Jacques Lacan / Jonathan Scott Lee; Boston : Twayne The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst IOI

Publishers, 1990 (100-131 p.) tandem to develop something approaching" a new aesthetics. It is to
three examples of extended literary analysis that I turn in the present'
chapter.3
Chapter Five
Poe's "Letter"
The Psychoanalyst as Textual
In 1966 Lacan chose to open the mammoth collection of his writ-
Analyst ings, Ecrits, with "Le seminar sur 'La Lettre volee' " ("Seminar on 'The
Purloined Letter' ") (£, 11-61). 4 This text had its origins in the semi-
Despite the facts that Lacan was essentially a psychoanalyst, that his nar of 1954-55, devoted in general to the role of the mot in Freudian
teaching seminars were meant primarily for analysts in training, and theory and technique (see S 2, 207-40/175-205). For its appearance in
that his published writings were grounded in a dose reading of Freud's the Ecrits, the version first published in 1957 was augmented by a
texts through the prism of his own experience as a psychoanalyst, in the twenty-page trio of introductory texts provocatively printed after the
United*States Lacan's work came first to the attention of literary critics. seminar's text. To introduce his writings to the general public by
Indeed, nearly a decade after his death, in this country Lacan remains beginning with a commentary on Edgar Allan Poe and by elaborating
read much more often in academic departments of literature than in an already difficult text with an extensive and obscure introduction
psychoanalytic institutes, and the vast majority of the many articles and suggests that Lacan thought of this text as doing more than simply
books in English dealing with Lacan are written from the perspective of developing a psychoanalytic reading of Poe's tale. Indeed, the reader
literary criticism. 1 On the one hand, this-fact about the intellectual who comes to the "Seminar" expecting some sort of psychobiographical
appropriation of Lacan is largely due to the enthusiastic response of approach to Poe, some sort of account of the way "The Purloined
North American literary critics to recent French theoretical writings in Letter" reveals the character of its author's neurosis, is bound to be
general; Lacan has come to be read in circles of literary theoreticians surprised by Lacan's commentary.5 Not only does he not treat the
trained on the works of Roland Barthes and Jacques Dcrrida. On the literary text as a symptom of Poe's illness, but he does not even ap r
other hand, Lacan's position in current literary criticism is to a great proach the tale directly with the aim of/writing a commentary on it.
extent a product of the contingent fact that the first mature essays of his r
Rather, Lacan uses Poe's text essentially to introduce his own theory of
published in English—"The Insistence of the Letter in the Uncon- "the role of the signifier—and thus of speech and language—in the
scious" (1957) and "Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter' " (1956)—both constitution of human subjectivir£j"The Purloined Lerrer" is offered as
appeared in the influential literary critical journal, Yale French Studies, an emblem of the radical truth that Freud's discovery of the uncon-
in 1966 and 1972, respectively,2 and included rather direct discussions scious brought to the human sciences, and in this way the tale is read as
of literary texts and figures of speech. both an illustration of and a commentary on Lacan's distinctively lin-
As a matter of fact, Lacan's seminars of the 1950s included a great guistic reading of Freud.
deal of literary commentary. Using his thorough knowledge of ancient That Lacan's approach to Poe's tale is by means of a highly theoreti-
literature and of the French classics, Lacan was able to illustrate quite cal reflection on psychoanalytic practice is made clear in his opening
casually with literary examples his points about the importance of paragraphs. Here he describes the "lesson of this seminar" in terms of
language and speech to the proper theorizing of the psychoanalytic showing how imaginary features of experience manifest the human
experience. In the course of the 1950s, Lacan's use of specific literary being's "capture in a symbolic dimension." The fragments of our imagi-
.texts underwent a profound development. Where he began by using nary mot identity "reveal only what in it [our experience] remains
these texts simply to illustrate points of psychoanalytic theory, he inconsistent unless they are related to the symbolic chain which binds
eroded the decade by using literary texts and psychoanalytic concepts in and orients them" (£, 11/28). In other words, the central point of the

1OO
 1O2 ' JACQUES LACAN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst 103

"Seminar" is that it is the symbolic chain of signifiers and its laws that private detective Dupin calls on the Minister and, with the intent of
determine the effects of subjectivity relevant to psychoanalytic theory; looking carefully for the purloined letter, wears a pair of green glasses.
products of the imaginary "figure only as shadows and reflections in the The Minister greets Dupin while "pretending to be in the last extrem-
process" (£, 11/29). In short, Lacan is again pursuing his fundamental ity of ennui," and Dupin carries on a conversation of no particular
theory that "it is the symbolic order which is constitutive for the import while he searches the room for evidence of the letter. Spotting a
subject" (£, 12/29). "much soiled and crumpled" letter resting in a card-rack dangling from
The status of "The Purloined Letter" in the "Seminar" appears some- the center of the Minister's mantelpiece, Dupin realizes that this is the
what marginal at first. Lacan claims, however, that he will illustrate missing letter (despite its bearing "very conspicuously" D 's own
the truth revealed in the work of Freud "by demonstrating in a story the black seal and despfte its being addressed "in a diminutive female
decisive orientation which the subject receives from the itinerary of a hand" to the Minister himself). After engaging the Minister in a long
signifier" (£, 12/29), suggesting that Poe's tale is offered here not conversation, Dupin makes his exit, leaving behind as if forgotten his
simply as a privileged example of the truth brought by Freud but as an snuffbox. Returning the next morning to pick up this snuffbox, Dupin
illustration carrying the force of demonstration. In fact, a careful read- arranges for a commotion outside the windows of the hotel to distract
ing of the "Seminar" reveals that the demonstrative force at issue here the Minister, and in this moment of distraction he successfully takes
comes, not from Poe's text itself, but from the particular way in which the letter, substituting for it a facsimile bearing within it a nasty
Lacan reads and analyzes this text.6 quotation from the French tragedian, Crebillon.
