Horror and Repulsion in A Temporary Marriage

This paper attempts at observing the theory of abjection in the short story of A Temporary Marriage . Written by the Korean author Krys Lee and being a part of a tangible collection entitled the Drifting House , the story reveals the journey and the life engagement of a Korean woman who is dejected and rejected by her husband and lives in America. To do so, she had undergone a marriage of convenience in search of her daughter and to some extent, of her husband. The plot and characterization spin around Mrs. Shin’s confrontation with herself, her surrounding and finally, her daughter. The abjection theory, originally psychoanalytical and proposed by Julia Kristeva in Powers of Horrors , tests the boundaries and limitations of the notion of self and others. Kristeva explains that the darkness inside the human nature can be revealed when the idea of self is shaken as if a new form of consciousness is born or generated. The paper primarily elaborates the theory of abjections and, afterwards, Mrs. Shin is observed and studied in connection with the terms and conditions defined within the theory in order to present the state of transition and transformation of the mentioned female character through her mental journey of horror and repulsion.

کلیدواژه ها:

psychoanalysis ، abjection ، horror ، repulsion ، confrontation ، self and others