Lacanian Reading Research Articles

Desire in the Canterbury Tales by Elizabeth Scala

Reviewed by: Desire in the Canterbury Tales by Elizabeth Scala Ben Parsons (bio) Elizabeth Scala. Desire in the Canterbury Tales, Ohio State UP, 2015. x + 225 pp. HB $62.95. isbn 978-0-8142-1278-3. There is an old joke about a mother whose child refuses to speak. Year after year, as its playmates are becoming ever more loquacious, it remains stubbornly silent. She consults with doctors, psychologists, language therapists, all to no avail. Then, one day, after serving the child a meal, she hears it declare: “this soup is cold.” Amazed, she asks the child why it has not spoken before. “Well, everything has been all right until now,” it replies. The idea that desire is the trigger for speech is of course familiar from the work of Jacques Lacan: a central premise of Lacan’s complex, oracular writing is that human beings are driven into the treacherous world of signs out of a sense of ontological lack. It is also the idea underpinning Elizabeth Scala’s study of Chaucer, which offers a full-blooded Lacanian reading of the framework of the Canterbury Tales. Lacan has of course troubled Chaucerians sporadically since his entry into the theoretical pantheon some time ago: in the last couple of decades, Erin Labbie has put the two writers in dialogue with [End Page 351] one another, while the idea of desire as ravenous absence also hovers behind Carolyn Dinshaw’s reading of the Pardoner. Scala goes further than these intermittent references, however. She opens with the bold claim that desire offers a more concrete link between the pilgrims’ stories than the travel narrative Chaucer weaves around them; for her, desire serves as a general operating principle, guiding and directing the disparate voices that take part in the tale-telling contest. Her opening chapter elaborates this thesis further. It offers a whistle-stop tour of Lacan’s system, flagging up points of intersection with Chaucer along the way: the Wife of Bath highlights the dependence of the self on the other; the doubled protagonists of the Knight’s Tale mirror the fractures desire opens in the subject; Chaucer’s illusory verisimilitude shows the impossibility of exiting the symbolic into the Real. While these thumbnail readings do threaten to dissolve into Lacanian (or Chaucerian) fragments at times, there is little doubt that Scala’s ideas are suggestive and convincing. Especially cogent is her focus on the slippage and misrecognition that governs the pilgrim debate. As she states, the Tales’ potentially endless chain of references and responses, with each story inviting a reply that invites further replies, recalls the unceasing referrals of the symbolic order; she also points out that many of the pilgrims voice their reactions after mistakenly seeing themselves in their predecessors’ stories, like an infant standing before the Lacanian mirror. Scala provides, in short, a powerful and persuasive model for understanding Chaucer’s frame narrative, especially since she demands that its raggedness and inconclusiveness be negotiated rather than brushed aside. The following chapters draw out these remarks further, and across the range of genres that Chaucer deploys. First, the logic of desire is examined at greater length in the Knight’s Tale. In Scala’s view, the triangular competition at the heart of the Tale is powered not only by aggression but by profound misapprehension. As she states, the repeated battles of Arcite and Palamon are motivated by fantasy on several levels, as the two knights turn Emelya into a projection of their own desires, and then become enmeshed in “a fantasy of what the other wants, perhaps even envy of what the other might attain” (52). More interestingly still, Theseus’ attempts to contain their violence by converting it into symbolic ritual only serves to amplify it. Theseus opens up a whole mass of substitutions, pitting two armies against each other in place of two knights, magnifying rather than extinguishing the original desire. The second chapter turns to the fabliaux, and especially Oswald, [End Page 352] the Reeve, as a vital hinge in the structure of the Tales. The Reeve proves to be the site of misrecognition par excellence. On the one hand, his story centrally involves mistaken identity, with the circulation...

