Unfulfilled Desires and the Shadowed Self: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry into Anjum Hasan's novel Neti, Neti: Not This, Not This

Abstract

Anjum Hasan’s Neti, Neti: Not This, Not This offers a subtle yet penetrating portrayal of a young woman struggling with the tensions of her own inner world. This paper examines the unconscious mind and the fragmented self in the character of Sophie Das by drawing on the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Jacques Lacan. Freud’s ideas on repression, dream-work, and the conflict among the id, ego, and superego provide insight into Sophie’s persistent dissatisfaction and her inability to locate emotional stability. Jung’s conception of archetypes and the shadow illuminates the unacknowledged fears, inherited anxieties, and unresolved contradictions that surface in Sophie’s interactions and private reflections. Lacan’s notion of “lack” and the endlessly deferred pursuit of wholeness further explain Sophie’s recurring sense of emptiness, which aligns with the novel’s title invoking the principle of negation through Neti, Neti: Not This, Not This. Critical works by P. F. John Bosco, Anita Balakrishnan, Himakshi Kalita, and Cheryl Davis underscore Sophie’s divided consciousness and the psychological strain produced by her shifting attachments and ambivalent desires. Interviews and reflections by Hasan, including those documented by Sravasti Datta and by Hossain and Islam, reinforce the centrality of interior conflict and emotional restlessness in her fiction. This study argues that Sophie’s fragmented psyche emerges not from external cultural forces but from the silent operations of the unconscious, where unfulfilled desires, anxieties, and unresolved memories continually reshape her sense of self. Ultimately, Neti, Neti: Not This, Not This reveals a mind caught in the recursive movement of longing, negation, and self division.