GUILT COMPLEX AND COPING STRATEGIES: A PSYCHO ANALYTICAL STUDY OF GIRISH KARNAD’STUGHLAQ (1964)

Abstract

This research article is apsychoanalytical examination of the historical character of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, portrayed in Girish Karnad’s play, Tughlaq (1964). It explores the ways in which Tughlaq’s repressed guilt of committing patricide and fratricide influences his actions unconsciously. Throughout the play Tughlaq makes illogical and complex decisions that seem to be deep and wise political strategies. However, a close psychoanalytical examination unveils a patternin his actions. This underlying pattern shows that Tughlaq’s illogical actions are predominantly influenced by his repressed guilt of patricide. Though, Tughlaq is a knowledgeable and intelligent King and has sincere intentions to make his country prosperous but his guilt keeps on making him take impractical and illogical steps that lead to disasters and suffering of the entire nation. Repression is a psychological condition in which a person pushes the unacceptable and painful memories or desires into the unconscious part of his mind. However, this repression never succeeds and the repressed memory or desire returns in other forms. Tughlaq’s repressed guilt returns in different forms and this paper traces this “return of the buried alive, in uglier ways”(S. Freud).This paper also identifies and discusses the role of different psychoanalytical defense mechanisms working in character of Muhammed Bin Tughlaq to cope with his guilt complex. Psychoanalytical ideasof Sigmund Freud have been employed as the theoretical underpinning for this research.