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چکیده
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This study examined subjectivity and the encounter with the Real in Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers within the theoretical framework of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory. The research aimed to investigate how Kevin Garvey’s subjectivity was constructed, fragmented, and reconfigured in response to the traumatic event known as the Sudden Departure. Drawing upon Lacan’s triadic structure of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real, the study analyzed how identity was shaped by language, social structures, desire, and lack, and how it was destabilized through repeated confrontation with what resisted symbolization. The research adopted a qualitative method based on close thematic reading and descriptive-critical analysis. The analysis demonstrated that Kevin’s identity was not stable or unified, but structured through symbolic roles that gradually collapsed under the pressure of trauma. The Sudden Departure functioned as an eruption of the Real that disrupted meaning, weakened social and familial structures, and exposed the limits of language and representation. The findings revealed that the novel portrayed subjectivity as an ongoing process shaped by lack and desire rather than psychological coherence. Kevin’s repeated attempts to restore symbolic order reflected the subject’s struggle to integrate trauma into language, yet the Real remained unresolved and continued to destabilize identity. Ultimately, the study confirmed the applicability of Lacanian psychoanalysis to contemporary trauma fiction and demonstrated how The Leftovers dramatized the fragility of meaning in a post-traumatic world.
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