From Neurotic Anxiety, Guilt of an Unlived Life, and Bad Faith into Self-Unfoldment in Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy

Abstract

Being a frequent well-annotated postmodern novel for its psychological in-depth and existential anguish, Alice Walker's (1944-) Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) suggests a deep feeling of remorse of unlived life when life is painfully and retrospectively looked upon with an eye of repent and dissatisfaction. The novel's protagonist, Tashi, receives a sense of guilt manifested in two different life phases; at first, in her lack of belonging to her community, for not doing the rite of female mutilation, an African woman's symbol of obedience and devoutness, and then in her trauma of being mutilated with facing its dreadful consequences. In the edges of her dilemma between the two forms of existential guilt, Tashi is torn into becoming a human who has lost 'self' and is regretful for being incapable of living fully and meaningfully. This study, entitled as 'From Neurotic Anxiety, Guilt of an Unlived Life, and Bad Faith into Self-Unfoldment in Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy', is committed to shed light on psychologist Rollo May's (1909May's ( -1994 paradigms of neurotic anxiety and guilt, as well philosopher Sartre's (1905Sartre's ( -1980 'bad faith', mirrored in Possessing the Secret of Joy under paradigms of the approach of existential psychotherapy, which is a contemporary approach blended of psychoanalysis and philosophy. The study entails a theoretical demonstration of the concepts of neurotic anxiety, guilt of 'unlived life', 'bad faith' and the therapy of 'self-unfoldment' under lenses of existential psychotherapy, and then it discovers them within extracts grasped from Possessing the Secret of Joy.