Fragments of the Unconscious: A Psychoanalytic Study of Our Broken Houses by Tiffany Farr

Abstract

This article examines Tiffany Farr’s short story Our Broken Houses through a psychoanalytic critical lens, focusing on the symbolic relationship between broken domestic spaces, unconscious memory, repression, trauma, and fragmented identity. The study argues that the image of the “broken house” functions not merely as a physical setting but as a metaphor for the fractured psyche. Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s theory of the unconscious and repression, Jacques Lacan’s idea of fragmentation and the divided subject, Melanie Klein’s object-relations theory, and trauma theory, the article explores how the story’s central domestic metaphor may be read as a representation of hidden psychological conflict. The study also uses Gaston Bachelard’s concept of the house as an intimate psychic space to show how damaged homes can symbolize damaged emotional worlds. Through qualitative textual analysis, the research demonstrates that Our Broken Houses can be interpreted as a narrative of psychic dislocation, emotional loss, and the human desire for reconstruction. The findings suggest that Farr’s story belongs to a broader literary tradition in which fragmented spaces reveal repressed memories and unresolved trauma. The article concludes that psychoanalytic criticism helps uncover the deeper meanings embedded in the story’s imagery of brokenness, absence, and domestic instability.