Sarah Kane’s Blasted Through A Psychoanalytic Lens

Abstract

Psychoanalytic concepts which pervade our daily lives help us better understand human behaviors depicted, for instance, in literary texts; in fact, a psychological approach is an excellent tool for critical analysis and for solving a work’s thematic and symbolic mysteries. Sarah Kane\u27s Blasted, a good deal of the narrative progression deals with Ian and Cate’s psychological behavior and their romantic relationship which has important implications for psychoanalytic criticism. The characters’ behavior, narrative events, and images could be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts and different unconscious motives consisting of repressed wounds, fears, unresolved conflicts and guilty desires that operate in the main characters throughout this play. Applying Lacan and Freud’s psychoanalytic techniques and psychological theories one can arrive at an interpretation of the play and of the motives behind the individual behavior. DOI: 10.5958/2347-6869.2018.00007.