough’s reflection is the Platonic allegory of the mind as an aviary. Taken up and re-interpreted by different characters in the novel, this allegory permits Fernyhough to experiment with contemporary discourses of neuro-subjectivity, tracing a richer, more dynamic relation among mind, brain and body.
Journal: Word and Text, A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics
- Issue Year: XIII/2023
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 57-72
- Page Count: 16
- Language: English