Lacanian psychoanalysis and reading Athol Fugard’s the blood knot

Abstract

This paper examines The Blood Knot by Athol Fugard through the lens of psychoanalysis. Through close reading and content analysis of the play, it is shown that psychoanalysis, especially the post-structural version of Jacques Lacan is relevant to the reading and appreciation of The Blood Knot. Apartheid creates characters who live in the mirror. In the play the character Ethel assumes that everybody she interacts with is identified with the same institutional structure as herself. Psychoanalytic with particular focus on Lacan’s orienting framework enables the reader to tease out the human and racial relationships that form the controlling idea of The Blood Knot.