Homosexual Tendencies and Unconscious Determinants: A Lacanian Reading of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy: Reflections from a Blackeyed Squint

Abstract

Homosexuality has always been a controversial issue. To writers, critics, and psychologists alike, there is no consensus as to whether it is a normal behavioural trait or not. While some psychologists contend that homosexuality is a psychological problem, others think that it evinces the highest form of intellectuality in man. In fact, Jacques Lacan contends that homosexuality is perverse only in so far as all manifestations of love are perverse. He believes along with some other theorists and writers that it even stimulates creative genius in individuals as in fictive characters. Nevertheless, some members of various societies are disturbed by the presence of homosexuality in their systems. And the truth also is that homosexuality has to do with contrariness with natural tendencies, which frustrates the natural use of the human organ. Using the Lacanian psychoanalytic postulations, this paper examines the issue of homosexuality with the view to identifying its different manifestations in the major characters of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy: Reflections from a Blackeyed Squint. The paper examines the inherent contradictions in the nature of man that results in such seemingly perverse behaviour and identifies the unconscious determinants the behavioural trait identified as homosexuality.