Distorted Modern Man: “Gerontion” Through Lacan

The present study examines T. S. Eliot’s " Gerontion" using Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical model. This study applies Lacanian theories of psychoanalysis including the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real providing an alternative understanding of Eliot's poems. A core theme in T. S. Eliot’s poetry of aging men is that, in the era of modernity and all its complexity, one cannot easily stay mentally stable. Using dramatic monologues, he gives us insights into how man sees life when feeling alienated in the hectic, insane world. In one of his most known poems “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” published in ۱۹۱۵, Eliot explores fully what mental conflicts man can have and how they fail to deal with them. “Gerontion,” another poem by Eliot published five years later, in ۱۹۲۰, observes the same thing. Eliot, in this poem, explores how one can still be struggling with the same problems, even after years. What I will do in this paper with the help of Lacan is prove that the persona in “Gerontion” is an older version of the persona in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a claim without psychoanalytical proof by many critics.

کلیدواژه ها:

Gerontion " ، Lacan ، psychoanalysis.