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`` Rationalizing Malibu `` By Mario Garcia

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Andrea Bobadilla
Professor Mario Garcia
ENGL MO1B
10 May 2016
(title)
Abstract
In the short story “Rationalizing Malibu”, Mario Garcia portrays his characters as two conflicted men whose strange friendship helps lead them to the answers to their internal conflict. In this paper, the actions of Garcia’s narrator are interpreted in terms of Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychosexual development and the theory of repression. It is believed that the psychosexual development and theory of repression is unconsciously employed by the narrator as a way to prevent himself from dealing with past traumatic events, which led to the creation of Blaine. By using Freud’s psychosexual development and theory of repression, it is concluded that both theories are useful tools for understanding the narrator’s cause for creating Blaine. As a result of inadequately meeting multiple stages as well as repressing traumatic events, the narrator was driven to create Blaine, leading him to self-destruction.
1. Introduction
Mario Garcia’s short story “Rationalizing Malibu” uses a first-person perspective, the narrator, the protagonist, who tells the whole story beginning to end. It is a story about the strange friendship between the narrator and Blaine. The narrator introduces Blaine as, “north of ruthless” (2) when dealing with people and who’s strange and often times upsetting behavior draws the narrator closer to him, “I envy him the most…I visit Baine often, and each time…my envy is

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