SOURCE: Aggor, F. Komla. “Derealizing the Present: Evasion and Madness in El tragaluz.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos XVIII, no. 2 (spring 1994): 141-50.

In the following essay, Aggor provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of El Tragaluz.

Michel Foucault, in Maladie mentale et psychologie, makes an important, contribution to the understanding of mental illness by illuminating some inner dynamics which were previously overlooked. According to Foucault, mental illness is much more than regression (when the patient attempts to relive the past through fantasies) because, if this were the case, madness would be an innate tendency in each of us by the very movement of our evolution.¹ “Regression is not a natural falling back into the past; it is an intentional flight from the present. A recourse rather than a return” (Foucault 33). He points out that the past is invoked only as a substitute for the present situation, and that process...