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- Title
Wanderlust and the Goddess of Death: Search for the Lost Mother in Tayeb Salih's "Season of Migration to the North".
- Authors
Walsh, Vincent A.
- Abstract
Critical discussion has centered on Mustafa Sa'eed's destructive relationships with white women in Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North. I suggest a psychological approach that lends depth to our understanding of Mustafa's deeply misogynistic character. Relying on the theoretical framework suggested by German psychiatrist Alice Miller, I examine Mustafa's mistreatment of females in light of his lifelong quest to fill an emotional void within, one that derives from his never having known the intimacy of a nourishing relationship with his mother. According to Miller, one's relationship with others throughout life is profoundly influenced by the quality of this initial interaction. Mustafa's degradation of women can be seen as an acting out, in the grown man, of the infant's rage at being denied intimacy with a loving mother. A void within propels him into a lifelong quest for mother substitutes, on whom he wreaks revenge for the initial rejection.
- Subjects
SEASON of Migration to the North (Book); SALIH, Tayeb, 1929-2009; MILLER, Alice, 1923-2010; INTERPERSONAL relations; SOCIAL psychology; INTIMACY (Psychology)
- Publication
PsyArt, 2012, p4
- ISSN
1088-5870
- Publication type
Article