A Study of Psychological Collapse and RecoveryA Study of Psychological Collapse and Recovery in a Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943) and The Killing Joke by Alan Moore(1988)
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Date
2025
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Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou
Abstract
This dissertation intends to be a comparative study of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) a novel by Betty Smith, to the comic book Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland. We intend to examine identity collapse, where characters experience psychological fractures leaving them to struggle between rationality and delusion. The analysis delves into how language and meaning dissolve. Despite the differences between both literary works, yet they share similarities. Our borrowing of the main theoretical frameworks of Julia Kristeva including the concepts of: semiotic and symbolic, abjection, melancholia and revolt, and Carl Jung’s concepts: persona and shadow. Along with our reading and investigation of both works A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Killing joke. Leads us to find convergence as concerns the themes: identity collapse, madness, rationality, redemption, in addition to leading processes like: Subjectivity and trauma by analysing these two works that contain different styles and cultures, this dissertation puts in question that both works demonstrate the persisting human struggle to keep order and rationality rather than chaos and madness. Through the analysis of the characters’ behaviours and relationships, we have understood the extent to which mental stability and being on the borderline between the semiotic and the symbolic is a complex process, in which the melancholic person should confront his shadow in order to achieve revolt and finally redemption and happiness.
Key words: identity collapse, rationality, redemption, Subjectivity, trauma.
III
Description
65p. ; (+CD-Rom)
Keywords
identity collapse, rationality, redemption, Subjectivity, trauma
Citation
Literature and Interdisciplinary Approaches.