The key to Lacan's reading lies in his systematic distinction between Lacan argues that this second scene is a repetition of the first scene in
"a drama, its narration, and the conditions of that narration" (£, 12/29) the sense that both scenes involve three fundamental positions, which
as found in Poe. While these three dimensions of the tale could not effectively determine the actions of those persons who occupy them (£,
exist without one another, Lacan discusses them separately so as to 14-15/31-32). The first position, occupied initially by the King and
bring out several distinct theoretical points. Beginning with the then by the police, is that of "a. glance that sees nothing." This glance
drama, he notes that it is constructed in the form of two scenes, the makes it possible for both the Queen and the Minister to keep the letter
second of which is a precise structural repetition of the first (£, 12/30). hidden. The second position, occupied by the Queen and then the
The first scene, which Lacan does not hesitate to describe as "the Minister, is that of "a glance which sees that the first sees nothing and
primal scene" (B, 12/30), takes place in the royal apartments, where the deludes itself as to the secrecy of what it hides." It is the delusion that
Queen finds herself surprised by the King as she peruses the contents of follows from this glance that makes possible the theft of the letter, first
a letter, which it is important he not see. lp her effort to keep this letter by the Minister and then by Dupin. The third position, occupied by
from the King's attention, the Queen simply places it, open but upside the successful thieves, is that of a glance that "sees that the first two
down, upon a table. At this moment the Minister D appears, glances leave what should be hidden exposed to whomever would seize
.immediately perceiving the situation and grasping how it might be it/' These three positions essentially define the "intersubiectivity" in
turned to his advantage. Producing another letter, the Minister man- terms of which the various characters' actions can be shown to be
ages to substitute it for the Queen's letter, taking the latter with him as meaningfully chosen.9 Thus, the second scene repeats the first, not
he leaves the royal couple. All of this is carefully noticed by the Queen, simply because it involves the theft of the letter, but because the two
while the King remains utterly unaware of anything but the Minister's thefts are motivated by a precisely similar intersubjective structure.
official concern with public affairs.7 Lacans point here is, crucially, that the actions of the individuals
The second scene takes place some eighteen months later in the involved are explained in terms of a repeating inter!Hlhi<Tr've structure
Minister's office at his hotel. In the meantime, the Prefect of police and andnot in terms of the desires, purposes," or interests of those individu-
his officers have thoroughly but fruitlessly searched the Ministers ho- als. ~
tel, going over every inch of space within it with any number of What we have here, then, Lacan suggests, is a startling example of
elaborate techniques designed to find the letter's hiding-place. The what Freud described in Beyond the Pleasure Principle as the compulsion
 104 The Psychoanalyst as Textual A nalyst 105
JACQUKS LACAN

to repeat (Wiederholungszwang), which Lacan renders in French as The "primal scene" of Poe's drama is narrated in the course of a
I'aulomatisme de repetition (repetition automatism) (£, 15-16/32). Freud dialogue between the Prefect of police and Dupin. " What Lacan em-
had been struck by the fact that many neurotic symptoms (and, indeed, phasizes here is that the Prefect's telling of the Minister's theft of the
many symptomatic behaviors characteristic of everyday life) manifest letter from the Queen is itself an indirect narration: the Prefect tells-
themselves repetitively. Insofar as these symptoms essentially repeat in Dupin (and his friend, Poe's narrator) the story as told to him (appar-
a disguised way fundamentally traumatic experiences (the memories of ently) by the Queen herself. Central to the functioning of this narration
which have been repressed into the unconscious), the continual repeat- is the presupposition that the content of the narrative neither loses nor
ing of such painful experience* is apparently inexplicable by the plea- gains anything in its retelling, that the Prefect's ratmion is ttswrtvilty
sure principle-, the principle that all mental events are regulated by the. a "report" guaranteed to retransmit with "exactitude" the Queen's mes-
more or less mechanical lowering of intrapsychical tension.l0 The cen- sage, and that his speech in this case is perfectly transparent (£, 18—19/
tral argument of Beyond the Pleasure Principle aims to explain the repeti- 34-35). In other words, the first dialogue rests on a model of language
tion compulsion as a consequence of the generally "conservative" nature as simply the communication of information and ignores the possibility
of the instincts, a conservatism that introduces the notion of the death of any speech's bearing a noninformational, performative dimension.
instinct into Freudian theory.'' * The scene of Dupin's retrieval of the letter from the Minister's hotel
t The first stage in seeing how Lacan relates his analysis of "The is narrated by Dupin himself in a dialogue with his unnamed friend.
