SPLIT IDENTITY IN TARIQ ALI’S “THE STONE WOMAN”: A PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY

Abstract

The Stone Woman (1992) by Tariq Ali is historical mouthpiece of decline of Ottoman Empire in which Tariq Ali has depicted the picture of the “after decline” situation of the people. The mental disordering family who is prey of split identity and is in the search of the meanings of life and the pleasure is presented in this novel. The current study is conducted in the descriptive and qualitatively conducted under the perspective of Freudian principles of “pleasure seeking” and Frankl’s theory of “meaning seeking” in life. The study is qualitative in its nature which is being conducted for the purpose of analysing text of the novel under the shade of “pleasure seeking” and “logotherapy”. The mental state of the characters is split and they are in search of pleasure in their life. The central characters Sultan and Nilofer who themselves violated the norms of the culture in the days of dignity but after the exile. The foreigners had invaded in the empire and the native culture is violated a replaced by the Westerns culture. The results of the study showed that the questions of the natives to the Sultan regarding production of cultural resistance are not been given rather than he suggests that the people would themselves differentiate between the good and bad aspects of the cultures. The study also described that the members of the Sultan family have been there in the search of pleasure by the sexual attempts and love making and same actions were also taken by Sultan himself so he is not at the position to reveal the truth as he and his family is prey of mental disorder, split identity and self-transcendence.