Self and Other in The Soul Mountain, Chinese Literature

Exploring Self and the OtherRamna Mir and Naima Minhas

Self and Other Binary Opposition

Self and Other The Definitions

Nature of the Self

Y Self?

Y Other?

The Other within The Other withoutEvolution of Self

Jung on SelfLacan on SelfFreud on SelfExistentialist on SelfReligion on Self

Self and Other

The three psychoanalytic on The Self and Other

• Freud• Lacan • Jung

Jung on Self

Self Vs. OtherSelf Other

The disease in Xinjiun; a part of his being The healthy people around him

Self Other

The Soul and the imagination that has not been diseased

The corruption of the body

• Self is the Writer:"literary creation to be a kind of challenge

against society waged by an individual's existence, even though this challenge may be insignificant, it is at least a gesture."

• Other the American Theatre companies demanding Gao to make changes in the plot of the plays.

Self the Playwright • Other is the Audience within himself for whom Xing wrote• Self is the Writer Other is His wife, ashamed of his socially dangerous status

as an intellectual—scorned him, and reported the political nature of his writing to the authorities, as was expected of her by custom. Other is the Society that fails to confirm

the individuality of Xinjiun.

Self Vs. Other in China Mao Period• Mao presented the concept of Self as the

State

Vs.

Other as the Rebellious intellectuals

• Self representation Vs. Self Sacrifice to Other (in name of Patriotism, Communism)

• Culture is self, creation (Art) is other

Vs.

The Significance of the topic• Soul Mountain is a literary response to the

devastation of the self of the individual by the primitive human urge for the warmth and security of an other (Lee 2000, vi)

• Goran Malmqvist of the Swedish Nobel Academy notes that Soul Mountain deals with an existential dilemma: "man's urge to find the absolute independence granted by solitude conflicts with a longing for the warmth and fellowship which can be given by 'the other'"

Self Fused with Others

Chinese sensibility Fused with Western Concepts

• Jean Starobinski writes that "the discovery of the self coincides with the discovery of the imagination; the two discoveries are in fact the same"

SELF->she, he, You, I

Friction

• Friction is the force that disallows to move forward. (Tundee aey Bad e Mukhalif “Iqbal”)

Dissension or conflict between persons, nations, etc., because of differing ideas, wishes, etc.

Nature of SELF

• Encyclopedic• Inherently EVIL or ANGELIC?• SELF is a rationalist half of the whole

personality.• The self may be egotistical. Self imprisonment.• I, is so self conscious, and self obsessed with

oneself then he cannot cross to the mystical world yet. CH 3

Nature of Self• GAO seems to be splitting himself

a schizophrenic experience of splitting himself into different personas, multiple identities. And each identity has a different journey to follow.

• Interestingly, I SELF is a central figure of all the multiple narratives.

• The Self travels to You, She, He and then I

The Constituents of the Self

Material Self

• Two categories– The bodily self• The parts of our body

– Extracorporeal self• Any material possession which extends our body

• It is our psychological ownership of these materials which constitute the material self

Material Self

• Name Letter Effect (Nuttin, 1985)– Individuals have a tendency that they like the

letters which constitute their names more than the rest of the letters in the alphabet

The Social Self

• How we are regarded and recognized by others (social identities)

• “... a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and and carry an image of him in their mind.” (James, 1890, p. 294)

The Five Types of Social Identities– Personal Relationships (e.g.; son,

daughter)– Ethnic/Religious (e.g.; Turkish, Muslim)– Political Affiliation (e.g.; nationalist,

social democrat)– Stigmatized Groups (e.g.; criminal,

addict)– Vocation/Avocation

(e.g.; psychologist, anchorperson, writer)

Spiritual Self

• Self is the stream of consciousness

Collective Self

• Refers to an individual’s identification with a group

Exploring Self and the OtherRamna Mir and Naima Minhas

Self and Other Binary Opposition

Self and Other The Definitions

Nature of the Self

Y Self?

Y Other?

The Other within The Other withoutEvolution of Self

Jung on SelfLacan on SelfFreud on SelfExistentialist on SelfReligion on Self