Re-Entering the Pre-Linguistic: A Study of David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon

Abstract

Though the dominant critical praxis attempts to locate postcolonial elements in David Malouf9s Remembering Babylon, the psychological exploration that the novel affords calls for a deeper analysis of the text within the Lacanian framework. Gemmy9s borderline existence in the Imaginary, his yearning to find a secure place within the Symbolic, the settlers9 disturbing encounter with the unknown, and the documentation of the earliest phase of white Australian history are all principal elements of interest in this literary achievement. What is foregrounded throughout the text is the intricate relation between language and the subject9s notion of who he is. Language simultaneously binds the subject to the Symbolic and denies him the idea of a unified self in the Imaginary. In other terms, language leads to the fragmentation of the self through its demand of various subject positions in the Symbolic.