Self and Other in The Soul Mountain

1. Exploring Self and the Other
Ramna Mir and Naima Minhas
SelfandOtherBinary
Opposition
Nature of the Self
Y Self?Evolution of Self
Jung on Self
Lacan on Self
Freud on Self
Existentialist on Self
Religion on Self

2. Self and Other

5. The three psychoanalytic on The Self
and Other
• Freud
• Lacan
• Jung

6. Jung on Self

8. Self Vs. Other
Self Other
The disease in Xinjiun; a part of his being The healthy people around him

9. Self Other
The Soul and the imagination that has not
been diseased
The corruption of the body

10. • Self is the Writer:"literary creation to be a kind of
challenge against society waged by an individual's
existence, even though this challenge may be insignificant, it is
at least a gesture."
• Other the American Theatre companies demanding Gao to make
changes in the plot of the plays.
Self the Playwright
• Other is the Audience within himself for whom Xing wrote
• Self is the Writer Other is His wife, ashamed of his socially
dangerous status as an intellectual—scorned him, and reported the
political nature of his writing to the authorities, as was expected of
her by custom. Other is the Society that fails to confirm
the individuality of Xinjiun.

11. Self Vs. Other in China Mao Period
• Mao presented the concept of Self as the
State
Vs.
Other as the Rebellious intellectuals

12. • Self representation Vs. Self Sacrifice to Other
(in name of Patriotism, Communism)
• Culture is self, creation (Art) is other
Vs.

13. The Significance of the topic
• Soul Mountain is a literary response to the
devastation of the self of the individual by
the primitive human urge for the warmth
and security of an other (Lee 2000, vi)
• Goran Malmqvist of the Swedish Nobel
Academy notes that Soul Mountain deals
with an existential dilemma: "man's urge
to find the absolute independence granted
by solitude conflicts with a longing for the
warmth and fellowship which can be given
by 'the other'"

14. Self Fused with
Others
Chinese sensibility
Fused with Western
Concepts

16. • Jean Starobinski writes that "the discovery of
the self coincides with the discovery of the
imagination; the two discoveries are in fact
the same"

17. Friction
• Friction is the force that disallows to move
forward. (Tundee aey Bad e Mukhalif “Iqbal”)
Dissension or conflict between persons,
nations, etc., because of differing ideas,
wishes, etc.

18. Nature of SELF
• Encyclopedic
• Inherently EVIL or ANGELIC?
• SELF is a rationalist half of the whole
personality.
• The self may be egotistical. Self imprisonment.
• I, is so self conscious, and self obsessed with
oneself then he cannot cross to the mystical
world yet. CH 3

19. Nature of Self
• GAO seems to be splitting himself
a schizophrenic experience of
splitting himself into different
personas, multiple identities. And
each identity has a different
journey to follow.
• Interestingly, I SELF is a central
figure of all the multiple
narratives.
• The Self travels to You, She, He
and then I

20. The Constituents of the Self
Spiritual
Self
Social
Self
Material
Self

21. Material Self
• Two categories
– The bodily self
• The parts of our body
– Extracorporeal self
• Any material possession which extends our body
• It is our psychological ownership of these
materials which constitute the material self

22. Material Self
• Name Letter Effect (Nuttin, 1985)
– Individuals have a tendency that they like the
letters which constitute their names more than
the rest of the letters in the alphabet

23. The Social Self
• How we are regarded and recognized by
others (social identities)
• “... a man has as many social selves as there
are individuals who recognize him and and
carry an image of him in their mind.” (James,
1890, p. 294)

24. The Five Types of Social Identities
– Personal Relationships (e.g.; son,
daughter)
– Ethnic/Religious (e.g.; Turkish, Muslim)
– Political Affiliation (e.g.; nationalist,
social democrat)
– Stigmatized Groups (e.g.; criminal,
addict)
– Vocation/Avocation
(e.g.; psychologist,
anchorperson, writer)

25. Spiritual Self
• Self is the stream of consciousness

26. Collective Self
• Refers to an individual’s
identification with a group

27. Exploring Self and the Other
Ramna Mir and Naima Minhas
SelfandOtherBinary
Opposition
Nature of the Self
Y Self?Evolution of Self
Jung on Self
Lacan on Self
Freud on Self
Existentialist on Self
Religion on Self