Academic Essay on Vivacious Poem
"Vivacious in the Void: Alienation, Performativity, and the Phenomenology of Self in Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy’s Poetic Reflection"
Abstract
This paper analyzes Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy’s poem "Vivacious" through the interdisciplinary lenses of postmodern alienation, performativity theory, and existential phenomenology. The poem’s lyrical exploration of emotional contradiction, haunting self-consciousness, and the ceaselessness of social motion reveals a profound commentary on the fragmented self in contemporary life. By situating the poem within the frameworks of Goffman’s dramaturgical self, Butler’s gendered performativity, and Sartrean notions of bad faith, the paper argues that "Vivacious" articulates a lived experience of ontological dissonance in a world marked by symbolic structures and psychic exhaustion.
Introduction
Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy’s "Vivacious" presents a paradoxical self, at once alive and haunted, joyful and resentful, conscious yet entangled in the unconscious rhythms of societal machinery. The poem's recurring motifs of duality, spectral haunting, and circular entrapment resonate deeply with modern critical theories that explore the alienation of self in late capitalist or postmodern contexts. This paper interprets "Vivacious" as a poetic meditation on the crisis of selfhood in an era defined by performative identity, hyper-consciousness, and existential fragmentation.
Postmodern Alienation and the Specter of the Self
Postmodern alienation, as elaborated by thinkers like Fredric Jameson (1991) and David Harvey (1989), moves beyond Marx’s classical concept of alienated labor to encompass the loss of authentic selfhood in an overstimulated, commodified cultural space. Nancy’s lines—
“Haunted for self as I once doubted myself, / Haunted for the world as it does haunts us in vivid details!”
—exemplify this self-referential dislocation. The self becomes its own ghost, fragmented under the pressure of persistent reflection. Alienation here is not merely structural but psychic—the speaker is estranged from their own experience, doubting not only the world but the validity of their inner world.
This haunting is echoed in postmodern theories of simulation and hyperreality (Baudrillard, 1983), where reality itself becomes suspect. The poem's imagery of looping movement—“round in the circus... round in the parameter lengthened”—depicts a consciousness trapped in what Camus (1942) might describe as the absurd: the endless search for meaning in a meaningless world.
Performativity and the Staged Self
The poem’s ambivalence—“Happy and resentful... Cheerful and mournful”—illustrates Judith Butler’s (1990) theory of performativity, where identities are not fixed essences but socially scripted performances reiterated under duress. Drawing on Erving Goffman's (1959) dramaturgical theory, the speaker appears as a performer caught between backstage doubt and front-stage vitality:
“Close upfront—vivacious, / Backdoor—doubtful, haunted!”
This division directly maps onto Goffman’s front-stage/back-stage self. The front is the curated, socially acceptable performance, while the back reveals vulnerability and ontological confusion. Nancy uses this juxtaposition to show the internal exhaustion of having to "be" constantly—performing vivacity for others while quietly mourning oneself.
Furthermore, the metaphor of “a duet with a devil” complicates the performative space. It implies an internalized force—perhaps cultural norms, gender roles, or neoliberal productivity—that seduces the self into compliance through comfort (“singing lullaby”), only to demand more performance until awakening (“one day we rise”) reveals the absurdity and violence of the spectacle.
Existential Phenomenology: Consciousness, Motion, and Bad Faith
The speaker’s revelation—“we are awakened—mocked and honked—at the same time!”—signals a phenomenological rupture. From an existential phenomenological perspective, this moment reflects what Jean-Paul Sartre (1943) calls "bad faith": the denial of one's freedom and responsibility by hiding in roles or routines.
Nancy's speaker witnesses the mockery of both the dead and the living—those who have opted out and those who remain entrapped:
“The dead are mocked, / The living ones are surging in the suffrage…”
This is a powerful image of existential futility. The rat race symbolizes the inauthentic motion of being—people keep moving not toward a goal, but away from confronting the absurd emptiness beneath social structures. Heidegger’s (1927) concept of "fallenness" (Verfallen) and "idle talk" (Gerede) applies here: individuals are absorbed into the they-self (das Man), circling in meaningless routines, avoiding confrontation with Being.
Nancy's poem enacts existential awakening by recognizing that this movement is not progress but circular suffrage—a pseudo-agency that ends only with death (“They will move and move until last breath!”).
Conclusion
"Vivacious" offers a compelling poetic cartography of the modern self lost in structures of performativity, alienation, and existential dread. Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy crafts a lyrical reflection that resonates with contemporary theories of identity and selfhood, revealing the paradox of being “alive” in a world of constant role-playing, social entrapment, and psychic exhaustion.
Through its symbolic language and emotional candor, the poem becomes not only a literary work but a phenomenological artifact, capturing what it feels like to be a subject in the 21st century: haunted, fragmented, and yet striving to awaken.
References
Baudrillard, J. (1983). Simulacra and simulation. Semiotext(e).
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
Camus, A. (1942). The myth of Sisyphus. Vintage.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books.
Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity. Blackwell.
Heidegger, M. (1927). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Harper & Row.
Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Duke University Press.
Sartre, J.-P. (1943). Being and nothingness. Washington Square Press.
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