The Circle of Melancholia. Narrative and Symbolic Strategies of Psychological Maturation in Esther Tusquets’ Varada tras el último naufragio (1980)

This essay explores the dynamics of psychological maturation developed in Varada tras el último naufragio, a novel published by Barcelonian writer Esther Tusquets in 1980, as a process that departs from a trauma and reaches a specific positive solution through a plot tacitly inspired in classic psychoanalytical discourse. The protagonist Elia's melancholia is resolved through a dialectic that follows a circular pattern, which implies a return to the past in order to establish a solid identity basis to enable her to successfully reincorporate herself into the world and assertively face the future.