Madness and free association in Evelyne Mpoudi Ngolle's Sous la cendre le feu

Abstract

Psychoanalytic insight facilitates the analysis of works of art through which literary analysts are able to access the psyche of authors and their character. (M.M. Schwartz and D. Willbern:1982). One of such psychoanalytic device is free association. Free association technique applied during psychotherapy sessions provides a royal road into a psyche of humans as can be observed in Mina’s case in Mpoudi Ngolle’s Sous la cendre le feu. This paper concludes that repression of negative and unpleasant experiences lived within patriarchal limitations as promoted by African male hegemonic traditions, subjects women-victim of oppression to anxiety disorder which may occur in the form of depression, schizophrenia, obsessive disorder, depersonalization, derealisation among others. It seems natural to think about literature in terms of dreams. Like dreams, literary works are fictions, inventions of the mind that, although based on reality, are by definition not literary true. Like a literary work, a dream may have some truth to tell, but, like a literary work can be grasped. (R.C. Murfin, (internet article: accessed 30 May, 2011: 502)