Scratching an Invisible Limb A Lacanian Reading of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child

Alienation and loss appear as a pivotal theme in the majority of Sam Shepard’s family plays. This study intends to give a Lacanian reading of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child. Drawing primarily on Lacan’s linguistic theory of psychoanalysis, as well as his definition of psychosis, this study shows how Tilden’s alienation in the play stems from the foreclosure of the paternal metaphor in the symbolic registry of the psyche which, consequently, causes a malfunction in the process of oedipalization by leaving a hole in the Other where the Name-of-the-Father, as the metaphor for the law against incest, should appear. As a result, the subject is regressed to the imaginary where he can play the role of the phallus for the mother, which is manifested in the backstory of Buried Child as an act of incest between Tilden and Halie. Further, the incompetence of the father in the play in establishing the law is argued as being a circular curse that goes from generation to another.

Chasing After Nothingness—Reading Zhang Ailing Through Žižek’s Interpretation of Lacan

This article provides a Lacanian reading of one of the short stories of Zhang Ailing, a Chinese writer. It is intended to explore the possibility of employing Lacan’s theory of the symbolic order to the interpretation of a Chinese text, as well as to broaden our understanding of Zhang’s work and to unlock the potential of the applicability of Lacan’s ideas. The final part of the article will draw on Žižek’s interpretation of Lacan to illustrate how Zhang, unlike most of her contemporaries, is exempted from the obsession with China and how this obsession can lead us to the conclusion that whatever we chase obsessively in life is nothing but nothingness.

A Lacanian Reading of Human Psyche in the Poetry of John Keats and Faiz Ahmad Faiz

Romantic poetry, as an expression of the conscious and unconscious sentiments of the individual, holds a significant potential to be analysed for psychological contents. Such a view would reveal the personal life and psychological status of the poets. Therefore, the present paper concentrates on the Lacanian reading of the poetry of John Keats and Faiz Ahmad Faiz: the two major romantic poets of two different eras. Lacan divides the development of human psyche into three different stages i.e. ‘imaginary order’, ‘symbolic order’ and ‘real order’ While focusing on the ‘imaginary order’ and ‘symbolic order’, this comparative study intends highlighting the similar psychological states of the two poets as expressed in their poetry.

The world within the word: a Lacanian reading of William Gass’s "Emma enters a sentence of Elizabeth Bishop’s"

“Emma Enters a Sentence of Elizabeth Bishop’s” by William H. Gass addresses the human condition in terms of desire and consciousness in fiction by depicting characters that are being suffocated under the force of circumstances. Application of Lacanian theories to Gass’s novella sheds some light on the unconscious features of its main character, Emma, whose neurosis caused by her father’s extremism in acting out his patriarchal role is presented in the form of disparate, metonymical chunks ‘disseminated’ through the narrative – itself fragmentary. Broken pieces of Emma’s narrative put together through the medium of language highlight how her actions stem from her unconscious pathological motivations. Also discussed is the process through which she manages to find a way out of her plight.

Identity change in a drug-free Therapeutic Community: a Lacanian interpretation of former residents’ perspectives on treatment process and outcome

PurposeIn drug-free Therapeutic Communities (TCs), people with addictions live together in order to achieve recovery in terms of a modified drug-free lifestyle. Central to the TC approach is the assumption that this shift is only achievable when “identity change” has taken place. However, this claim has rarely been addressed in TC research. Further insight into the nature and realization of such identity change might help to understand how this community approach contributes to long-term recovery. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe present qualitative interview study explores the perspectives of ten former TC residents on their treatment and their process of change. To organize the interview data, Lacanian psychoanalytic theory on identity formation/change is used as a framework.FindingsThe common thread in the participants’ process of change is presented in three parts: their life before, in and after the TC. The substeps within these parts are illustrated with several quotes.Originality/valueThe findings highlight the value of innovative qualitative research designs to address the many challenges to addiction treatment research. A Lacanian reading of the data makes it possible to describe the subjective logic of the process of change in the TC, focusing on how substance (mis)use functions as an attempted solution in dealing with identity issues. By linking crucial TC ingredients such as the TC law and TC tools to the process of the identity change, a new reading of this long-term group approach is achieved.