Purloined Letter" to these Freudian speculations is to note that the The most striking characteristic of this dialogue from Lacan s perspec-
drama's second scene repeats the structure of the first scene without this tive is that Dupin prefaces his narrative with an extensive and erudite
repetition's being in any way a result of the operation of the pleasure methodological digression, explaining how he managed to find the
principle. That the Minister assumes the position of the Queen is in no letter when all the police's efforts to do so had failed.14 Comparing
way explained by appeal to levels of tension within his psychical appara- himself to a schoolboy skilled at winning in the guessing game o't "even
*tus. Rather, it is explained by appeal to a three-position structure of and odd," Dupin argues that success in detection depends upon a
. intersubjectivity. Lacan himself points up the radical character of such a "thorough identification" between the detective's intellect and that of his
form of explanation by reminding his readers that this is just another opponent. Such "identification" demands that one get beyond one's
way of putting his fundamental formula, "the unconscious is the discourse of own ways of reasoning, limited as they are by the individual's purposes
the Other" (E, 16/32): to grasp the character of an individual's uncon- and ingenuity, and focus attention on the structural relations defining
scious is to grasp the structure of the intersubjective relations (relations the intersubjective field in which the act of detection occurs. Fundamen-
between self and Other) constituting him as a subject. Lacan argues tal to Lacan's discussion is the claim that Dupin's narration acts within
further, however, that repetition automatism "finds its basis in what we and, in effect, enacts "the register of truth," by revealing the very
have called the insistence of the signifying chain" (E, 11/28), and to process of disclosure to us, while simultaneously hiding from us its
introduce this specifically linguistic dimension of his analysis Lacan application to the present case (£, 20—21/35—37). Invoking the name
turns from the drama of Poe's tale to its narration. * of Martin Heidegger, Lacan returns to the German philosopher's ac-
"The Purloined Letter" features several layers of narration, the entire count of truth, noting that in Poe's tale "we rediscover a secret to which
tale being narrated by an unnamed friend of Dupin. What Lacan fo- truth has always initiated her lovers, and through which they learn that
cuses on in the "Seminar" is the way that each of the two scenes of the it is in hiding that she offers herself to them most truly" (E, 2 1/37). Put
drama is narrated in the course of a different kind of dialogue, this another way, it is in Dupin's performance of the processes of detection
dialogic contrast constituting the symbolic drama that sustains the and disclosure that "truth here reveals its tictivc arrangement" (£, 17/
reader's interest. What makes these dialogues different is "the opposite 34): it is through performative speech's ability to create something new
use they make of the powers of speech" (£, 18/34): in effect, the that truth is brought onto the scene.
dialogues contrast two very distinct analyses of the relation between Having introduced this Heideggerian notion of a truth that simulta-
language and speech. neously discloses and hides itself, Lacan is able to shift the domain of
 io6 JACQUI-S L ACAN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst 107

his analysis from the manifest surface of Poe's text to its latent mean- whole process by which a signifier passes from one person to another (a
ing. From Poe's drama and its narration, Lacan now turns to consider process typically misrecognized as "communication"). This point is
"the conditions of that narration" (£, 12/29), the final and most impor- perhaps put most clearly in his brief description of precisely how the
tant level of his study. Noting that Dupin's explanation of his methodol- letter "performs" in relation to the Queen: "From then on, to whatever
ogy foils to enable the reader to solve the mystery of his discovery of the vicissitudes the Queen may choose to subject the letter, it remains that
purloined letter, Lacan turns his attention to a number of paradoxical the letter is the symbol of a pact, and that, even should the recipient
questions suggested by the very concept of a missing letter, thus intro- not assume the pact, the existence of the letter situates her in a sym-
ducing into his analysis recognizably Lacanian preoccupations about the bolic chain foreign to the one which constitutes her faith" (£, 28/42).
signifier. The paradoxes of the missing letter revolve around two ques- The Queen's brief "holding" of the letter utterly transforms her in-
tions: in what place does a letter exist (£, 23-25/38-40), and to whom tersubjective position, her status vis-a-vis all the other characters in
does a letter belong (£, 27-29/41-43)? Poe's tale, and it accomplishes this transformation regardless of the
To the first of these questions, Lacan answers that Poe's tale makes it particular content of the letter and of the identity of the letter's sender.
clear that a letter must have "the property of nullibiety" (E, 23/38), that Thus, Lacan concludes: "Our fable is so constructed as to show that it is
is, a signifier is "nowhere" in the real, and this is made apparent by the the letter and its diversion which governs their [the story's subjects]
fact that, although they search everywhere in the Minister's hotel for entries and roles. If it be "in sufferance," they shall endure the pain.
the letter, the police cannot find it. "Being by nature symbol only of an Should they pass beneath its shadow, they become its reflection. Falling
absence," a signifier is simultaneously present and absent wherever it in possession of the letter—admirable ambiguity of language—its
goes, unlike real objects, which are inevitably in their places (£, 2 4 - meaning possesses them" (£, 30/44). Although Lacan goes on to elabo-
25/39-40). In this way the signifier bears with it "the register of rate this point by considering in detail the ways the Minister and
truth." As Lacan remarks in the seminar of 16 April 1955, "it is truth Dupin in turn find themselves transformed by their brief "holdings" of
which is hidden, not the letter. For the policemen, the truth doesn't the letter (E, 30—41/44—53), the heart of Lacan's analysis 'remains rhar
matter, for them there is only reality, and that is why they do not find it is the signifier's "priority" over the signified (£, 28-29/42) that lies
anything" (S 2, 2367202). It is important to note, however, that the at "the very foundation of intersubjectivity" (£, 20/35).
