The Psychical Dynamics of Melancholic Identification in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee

Abstract

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee focuses on the diverse processes of melancholic identification as the female subjects are displaced and dislocated during the Japanese occupation of Korea and through their immigration to America. This paper first explores the psychological violence of the identification processes, which impose new objects in the place of existing objects in the object relationship, and the consequent splitting of the subjects from their old love object/ideals. Cha embodies the repressive/oppressive forces of melancholic identification through the processes of linguistic, religious, and cinematic identification: these processes are respectively represented by the language acquisition in the process of colonial pedagogy and assimilation, Catholic catechism, and cinematic fascination in Dictee. Examining the way the female subjects deal with their love objects, both lost and newly imposed, in the state of melancholy, this paper illuminates how they respond to the historial and cultural demands as they cross the border between incompatible love objects/ideals such as language, culture, nation, homeland, etc. This paper further investigates the significance of the imaginary homeland to the displaced, transnational subjects in order to examine the functions of the “lost-but-not-lost” old love objects/ideals, as well as newly imposed ones, in the identity formation of the diasporic subjects.