Abstract
This article explores some characters’ anxiety in Dickens’s Bleak House with Lacan’s anxiety theory. According to Lacan, human beings do not pursue their own desire, but the desire of the Other. However, humans do not know exactly what the Other wants from them. So, even though he or she tries to be satisfied with the object a, replacing a lack, there is a time to sense the rest of the Other’s desire, that is ‘lack of lack’, which causes anxiety. This anxiety is not from the absence, but from ‘without not having it’. In this novel, Sir Leicester Dedlock’s anxiety is that of castration that he might lose his authority and fame. Lady Dedlock feels guilty and anxious about her past behavior inconsistent with an asexual woman required of women in British society at that time. And Esther Summerson desires to be recognized for her existence and to be a necessary person as the desire of the Other. However, she feels anxiety by experiencing the cycle of desire. Anxiety is an ontological reason because it opens the way to the real world, allows us to capture reality for a moment, and drives us closer to the truth. The goal of human desire is not anxiety, but jouissance. The subject with anxiety will have a chance to be aware of the inconsistency between the Other’s desire and the object a and reach toward jouissance.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: The British and American Language and Literature Association of Korea
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