truth of the letter does not reside simply in its meaning, and this is why It is this claim that brings us back to the Freudian notion of repeti-
Poe never discloses the contents of the purloined letter: "It is not only tion automatism and to Lacan's attempt to show that this phenomenon
the meaning [sens] but the text [texte] of the message which it would be "finds its basis in what we have called the insistence of the signifying
dingerous to place in circulation" (£, 26741). In other words, the chain" (£, 11/28). Maintaining that the subjects caught up in a relation
signifier as a material object is itself implicated in the signifier's sym- of intersubjectivity "model their very being on the moment of the
bolic truth—it is the signifier's materiality that allows it to transform signifying chain which traverses them," thus taking their turns in the
the human world performatively—and this suggests that the signifier is endlessly repeating intersubjective structure, Lacan drives home the
unlike any other object (S 2, 232/198), inasmuch as it is simulta- moral of the "Seminar" in a much-quoted paragraph: "If what Freud
neously real and symbolic. discovered and rediscovers with a perpetually increasing sense of shock
At this point, the second paradoxical question comes into play, since has a meaning, it is that the displacement of the signifier determines
it appears that the signifier, as being "nowhere," cannot legitimately the subjects in their acts, in their destiny, in their refusals, in their
"belong" to anyone. If its truth is not exhausted in its function as blindness, in their end and in their fate, their innate gifts and social
bearing meaning, and if its material existence is such that it is truly acquisitions notwithstanding, without regard for character or sex, and
present only as absent, is there any sense in which a signifier (for that, willingly or not, everything that might be considered the stuff of
example, a letter) could be possessed either by its sender or by its psychology, kit and caboodle, will follow the path of the signifier" (£,
recipient? Lacan's answer to this question, as we should expect by now, 30/43—44). This moral is rather dramatically recalled in the introduc-
leads him to discount the importance of human individuals in the tory material added to the "Seminar" for its appearance in the Ecrits,
 io8 JACQUES LACAN The Psychoanalyse a* Textual Analyst 109

where Lacan compares the human subject to a computer. Here, he neuroses: "To seek in works of art traces that provide information about
argues that the laws of unconscious overdetermination of human symp- the author is not to analyze the bearing 6f the work as such" (D, }-.15). To
tomatic behavior can be identified explicitly with the laws of probabil- approach the work of art as such, however, involves not only the formal
ity, which render intelligible a variety of phenomena apparently result- study of the work's structure; rather, it is essential that the analyst come
ing from chance (see E, 59-60, as well as 29/43). l4 to understand the special character of the relation between the work and
If repetition automatism, the Freudian compulsion to repeat, is to be its audience. Hence, in the case of a play like Hamlet, which most
explained in this way as a product of the signifier's movement along a audiences find deeply moving, it is incumbent upon the literary analyst
signifying chain, it remains for us to remember how the signiner also to grasp the way in which the play's structure challenges each audience
brings death into the dynamic of human desire and action. It is on this member's own relation to his or her own desire (D, 3:16). In other words
note- that Lacan brings the "Seminar" to a close by allowing the pur- psychoanalytic literary criticism ought to take seriously the performative
loined letter, the signiner itself, to remind his (its) readers that; the effect of a work of art on its audience, the way the work's structure
t significr is in its very essence "that presence of death' which makes of directly changes the members of its audience.
human life a reprieve obtained from morning to morning in the name Lacan's treatment of Hamlet accomplishes this only in an indirect
of meanings whose sign? is your crook" (£, 39/51): " 'You think you act way: while arguing that the play reveals to its audience the tragic
when I stir you at the mercy of the bonds through which I knot your character of all human desire, he leaves it largely to us to elaborate
desires. Thus do they grow in force and multiply in objects, bringing precisely how this revelation is supposed to transform the audience. His
you back to the fragmentation of your shattered childhood' " (£, 40/ strategy here—which he identifies as that characteristic of all genuine
52). What the signiner is urging us to do is to confront the simple fact psychoanalytic interpretation by praising Ernest Jones's pursuit of the
of our destiny as subjects permanently and unavoidably subjected to the same strategy—is a matter of transforming a merely psychological
signiner, and Lacan alludes playfully to Heidegger—from whom, as we account of the play into something else: "Not by making reference to a
saw in the previous chapter, much of his account of death is derived— more profound psychology, but by implying a mythic arrangement,
in his final summation of the signifier's and the "Seminar" 's message: supposed to have the same meaning for all human beings" (£>. 2:23). A
" 'Eat your Dasein' " (£, 40/52)." work of art has the power to take a particular character, situation, or act
and to highlight in this particular something of universal importance.
Hamlet and Desire It is this move from the particular to the universal that psychoanalytic
criticism should not only explain but enact in its own move from the
Some five years after the seminar devoted in part to "The Purloined psychological to the mythic. In accomplishing this, such criticism will
Letter," Lacan returned to a large-scale attempt at literary criticism in in fact be mirroring psychoanalytic practice itself, since "it is one of the
* his seminar of 1958-59, the general topic of which was Le de'sir et son clearest lessons of the analytic experience that the particular is that
interpretation (Desire and its interpretation). l6 In the seven sessions held which has the most universal value" (D, 1:12).
between 4 March and 29 April 1959, Lacan focused his attention on Early in his seminar Lacan announces that "what distinguishes the
Shakespeare's Hamlet, using the greatest tragic drama of the English tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark, is that it is the tragedy of
language to illustrate some of the more difficult features of his own desire" (D, 2:18). At the beginning of the final session devoted to the
theory of human desire." play, he repeats this claim, but with the crucial addition that "from one
Hamlet, because it is a text that has provided grist for the mills of end of Hamlet to the other, all anyone talks about is mourning" (D,
psychoanalysts from p reud on,'" offers Lacan the perfect opportunity to 7:32/39). Indeed, the key to understanding Lacan's reading of the play
contrast his approach to literature with that of other analysts. Dismissing lies in grasping the intimate connection between de'sire and mourning,
much psychoanalytic literary interpretation as "hogwash [calembre- a connection which he relates directly to the castration complex. Intro-
dainti\" (D, 5:16/20), Lacan explicitly attacks the kind of psychoanalytic ducing his approach to Hamlet, Lacan explicitly claims that he is using
criticism that reduces works of literature to symptoms of their authors' Shakespeare's play "to reinforce our elaboration of the castration com-
 110 JACQUKS LACAN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst in

pkx and to grasp how this is articulated in the concrete detail of our plex."21 While Freud goes on from this to explore the replacement of
experience" (D, 1:8). If the "Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter' " em- desire by identification in the post-oedipal phase, Lacan's interest re-
phasizes that human destiny is permanently subjected to the signifier, mains directed toward desire. If the Oedipus complex is to be dissolved
the Hamlet seminar deepens this claim with an analysis of such subjec- by a return to narcissism, it nevertheless remains the case that narcis-
tion in terms of castration. sism itself must be abandoned for desire. The child's desire for his
"The drama of Hamlet is the encounter with death" (D, 4:26), Lacan parents must ultimately be transformed into desire for other persons;
remarks: Hamlet, of course, encounters death in the form of his father's narcissism can only serve as a stage along the way to the subject's
ghost in the first act of the play and eventually encounters his own authentic assumption of desire.