Psychoanalysis on Sunday: Lacan, Cinema, Comedy

This article examines the place of film comedy in Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis. It takes as its starting point Lacan's most extensive consideration of a single film, the comedy Never on Sunday (1960), directed by Jules Dassin and set in the Greek port of Piraeus. It places Lacan's reading of the film in relation to his other interventions on cinema, which are scattered throughout his seminars and are more numerous and heterogeneous than generally assumed, drawing especially on cinema of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The article shows how Lacan's analysis of Never on Sunday contributes to the articulation of a theory of comedy in The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, a seminar best known for its treatment of Antigone and tragic drama. It then locates this theory of comedy and reading of Never on Sunday in relation to key concepts of the Ethics such as jouissance and the moral good(s). It finishes by proposing a general model of Lacanian reading as “cut” rather than interpretation, that is, an analysis that does not seek to account for a text as a whole but, rather, to find the correct point at which to break into it.

Lacanian Reading of Marsha Norman's Night, Mother

This paper offers a Lacanian/feminist reading of Night, Mother by the American playwright Marsha Norman. The play Night, Mother will be read according to Lacan’s point of view and the concepts of identity and identity formation are studied in this paper. The play will be analyzed based on the Lacanian concepts of the contrast between the Imaginary Order and the Symbolic Order, and the notion of Death Drive, suggesting that in the play Jessie represents the Symbolic Order and her mother, Thelma, represents the Imaginary Order. The notion of Death Drive and its omnipresence in Jessie’s psyche is discussed and emphasized. Thelma functions as the Other for Jessie, while her father functions as the Mother, a reversal of gender roles in the Lacanian reading. Moreover, the relationship between some of the concepts are explained. It will be explicated how the play can be brought in line with a feminist reading of Lacan by reversing the stereotypical gender roles and subsequently getting close to post-feminist authors.

MakeAmericaGreatAgain: ideological fantasy, American exceptionalism and Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s unlikely rise to the Presidency of the United States has been beguiling for politicians, pundits and scholars alike. In this paper, I argue that Trump’s appeal is best understood through a Lacanian reading of ideological fantasy. Combining a political logic of ideology and antagonism in combination with a Lacanian reading of fantasy, ideological fantasy suggests that while language is infused with materiality, there is an intractable disconnect between the body and the symbolic order. In order to make this disconnect palatable, fantasmatic narratives are constructed that seek to explain away the presence of lack, principally by reproducing antagonisms positioned as responsible for this discontent. In this regard, the power of Trump’s appeal was that he provided compelling explanations for the disruption of the foundational American myth of exceptionalism by isolating antagonisms that explain its apparent fracture, as well as offering the possibility of overcoming these antagonisms to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain!

A Desire for the Marsupial Space: A Lacanian Reading of Lacan

Jacques Lacan is regarded as an influential French psychoanalyst in the 20th century. In the present article, first, a brief biography of this interpreter of Sigmund Freud is presented and then his key psychoanalytic theories, largely about the infant-mother-father relationship, are summarized. These data are finally analyzed mainly according to Lacan’s own ideas. In other words, this article is aimed at providing a Lacanian reading of Lacan. It reveals that his family in particular had a huge impact on his theories, which strongly reflect Lacan’s desire for his mother, specifically her marsupial space. The article is concluded by exploring a quatrain by the famous Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Rumi in order to further substantiate the claim about Lacan’s desire for the space through theorization.

A Lacanian Reading of the Poem of “On Chilliness Inside” by Ahmad Shamloo

Lacan links psychoanalysis and linguistic to explain the unconscious manner, using the theories of Freud and Ferdinand de Saussure. According to Lacan’s view .the unconscious manner, is the basic of the existence and it forms from childhood. The subject” or the Child, enters to “The symbolic order”, after crossing “The imaginary order”. In “The symbolic order”, “The subject” experiences the “Lack” of union of the mother. “The subject” tries to return to childhood and the first companion form, but in “The symbolic order” it is not possible, as the establishment of the language and its domination on the child dictates such a behavior. There for “the subject” by appealing to “The object petite” like “Love” and “beloved” tries to approach to “the imaginary order”. This article first inspects Lacan’s verbal unconscious theory about “The subject”, then how this theory will become the concept of the poem of Ahmad Shamloo," On Chilliness Inside”.

