A clinical reading of The hydrangeas, by Felisberto Hernández
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36496/n130.131a8Keywords:
Fiction, sterility, deliria, the uncanny, image, object, petit a, madness, scene, Las hortensias, Hernández, FelisbertoAbstract
The author focuses the analysis of this story through the subject of sterility affecting the couple of Horacio and María, and compares them with other two couples or women bearing the same situation: Shakespeare»s Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and García Lorca´s Yerma. The problem that instigates the latter to murder, in our characters leads to recreate the scene of the crime by stabbing one of the dolls, Hortensia, around which most of the drama is developed. Besides, childlessness is the latent material with which both María»s neurosis and gradual Horacio»s psychosis are built of, and ends in a clear disarrangement in Horacio»s temper, who progressively shows traits of perversion, uncanny moments, some catatonic motionless and even hallucinatory phenomena. The story and its psychoanalytic understanding are read with a freudian and lacanian orientation with a special mention to object «petit a» under its manifestations as glance and voice.
Downloads
References
Freud, S. (1919), Lo siniestro, G.W., XII, 227; S. E. XVII, 219; A.E. XVII, 230.
Hernández, F. (2016). Las Hortensias y otros relatos (Prólogo de Julio Cortázar). Buenos Aires: El cuenco de plata.
Lacan, J. (1994). Seminario 10. La angustia (1962-63). Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Lacan, J. (1984). Seminario 11. Los cuatro conceptos fundamentales del psicoanálisis (1964). Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Lacan, J. (1985). Seminario 3. Las Psicosis (1955-56). Buenos Aires: Paidós.
This work is licensed under a 