death in the bloodbath of the play's final scene. More crucially, Hamlet Lacan maintains that this move from narcissism to desire requires the
is forced, through the course of the play, to encounter and to come to intermediary work of mourning: the child can move on from the par-
grips with a form of death that lies at the heart of desire: the death of ents as objects of desire to new objects of desire only by mourning
narcissism accomplished through the subject's giving up his claims to adequately the loss of his own status as the unique focus of the parents'
be or to-have the phallus. It is the symbolic castration involved in this (and indeed of all others') desires. In short, the child dissolves the
process—a castration marked by the phallus as a signifier being re- Oedipus complex by giving up his own claim to be the phallus, the
pressed (or "veiled") and replaced by "the name of the father"—that imaginary object of the Other's (and the mother's) desire, that extraordi-
Shakespeare's play presents on the stage. y nary object that fully satisfies all possible desire, but such a traumatic
As is generally the case with his seminars, Lacan's path to Hamlet loss can be surmounted only through a rich and complete process of
makes its approach through a return to particular texts by Freud. mourning. This theme of mourning the phallus leads Lacan to one of
Before turning to Lacan's treatment of the play itself, then, it will prove Freud's important metapsychological essays, "Mourning and Melancho-
usefuj to sketch the Freudian background of this treatment. Here Lacan lia," first published in 1917."
emphasizes, not Freud's brief remarks on the play found in The Interpre- Freud argues that mourning is essentially a process by which the ego
tation of Dreams, but two later theoretical essays, which Lacan persua- comes to grips with the loss of a desired object in reality, and this
sively argues need to be read together. process involves a rather slow and sustained "reality-testing."25 The aim
In a very brief essay, of 1924, "The Dissolution of the Oedipus here is to detach libido from the lost object "bit by bit," by forcing the '
Complex," ° Freud focuses his attention on the process by which the ego to confront gradually the fact that the desired object no longer
oedipal situation—the child's complex of incestuous desires directed exists. Thus, "memories and expectations" focused upon the object are
toward the parents—is dissolved or destroyed in the course of child- successively considered by the ego as it mourns, and the gap between
hood development, to be replaced by the period of sexual latency. What these past and future images of the object and the object's present
Lacan emphasizes in Freud's account is that the Oedipus complex nonexistence poses a challenge to the ego's own narcissism: "The ego,
proves weaker than the child's narcissistic interest in his own body (D, confronted as it were with the question whether it shall share this fate,
7:36-40/45-48). For example, Freud argues that the young boy comes is persuaded by the sum of the narcissistic satisfactions it derives from
to realize that both ways of satisfying his oedipal desires will entail being alive to sever its attachment to the object that has been abol-
castration: to love his mother is to open himself up to the father's ished."24 We see here the connection between mourning and the dissolu-
castrating punishment, but to be the object of his father's love (that is, tion of the Oedipus complex, both of which are accomplished through
•to assume his mother's position) requires his castration as well. Freud the medium of narcissism, and this strengthens Lacan's claim that
concludes: "If the satisfaction of love in the field of the Oedipus com- mourning is involved in the overcoming of oedipal desire.
plex is to cost the child his penis, a conflict is bound to arise between Crucial, however, both to Freud's account of mourning and to
his narcissistic interest in that part of his body and the libidinal Lacan's extension of this account is the claim that the process of mourn-
*cathexis of his parental objects. In this conflict the first of these forces ing cannot satisfactorily rest in narcissistic satisfaction. Indeed, Freud's
normally triumphs: the child's ego turns away from the Oedipus com- basic argument in "Mourning and Melancholia" is that what makes
 112 JACQUES LACAN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst 113

melancholia (or certain kinds of depression) pathological and thus dis- replies, "I shall in all my best obey you, madam" (Hamlet, 1.2.120).