Investigating Identity, Ambivalence, Hybridity: A Bhabhaian Reading of J. M. Coetzee’s Foe and Disgrace

The present paper seeks to investigate J.M. Coetzee's Foe and Disgrace in terms of Homi K. Bhabha's concept of Identities/Subjectivities. Homi K. Bhabha is one of the most important contemporary figure in postcolonial studies; he argues that ambivalence is existed at the site of colonial dominance. He argues that ambivalence is existed at the site of colonial dominance. The colonizer forcefully asserts his superiority to the colonized, but the feeling of fear is created concerning identity, which is imposed on them. The paper also seeks on the notion of hybridity which indicates that the practices of colonial authority is intermingling other texts and discourses which results in a hybridization that facilitates colonial domination. Bhabha's reading of Lacan accords well with the ambivalence he traces in various writers. It is what Lacan calls the mirror stage that is central to Bhabha's reading. Bhabha believes that ‘’the mirror stage encapsulates what happens in colonial discourse's stereotyping productions: the mirror stage is at least a good model for the colonial situation’’. Bhabha suggests that like’’ the mirror phase the fullness of the stereotype_ its image as identity_ is always threatened by lack.’’ A telling and recurring idea in Coetzee's fiction is that the force of the colonizer is formative of the identity of the colonized, something to be embraced and this paper aims to investigate this closely by using Bhabha's concepts. Keywords: Ambivalence, Apartheid, Colonial discourse, Hybridity, Marginality, Mimicry, Stereotype, Uncanny

Compassionate apocalypse: Slavoj Žižek and Buddhism

Since his rising interest in Christianity, Slavoj Žižek has discussed many other religions. This article examines his engagement with Buddhism, which he often uses as a stand in for “Oriental spirituality.” For Žižek, Buddhist traditions lack several key features that make Christianity the best prospect for religious political organization. By examining the reasons behind his rejection of Buddhism through his defence of the Subject and the state of Fallenness, the argument will be presented that Žižek's at times negative position on Buddhism can be explained through his commitment to a Lacanian reading of the Cartesian subject. This allegiance means that for Žižek there can never be a harmonious state for the subject, and accepting this provides the subject with a “divine” freedom. This article will also discuss ways in which Žižek's particularism can be overcome without losing the “apocalyptic fervor” of Christian Communist politics.

Fantasy, nostalgia and ideology: A Lacanian reading of post-revolutionary Iran

From a common sense point of view, an ideology consists of a convergent set of ideas that promotes and pursues a single strategic cause. However, the argument of this paper is that ideology can be nourished by a seemingly divergent, even antagonistic, set of ideas. To support this argument, this paper refers to the post-revolutionary (1979) Iranian state where, in the face of a series of threatening external others, the theocratic political ideology of the state is complemented/supplemented by a return to an image of classical Persian identity. While the former identity is supported by the Shia value system, the latter draws its inspiration from Persian classical literature. To examine this situation, the current paper adopts a Lacanian perspective on the question of ideology, with a specific focus on the concepts of fantasy and jouissance as elaborated in the works of Lacanian political theorists.

The Ethics of Desire in Gertrude Stein’s “Melanctha”: A Lacanian Reading

<p>The heroine of Gertrude Stein’s “Melanctha,” the centerpiece story of her <em>Three Lives</em> (2006), is an unconventional character whose “wandering” entails involving herself in relationships with both men and women. As her lover Jefferson, contrary to Melanctha, on the other hand sets as “ethical” goal in life and strives to be “good,” there has persisted a tendency in readings of the story to read Jefferson and his classically Aristotelian moral values as superior to Melanctha. The objective of this article is to overturn this conclusion and reinstate Melanctha as ethical, through the framework of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Specifically, I will point to how Jefferson is in fact immersed in a false belief in the wholeness of the Symbolic, which is something that Melanctha continuously doubts. Melanctha refuses Jefferson’s attempts to decipher her and instead continuously heads towards the beyond of language, towards the “evil” real thing. Unobtainable as this real thing may be, “wandering” towards it while ever questioning what it may be is what Lacan claims is “ethical.” As Melanctha remains a subject who does not know, while also inviting readers to “wander” with her, she is Lacan’s ethical subject.</p>

A Lacanian Reading of the Two Novels The Scarlet Letter And Private Memoirs And Confessions of A Justified Sinner

