“Escrever é como girar a faca na ferida”: faces da angústia na escrita em abismo de Elena Ferrante

Abstract

Anguish is the affect that does not deceive, stated Lacan in The Seminar, look 10: Anxiety, pointing out that sensing how much anguish a subject can bear is an impasse that constantly puts psychoanalysts to the test in the conduct of psychoanalytic treatment. In this sense, the present study was justified because, from the beginnings of psychoanalytic theory to the present day, anguish has led many subjects to seek analysis. The study was guided by the following research question: in what way does the singular encounter of the author of this study with the work of Elena Ferrante make it possible to explore theoretical-clinical questions surrounding anguish in psychoanalytic practice? Therefore, the general objective was to explore anguish and its facets in psychoanalytic practice through the work The Days of abandonment; and the specific objectives were: 1) to discuss anguish based on Freud and Lacan; 2) to address the relationships between psychoanalysis and literature through Freud, Lacan, Elena Ferrante, and contemporary psychoanalysts; 3) to articulate Elena Ferrante’s work with psychoanalysis through anguish and its facets; and 4) to present the author’s singular encounter with Elena Ferrante’s literature, especially The Days of abandonment. The psychoanalytic research method was employed, following a methodological path that amalgamated a diligent dimension and an unmarginated dimension, based on Elena Ferrante’s book Margins and dictation: On the pleasures of reading and writing. The diligent dimension consisted of a theoretical psychoanalytic investigation in which the notion of anguish was examined using texts by Freud and Lacan as primary sources, and texts by contemporary psychoanalysts retrieved from databases as secondary sources. The unmarginated dimension explored the relationships between psychoanalysis and literature by drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis and the concept of mise en abyme in order to articulate Elena Ferrante’s work with psychoanalysis. Furthermore, it was from a body touched by literature and, as an effect of this encounter, compelled to write, that footnotes were used as a methodological resource, allowing the author to develop the proposal of a writing style that amalgamates both diligent and unmarginated dimensions and to present his singular encounter with Ferrante’s literature. From this, it became possible to explore the following facets of anguish: 1) unmarginating as a facet of anguish; 2) frantumaglia as a name for feminine anguish; 3) the mother as an anguish-provoking figure; and 4) anguish in the mother-daughter relationship. The discussion of these facets of anguish was grounded in Lacan’s proposition that, for dialogue between psychoanalysis and literature to occur, both must function as forms of failed knowledge, which implies pointing to the gap in the knowledge of the mise en abyme. Thus, through the four proposed facets of anguish, it was possible to observe the presence of a “Ferrantean anguish” an anguish that approaches the anguish theorized in psychoanalytic practice by Freud and Lacan.