Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud Jacque Lacan How we understand ourselves as individuals and how literature plays a part in this

Lacan - Psychological theory Psychoanalytic theory deals with these questions How do we understand ourselves as individuals? How can literature help us understand ourselves? How do we become fully functioning members of society? How do we gain a sense of identity?

Our Unconscious The unconscious is the foundation of all being and it is structured like language. Our unconscious is made up of wishes, desires, images that are always the signifiers and never the signified. There is an endless chain of signifiers without an anchor. Self is an illusion, the product of the unconscious. How do we go from infancy to the illusion called “self” The process of becoming an adult (a “self”) is the process of creating an illusion of an anchor, a stable reference point for all the signifieds. The Other is a structural position in the symbolic order. It is the place that everyone and everything is trying to get to.

A part of Lacan’s theory ConceptPhase of development Need (mother’s breast) 0-6 months Real (perfect unity, no language) Demand (need recognition and love, not just objects) 6-18 months Imaginary (sense of self is a misperception of self in mirror) Desire (since self is other, there is a sustained and never-ending lack) After language Symbolic (The symbolic order is the place of adulthood. Submit to rules of language. Law. Language. Restriction.)

Reality vs Real Reality: fantasy world constructed through language/signifiers. Our idea of the real. Real: a materiality of existence beyond language and thus beyond expressibility.

Lacan’s Mirror Stage the mirror stage is a phenomenon to which I assign a twofold value. In the first place, it has historical value as it marks a decisive turning-point in the mental development of the child. In the second place, it typifies an essential libidinal relationship with the body image.

Tension between real and imaginary Desire = fantasy therefore Desire = lack

The objet a Desire’s main task is to keep itself circulating. That objet a is perceived as a missing piece, shows that Other is not clearly distinguished from self. Value comes from being perceived as a missing part of the subject self. The meaning is in the pursuit. The pursuit of the objet a is the condition for the production of art – the enjoyment of otherness. The objet a grants an excuse for the pursuit. There is a reason to pursue otherness when you see self as lacking. The missing piece is retroactively given. It was not necessarily ever missing. It’s just a perception. Narrators can work like advertising. To create the perception in the reader that something is missing.

Abjection Abjection and the abject character - embracing what we are supposed to be pushing away as impure. –Abject hero (Shrek) (Quasimodo) –Abject characters haunt the edges of society –Physical abjection can be impossible to mask –Young deal with abjection especially as adolescents. –Notice how Arnold is abject in our next novel.