This paper discusses two novels The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and The Scarlet Letter written by James Hogg and Nathaniel Hawthorn from the perspective of Jacques Lacan theories: the mirror stage, the-name-of-the-father and desire. The mirror stage refers to historical value and an essential libidinal relationship with the body-image. The-name-of-the-father is defined as the prohibitive role of the father as the one who lays down the incest taboo in the Oedipus complex. Meanwhile, desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction, nor the demand for love, but the difference that results from the subtraction of the first from the second.Keywords: Lacanian Reading; The Mirror Stage; The-Name-Of-The-Father And Desire

A Lacanian Reading of the Two Novels The Scarlet Letter And Private Memoirs And Confessions of A Justified Sinner

This paper discusses two novels The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and The Scarlet Letter written by James Hogg and Nathaniel Hawthorn from the perspective of Jacques Lacan theories: the mirror stage, the-name-of-the-father and desire. The mirror stage refers to historical value and an essential libidinal relationship with the body-image. The-name-of-the-father is defined as the prohibitive role of the father as the one who lays down the incest taboo in the Oedipus complex. Meanwhile, desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction, nor the demand for love, but the difference that results from the subtraction of the first from the second.

To Remember or Not To Remember: Questioning Trauma of Slavery in Beloved

Why do characters are not willing to remember the past? Do their quest for self-definition is prompted by different needs? To what extent the relationship of the individual to their communities matters and has an impact on their process of remembering? Almost there is no doubt in the role of history in establishing a better present or future. That’s why the master ideologies have historically distorted the reality and belittling the black culture. This paper seeks to examine how In Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) some characters are driven by a dire desire to free themselves from the painful memory of slavery and in contrast to them some others find respites and their quest for the self in coming to term with the past. The first part of the title of this study i.e. “To Remember or not to Remember” refers to the question of remembering or not to remembering and if it’s necessary in characters’ attempt for self-definition. For the reason that Morrison believes, “There is a necessary for remembering the horror, but of course there’s a necessity for remembering it in a manner in which it can be digested, in a manner in which the memory is not destructive” (Marsha Darling 1994, 247-48). The second part that is “Questioning of Trauma of Slavery” of the title addresses the attempts of seminal characters to redeem the slavery situation by reaching to the subjectivity or coming to terms with pre-destined condition thereby making earnest attempts to discover new opportunities and alternative ways of questioning the trauma of slavery. This study attempts to provide an Althusserian - Lacanian reading of the quest of subjectivity and to conclude that resolving the trauma of the past helps characters to free their psyches from the entanglement of slavery and be able to construct a better relationship with the structure.

The Failure of the Parental Metaphor: A Lacanian Reading of James Joyce's “Eveline”

The work of Jacques Lacan enables us to understand why, in James Joyce’s short story “Eveline,” the young woman refuses to board the ship to elope with her lover; the short story, in turn, enables us to better understand the Lacanian paternal metaphor and its function. This second aim is particularly pertinent in the case of Lacanian theory, reputedly opaque and, with the inclusion of algebraic like formulae, appearing divorced from actual human beings and their emotions. Examining Lacan’s concept in conjunction with a close reading of the story, two phrases, the father’s and the mother’s, can be seen as depicting the failure of the paternal metaphor. This in turn accounts for the last-minute refusal to embark, thereby resolving the enigma posed by the story and also connecting a Lacanian formula with an emotion: the anguish in the final scene being the consequence of the deficit of the metaphor.

Severing Ties: A Lacanian Reading of Motherhood in Joyce Carol Oates’s Short Stories "The Children" and "Feral"

This paper approaches two of Joyce Carol Oates’s short stories (“The Children” and “Feral”) from a Lacanian perspective on the tripartite structure of personality in an attempt to analyze questions of motherhood and the parent-child separation process. Although published 35 years apart both stories deal with mothers who have trouble containing their maternal attitude and children who become elusive entities for their parents. Utilizing as well the concept of what Oates has termed “realistic allegory” in the analysis of characters situated within highly specific settings and circumstances, the paper aims to shed light on Oates’s vision of the workings of individuals within contemporary society.