A Psychoanalytic Study Melancholia And Repressed Desire In Selected Song Lyrics by Eleventwelfth

Abstract

This study examines the representation of melancholia and repressed desire in three selected song lyrics by Eleventwelfth: Your Head As My Favorite Bookstore, The More I Try to Trace You Forthwith, the Less I Want to Know Where to Find You, and Another Night Awake with You on My Mind. Drawing on Freud's concepts of melancholia and repression, supported by Jonathan Culler's lyric theory, this study employs psychoanalytic literary criticism and close reading to analyze how these psychological conditions are represented within the speaking voice. The findings reveal that melancholia is represented through internalized loss, emotional emptiness and stagnation, and memory as a symbolic site of unresolved grief. Repressed desire is represented through suppressed longing, indirect expression, and symbolic language, demonstrating that emotional conflict is communicated primarily through figurative rather than direct expression. Furthermore, the analysis shows that melancholia and repressed desire are mutually reinforcing psychological conditions. Melancholia intensifies repressed desire by sustaining emotional attachment to the lost object, while repressed desire prolongs melancholia by preventing the emotional process of mourning from reaching resolution. This reciprocal relationship constructs a speaking voice characterized by persistent psychological tension and unresolved emotional attachment. The study demonstrates that Freud's psychoanalytic framework remains a productive approach to interpreting contemporary Indonesian indie song lyrics and contributes to psychoanalytic literary criticism by examining the interaction between melancholia and repressed desire across multiple lyrical texts.