Fantasmorphoses and Hybrid Becomings of Identities.

Abstract

Deleuze and Guattari crafted the concept of "becoming" as a way of theorizing the rampant chimerization and polymorphism of identities in today's world. They used Kafka's work to show how the frequent use of metamorphosis in his stories prefigures this widespread phenomenon of hybridization of identities. The frequency of such hybrid becomings raises questions about the very foundations of modernity's subjective construct. Does this proliferation reflect new configurations of desiring activities, or is it the result of early interference in what Melanie Klein conceptualized as "primary confusion"? The author will use Klein's notion to show how, early in life, envy of the breast and primary confusion can blur the organization of binary logic essential to establishing the ability to judge and the activity of primal symbolization.