tinguishes it from mourning is precisely that the melancholic subject This position of dependency upon the mother's desire reaches its dra-
remains rooted in narcissism: both conditions involve a process of de- matic peak in the confrontation scene between Hamlet and the queen at
taching libido from a lost object, but the "normal" result of mourning the end of act 3. The scene begins as an extraordinarily brutal attempt
is a "displacement" of this libido to a new object with narcissism by Hamlet to force his mother to recognize and acknowledge her own
serving only as an intermediate stage.2' Thus, the successful issue of ^uilt for her husband's murder. This attempt is both motivated by
mournfng is the finding of a new object of desire to replace the, lost Hamlet's loyalty to his father's ghost and undermined by the ghost's
object in a way that closely parallels the finding of a new object of appearance to Hamlet alone in the course of the scene. Her son's
desire to replace the parents in the successful dissolution of the Oedipus apparently insane behavior in speaking of a presence invisible to her,
complex. It is on these grounds that Lacan maintains that the resolu- taken in conjunction with his unthinking murder of Polonius, leads
tion of the Oedipus complex is made possible through the successful Gertrude to the despairing conclusion that Hamlet is mad. In an effort
mourning of the phallus. to dispel this belief, Hamlet confesses his own feigned madness to the
Hamlet is a play about desire precisely because it displays in a graphic queen, but in doing so he simultaneously reveals the true extent to
way the process by which mourning the lost phallus allows for the which his desire is modeled upon hers. The scene's climax comes in
constitution of a new object of desire. It is "the tragedy of desire" Hamlet's response to his mother's question, "What shall I do.>":
because it displays as well the terrifying consequences of the narcissism
that results from mourning too long postponed. From this perspective,
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
then, Shakespeare's play is structured along the lines of three well-
Let the bloat king tempt you aga;in to bed.
articulated themes: Hamlet's symbolic castration, his regression to nar- Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse.
cissism, and the process of mourning through which he manages to And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses.
assume his own identity as a desiring being and hence to act. Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,
As the standard psychoanalytic account of Hamlet insists, the key to Make you to ravel all this matter out,
grasping Hamlet's curious inability to act lies in understanding his That r essentially am not in madness,
position vis-a-vis each of his parents. However, where Ernest Jones, for But mad in craft. ^
example, argues that Hamlet is simply caught in the grip of the Oedi- (Hamlet, 3.4.182-89)
pus complex, confronted by the fact that "the thought of incest and
parricide combined is too intolerable to be borne," Lacan stresses the This is a passage tailor-made to show Hamlet as possessed with an
idea that Hamlet is actually face to face with the unavoidable human incestuous and oedipal desire for his mother, as the standard psychoana-
reality of symbolic castration. lytic reading of the play demands. What Lacan stresses, however, is
Hamlet is completely dependent upon his mother's desire, in effect that the desire revealed here "is far from being his own. It is not his
replaying the role of the pre-oedipal child in his desire to be the desire for his mother; it is the desire of his mother" (D, V.20).
phallus that the mother lacks. Hamlet is equally dependent upon his In short, what the confrontation scene reveals is that Hamlet's desire
father for the oedipal knowledge that he cannot in fact be the phallus; remains completely at the mercy of what his mother desires. Despite
indeed,' Lacan will argue that the message brought by the ghost of his efforts to make Gertrude give up her desire for Claudius for the sake
Hamlet's father is that symbolic castration is an ineluctable fact of of his father's memory, Hamlet's response shows how he ends up surren-
human existence. ' dering totally to precisely this desire. Indeed, the very way he speaks in
From the second scene of act 1, Shakespeare makes it dear that this passage shows how completely he himself is in the grip of her
Hamlet is dominated by his mother's desire: in response to her request desire, forced to express her desire even as he makes his demand upon
that he remain at home, rather than going to Wittenberg, Hamlet her (see D, 3:20-21). As Lacan notes, Hamlet remains under the sway
 u4 JACQUES LACAN The Psychoanalyst as TextHal Analyst 115

of his mother's desire until the very end of the play, his failure rp act (Gertrude's hasty marriage to Claudius) shows Hamlet that even what
showing that he himself does not choose between Claudius and his appeared the most perfect love was absolutely false (D, 4:31).
father any more than does Gertrude (D, 5:12-13). This bitter rent in Hamlet's idealized image of human love is marked
Commenting on the confrontation scene, Lacan notes: by the demand that the ghost makes upon Hamlet: "Revenge his foul
and most unnatural murder" (Hamlet, 1.5.25). From the very moment
There is no moment where, in a more complete way, theformulathat the desire that he learns the truth about his father's death and swears to kill
of man is tbtdtsm of the Othtr is more evident, more accomplished, completely Claudius in revenge, Hamlet finds himself confronted with "the crime
annuling the subject. of existing" (D, 1:15). It is a crime, of course, that Claudius continues
Hamlet addresses himself here to the Other, his mother, but beyond her to exist, but so long as he fails to avenge his father's death, so long as he
herself-not with his own will, but with that of which he is for the moment the puts off the one act that will balance the scales of justice, Hamlet too is
support, namely that of the father, and as well that of order, decency, and "guilty of being," as he .shows in the great soliloquy, "To be or not to
modesty. . . . In. front of his mother, he carries on this discourse beyond her
be" (D, 1:15). In this way, Hamlet's father both destroys his son's own
herself; then he falls back, that is, he fells back to the level of the Other, before
whom hf can only capitulate. (D, 3:23) * imaginary goal—that is, he devastates the illusion of human fulfill-
ment under which Hamlet's desire has developed—and leaves him with
a duty to act, a duty the nonsatisfaction of which confers guilt upon
Not only is Hamlet's desire that of the Other, but everything he
Hamlet. It is in this domain that castration enters the tragedy of
manages to do in the course of the play—even his acceptance of Clau-
Hamlet.
dius's wager, which leads to the final resolution of the action—is done
at a time set by someone other than himself. Hamlet's desire is depen- From another angle, however, the "crime of existing" is the very core
dent upon the desire of the Other, but he is also "constantly suspended of the existential fact of our mortality: Hamlet, confronted by his
in the time of the Other, throughout the entire story until the very father's ghost, is face to face with death, and throughout its various
end"(D, 5:14/17; see D, 5:13-16717-20). twists "the drama of Hamlet is the encounter with death" (D, 4:26).
