EDEN'S TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES IN AMBER SMITH'S THE WAY I USED TO BE

The aim of this study is to analyze the traumatic experience of the main character within The Way I Used To Be by Amber Smith. The causes and how she cope her trauma using jouissance by Lacan. Jouissance is painful pleasure. Furthermore, to analyze the novel this study uses qualitative design because the data that were analyzed and interpreted were not manipulated. The data which were described an analyzed are the form of words, e.g the utterances in the novel. The key instrument is the writer herself, the utterances of the characters and narration is described by showing Eden’s condition. In line with the features of qualitative research, the data collection is done concurrently with data analysis. There are three related processed in the data analysis those are: reducing data, displaying data, and making conclusion.
The result of this study shows that the main character’s traumatic experience and how she cope her trauma are highly forced and simulated by her jouissance. There are two major point of analysis, (1) the causes of her trauma, (2) how she cope her trauma. She overcomes her trauma by applying (1) jouissance of being, (2) sexual jouissance, (3) jouissance of the body image, (4) jouissance of the other. Those jouissance enable main character to forget her trauma.

Keywords: Psychoanalysis, Traumatic experiences, the causes of traumatic, jouissance.