International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies (Jun 2018)
Richard Ford's The Bascombe Trilog from Ego Psychology Perspective
Abstract
Richard Ford's The Bascombe Trilogy manifests vivid traces of psycho-social and intrapersonal conflicts. The deep correlation between the historical and the personal in Ford's trilogy can be analyzed from the perspective of Erik Erikson's ego psychology and the emphasis he puts on the social and cultural factors on identity formation. The last four stages of ego development proposed by Erikson are utilized in this research to unravel the mechanisms behind the main character's individuation. "Role diffusion" and "repudiation" in adulthood, "intimacy" and "isolation" in young adulthood, "generativity" and "stagnation" in middle adulthood, and finally, "integrity" and "despair" in old adulthood compose the theoretical framework of this study. The main question to be answered in the process of this study is: How does Ford depict the multiple social, cultural, and historical impacts of American nationalism on Frank's character from his childhood to adolescence? The researchers show that the first two stages result in role confusion and isolation due to the lack of solid historical background, absence of reliable role models, and traumatic experiences such as war. The point is, in these novels, Ford weaves personal identity with national identity, displaying multiple historical and cultural subjectivity models already set for American-ness as his main character seeks solutions to evade them through therapeutic self-fashioning. Tracing the last two stages of Erikson's ego psychology in the novels bears witness to the possibility of generativity and integrity only through reconciliation with mortality and putting into practice the senses of communality and nurture. It can be concluded that Ford's trilogy is looking for a loophole from all the confusion, isolation, and alienation in the postmodern mediatized world of political lies and personal illusions; a spark of integrity that is lit not by self-delusion and shibboleths, but realizing the reality of mortality, the need for communality and nurture.
