Shaping the Self : Lacanian Perspectives on Memory, Identity and Trauma in Morrison´s Fiction

This thesis examines Toni Morrison´s Beloved and Song of Solomon through Lacanian psychoanalysis, trauma theory and neuroscience. Beloved centers on the Imaginary and the Real, using fragmented, sensory narratives to reflect unprocessed trauma. Song of Solomon, by contrast, engages the Symbolic, exploring identity formation langage, and collective memory. Drawing on Cathy Caruth and Dominick LaCapra, the study highlights the difference between structural abscence and historical loss, aligning trauma theory. Neuroscientific perspectives on implicit memory and language offer further insight into how cognition shapes meaning and identity. Morrison´s work emergers as a symbolic act of collective remembrance and psychic negotiation, showing how literature, like psychoanalysis, mediates the unspeakable and the Real. Ultimately, the novels exemplify how the narrative can reveal trauma´s psychic and cultural residues, providing a multidimensional framework for understanding subjectivity.