The Dead Fatherretrato del padre en la postmodernidad
ISSN: 1131-9674
Year of publication: 1995
Issue: 9
Pages: 17-35
Type: Article
More publications in: REDEN: Revista Española de Estudios Norteamericanos
Abstract
Barthelme's portrait of the fictional father provides a cryptic caricature that oscillates between profoundity and nonsense. Through a psychoanalytic reading of the Dead Father (1975), starting from Freud and drawing from Lacan, I reflect upon the fictional representation of the process of internalizing symbolic authority as conscience in postmodem textuality. This allows us to question father structures in fiction, the issue of literary paternity and even our problematic access to the realm of the Symbolic. This paper is in many ways intended as a reflection on Barthelme's novel and on Roland Barthes' affirmation that every narrative "is staging of the (absent, hidden or hypostatized) father"