dial v for violence: reading karoly kisfaludi's the invisible wound as a ...

IRJC
International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research
Vol.1 Issue 11, November 2012, ISSN 2277 3630
condition differing from case to case with certain precautions. Had the protagonist been exposed
to a counselor or police and received his punishment through other means, then he may would
have been relieved differently. But the act of suppression and superiority complex holds him
from doing so and he suffers terribly till he confesses his crime through a letter to the doctor. In
fact, in a way, the writing of the confession letter is the greatest cathartic relief that he
experiences and attains the insight which is nothing but saintly. Here like any tragic hero, he
looks like an inverted saint who after realizing the crux of life embraces hardship and penance.
Jemmer argues that traumatic experience, if repeatedly relived in catharsis, can be relearned and
become harmful. 8 This is what we experience in the story. Excessive release of the cathartic
emotion, continuous exposure to physical violence and logically rationalizing each effect in mind
that linked to a same cause, that is, the murder which he had committed, had increased the
protagonist‟s tendency to delve deep in himself and apprehend the deep-seated guilt which thus
took an exaggerated shape. This might have forced him to develop a suicidal motive which he
refers to commit in the end.
Even though the method of catharsis is not used so frequently to cure a patient in present
centuries, it still can be used for understanding the problem of the patient and thus suggest
further advanced cure. Catharsis, which is very much linked with literature, has a special role to
play in society as it itself becomes a means or catalyst for cathartic release in the readers through
laughter, sorrow, pains and tears. With the flow of the emotions of pity and fear, a reader who
was associating himself with the character gets purged off and starts his life afresh. He gains an
insight just as a character gains an insight at the end of any literary text. For medical practitioners
literature serves as a fit resource to add insight into different characters and help them use
catharsis or any other mode of counseling accordingly in real life. This paper by analyzing
Karoly Kisfaludi‟s short story The Invisible Wound tries to decipher the means and modes of
cathartic release in a patient and brings light to the fact how literature can serve as potent
resource for examining patients in real lives.
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