A psychoanalytic reading of the case of the Sudanese immigrant Mustafa Saeed in Tayeb Salih's novel The Season of Migration to the North
PSYCHOANALYSIS OF LITERARY CREATIVITY
Keywords:
Tayeb Salih, Mustafa Saeed, psychoanalysis, immigration, collective trauma, object binding, Oedipus complex, narcissistic rage, psychosis, grandeur, splitting, operativeness, avoidance of attachmentAbstract
The generally accepted view of psychologists and literary critics of Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North is that Mustafa Saeed's violent interracial sexuality towards British women is due to an unconscious desire for revenge for the brutal occupation of Sudan by the British colonialists. This explanation also reflects the view of the writer on his work, expressed by him in an interview with Arab media. The article attempts to psychoanalyze the dynamics of intrapsychic conflicts of Mustafa Said using modern psychoanalytic concepts explaining the intrapsychic conflicts of immigrants. The results of the study turned out to be radically different from the generally accepted established view and allow us to conclude that Mustafa Saeed is a split-off "bad part" of the writer Tayeb Salih.