Hamlet's position with respect to his father, the late king murdered Existing is a crime to the extent that we pursue various tactics to avoid
by his brother and heir, Claudius, is itself ambivalent. In the first of his accepting the fact of our mortality: to the extent that our lives are
great soliloquies, Hamlet reveals his imaginary fascination with his played out in pursuit of countless imaginary satisfactions, to the extent
father, that our identities are dominated by culturally force-fed signifying
chains, we are guilty of leading lives of illusion with the aim of denying
So excellent a king, that was to this the essential nothingness that marks us as mortal beings. It is precisely
Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother this that the ghost reveals to Hamlet, and it is precisely this knowledge
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven that makes Hamlet the hero that he is.
Visit her face coo roughly. What is at stakV, then, when Lacan identifies castration as the funda-
(Hamlet, 1.2.139-42) mental theme of Hamlet, is nothing less than the truth of human life. In
the fourth session of the seminar Lacan summarizes this truth in the
In this idealized portrait, we see again a striking manifestation of formula, "there is no Other of the Other,' noting that this is "the great
Hamlet's own incarnation of his mother's desire, further evidence of his secret of psychoanalysis" (D, 4:30-33). Comparing the ghost's revela-
wish to emulate the perfect king and lover his father's memory now tion to Hamlet with the lifting of "the veil that weighs upon the
models for him, and further proof of his desire to become the imaginary articulation of the unconscious chain," Lacan stresses that this veil itself
fihallus that his mother desires. Yet when Hamlet meets with his plays a fundamental role in that it allows the subject to speak (D,
father's ghost at the end of act 1, what the ghost reveals to him is the 4:30). Speech is made intelligible only because certain key signifiers
bitter truth of his murder by Claudius, a murder the outcome of which (points de capiton) have been repressed from the signifying chain and
 n6 JACQUES LACAN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst 117

replaced by metaphors that in turn make possible meaning itself. To Yet the subject's appointment with the hour of his destruction is the
unveil such repressed signifiers, then, would be to run the risk of common lot of everyone, meaningful in the destiny ot every individual. (D,
destroying the points of reference that make speech intelligible. In 6:20/25)
unveiling the truth of human mortality, rhe ghost of Hamlet's father in
effect gives up the secret surrounding the most important point de In short, it is mortality and the inability of the symbolic system of
capiton, the phallus as imaginary fullness of being, complete identity, language to render compensation for this mortal condition that are the
and immortality.27 The secret spilled by the ghost is, of course, simply defining features of castration, both in human beings in general and in
that there is no such thing as the phallus in the real: if we look to the case of Hamlet in particular. What makes Hamlet unusual is that,
imaginary Others for the filling of the want-of-being that we recognize thanks to the ghost's revelation, he quite literally knows this "truth
in ourselves, we must come to realize that the Other is castrated as without hope."
well. It is precisely this knowledge that Hamlet's father presents to Most of the time that we see Hamlet on the stage he is engaged either
Hamlet in the first act of Shakespeare's play. The ghost is powerless, in mourning the death of his father or in denouncing his mother and
and knowledge of this situation—because it gives Hamlet only one uncle for their insufficient mourning. As the play progresses, we see him
.possible response to the state of affairs in which he finds himself— cut himself off more and more from his relations with other people, not
makes 'Hamlet essentially powerless as well. only his mother and uncle, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern his old
Lacan sums up this dimension of his reading of Hamlet by stressing friends, and, mosr imporranrly, Ophelia his beloved. In effect, HamJer's
that the special value of Shakespeare's play is that it reveals to us the mourning moves him deeper and deeper into a position of narcissism, a
fact that even the Other to which we turn f*Qr our identity is castrated, a position in which he is unable to focus desire on any object other than
notion that he puts algebraically as "S(A)" (the signifier of the Other himself. As Lacan puts it, "Hamlet just doesn't know what he wants" (D,
with the bar).28 Since this Other "is not being, but,the place of speech, 6:26); he lacks a desired object, apparently being unable to displace his
where the ensemble of the system of signifiers rests, that is, a lan- desire from his dead father to a new object. Thus his mourning is
guage," the castration of rhe Other is necessarily symbolic and lies in transformed into the pathological condition that Freud describes as mel-
the fact that a particular signifier is lacking in the Other (D, 4:31). ancholia. Such a regression to narcissism and to a profound melancholia
This missing or hidden signifier is, of course, the phallus (D, 4:32), is perhaps the only possible response to the shattering revelation of'
and the fact that it is missing from the Other means that we cannot find castration brought to Hamlet by the ghost of his father.
it for ourselves by appeal to the Other: in the end, the Other cannot Nevertheless, if there is any hint of hope in Hamlet, it comes in the
constitute our identity for us. In other words, "in the signifier there is fact that Hamlet docs finally manage to assume his own identity as a
nothing that guarantees the dimension of truth founded by the signi- desiring being; the death of Ophelia provides a new occasion for mourn-
fier" (D, 6:20/25), and as speaking beings our castration lies precisely ing and at the same time an opportunity to revive Hamlet's desire.
