Original scientific paper
Reflections on Nationalism and Achievement by Paternal Validation: The Daughter from The East by Clara Usón
Merima Omeragić
; Center for Interdisciplinary Studies – University Sarajevo
Abstract
The effect of emotional inter-dependency between the characters of Clara Usón’s novel of the traditionalist pater familias Ratko Mladić and his daughter Ana forms the hypothesis of this essay. Overly identified with her father (they see themselves as one being), trapped in her need for affirmation and approval, unconditionally loyal (to the adopted/imposed) father's values, submissive and obedient, she comes to a psychosomatic breakdown upon learning the truth about Mladić's war undertakings. By way of transferring these disputed values through upbringing – the choice of profession, self-discipline, rivalry, success, nationalism and ethnic superiority – the identity of Ana Mladić is irreversibly forged and negatively determined. For the sake of the ideals of nationalist superiority, Ana narrows the field of humanism in the doctors' profession and subjects it to her tradition, the spirit of the Serbian people, the hatred of the enemy ethnics, while in her father she sees the exalted figure of a hero akin to the mythical tsar Lazar. Conditioned by emotions and extreme mechanisms of dependency as well as femininity, Ana practically does not exist outside the imposed norms (nor can she conquer her self-image), and therefore cannot transform her disappointment and anger on the way to her own autonomy. Aspects of paternal control and supervision and a particular way of daughter's' upbringing, as well as loyal love on her part resulting in her decision to commit suicide are de/coded in the feminist psychoanalytic key.
Keywords
transfer; femininity; validation; Yugoslavism; nationalism; tradition; Clara Usón
Hrčak ID:
260724
URI
Publication date:
22.7.2021.
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