Discovering Psychosis in “The Drowning Girl” Novel by Caitlín R. Kiernan

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to discover the psychosis personality in The Drowning Girl novel by Caitlín R. Kiernan that written in 2012. The story of the novel reveals a condition of someone who suffers psychosis living her life and the psychosis in the novel shown from the dialogues and narratives form. The writer used psychoanalysis theory of Jacques Lacan that exposes Mirror Stages of protagonist and it consist three stages; Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real. Therefore, this study applied qualitative methodology and textual methodology as the analysis presented in textual form. The result of the study uncovers the symptoms form and the causes of psychosis of the protagonist. Then, the symptoms form of the psychosis in this study are hallucination and delusion which make someone who suffers psychosis hard to differentiate reality and imagination. Furthermore, the causes of psychosis which discuss in this study are the absentee of father figure, the imagination in infancy period, and the lesbian identity state.