in this lack of a guaranteed truth or meaning.29 Thus, "the truth of Speaking generally of the role of ritual in mourning, Lacan suggests
Camlet is a truth without hope" (D, 4:31), "a truth without truth" (£>, that "ritual introduces some mediation of the .gap [beance] opened up by
4:32), and the Other's castration discloses the truth that castration is mourning. More precisely, ritual operates in such a way as to make this
the ineluctable state of the human condition. gap [beance] coincide with that greater beance, the point x, the symbolic
This means that Hamlet's apparent dependence upon the Other's lack" (D, 7:32/40). Through the rituals of mourning, the lost object is
desire and his remaining always at "the hour of the Other" are both introjected by the subject, reconstituted as an imaginary part of the
fundamentally illusions that he has (in some sense) taken upon himself: subject itself. While there are many dangers here—the most apparent
of which is the extension of the narcissism involved here into
* melancholia—this process of imaginary reconstitution does hold out
For Hamlet there is no hour but his own. Moreover, there is only one hour, the
the promise of filling to a certain extent the want-of-being inherent in
hour of his destruction. The entire tragedy of Hamlet is constituted in the way
it shows us the unrelenting movement of the subject toward that hour. the subject as a result of symbolic castration. To get beyond the trauma
 u8 JACQUES LACAN Tbt Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst 119

of castration, as well as the narcissism to which this trauma gives rise, Hamlet tells how something comes to be equivalent to that which is
it is necessary for the subject to accept some object as in a rough way lacking" as a result of castration (D, 1:17).
+ equivalent to the phallus, which the subject can neither have nor be. It is Ophelia, Lacan argues, who is thus fetishized at the climax of
This object is the object of fantasy, which, Lacan says, "takes the place the tragedy, coming to play the role of the* objet petit a in Hamlets"
of what the subject is—symbolically—deprived of" but "satisfies no revived desire (D, 5:9/15). Ophelia is "quite simply what any girl [toute
need" (£>, 5:11/15) and which, in Lacan's later algebra comes to be fille] is," a "vision of life ready to blossom, of life bearing all lives":
symbolized as "a" (the objet petit a or objet a).iX While fantasies can be "This image of vital fecundity illustrates for us, more than any other
generated in any number of ways, the process of mourning provides a creation, the equation I have already mentioned in my course, Girl
particularly rich context for the production of fantasies and hence for —Phallus" (D, 4:35). Thus it is precisely as "any girl" that Ophelia
the production of substitute objects for the phallus. takes the place of the phallus, but for this process to occur Hamlet must
Clearly alluding to Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia," Lacan ar- first reconstitute her in fantasy as a desired object. It is this that is at
gues that the death of another person opens up "a hole in the real" for stake in the great graveyard scene with which the final act of Hamlet
the subject. This hole in the real "sets the signifier in motion" in a opens.
search throughout the system of the Other for the all-powerful signifier Hamlet in effect learns how to mourn adequately by watching
that will make up for the lost object (D, 6:30/37-38). Because this Laertes, Ophelia's brother, as he mourns at her open grave. In fact
signifier is the phallus, unavailable either to the subject or the Other, Laertes goes so far as to leap into Ophelia's grave: "Hold off the earth
"swarms of images, from which the phenomena of mourning arise, awhile, / Till I have caught her once more in mine arms" (Hamlet,
assume the place of the phallus" (D, 6:30/38) in an attempt to fill or at 5.1.236-37). It is as the jealous witness of this scene of profound grief,
least cover over the hole in the real left by the loss of the object." What forthrightly acted upon, that Hamlet comes forward and jumps into
the signifier cannot accomplish—"it is the system of signifiers in their Ophelia's grave so as to engage in hand to hand combat with Laertes.
totality which is impeached by the least instance of mourning" (D, Laertes is here playing the role of Hamlet's imaginary double—in the
6:30-31/38)—the system of the imaginary attempts by means of fan- play's final scene the buffoonish lord Osric even says of Laertes that "his
tasy. In cases of adequate and successful mourning, an imaginary object semblable is his mirror" (5.2.118). Laertes is the other appearing in
is constituted that is able to take the place of the lost object, and to the Hamlet's mirror as both model to emulate and rival against whom to'
extent that this occurs such a fantasy object can also substitute for the struggle (D, 6:24-26/31-32 and 28/35). In his jealous rage, what
phallus. In short, successful mourning mourns not only the object lost Hamlet learns from Ophelia's brother is both how to mourn and how to
but also the human condition of castration. love: dragged away from his struggle with Laertes, Hamlet cries out, "I
What this means, among other things, is that the fantasied objects loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers / Could not with all their
of desire are in fact substitutes for the phallus. All human desire is quantity of love / Make up my sum" (5.1.256-58). What Lacan par-
inherently fetishistic, then, given Freud's account of the fetish as a ticularly emphasizes, however, is that in learning to mourn, and thus
substitute for the castrated penis.33 From this, Lacan can maintain that learning to love, what Hamlet most crucially accomplishes is the recon-
"all objects of the human world have this character" of being fetishes stitution of his identity. This is marked by the cry with which Hamlet
(D, 5:11/15), insofar as such objects are themselves parts of the world appears to the company assembled around Ophelia's grave, a cry that
only as involved in human desire.3 With respect to Shakespeare's comes, Lacan maintains, at "the moment when he once again seizes his
Hamlet, what this means is that Hamlet can regain his subjectivity as a desire" (D, 3:25):
desiring being—and thereby regain an active involvement in the hu-
man world—only through reconstituting in fantasy an object that can What is he whose grief
substitute for the phallus that he knows is missing. This is why Lacan Bears such an emphasis'* whose phrase of sorrow
insists, at the end of the first session of the seminar, that "the play of Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand
 120 JACQUES LAC AN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst 121

Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, it" (D, 7:42-43/5 I). It is only when the indubitable knowledge of his
Hamlet the Dane. mortality comes to Hamlet that he is fully able to accept the human
(Ham/el,"}. 1.241-45) fact of castration. In accepting this fact, he finds himself finally able to
attack and to kill Claudius, who is no longer anything for Hamlet but a-
At the very moment that Hamlet finally acts on his own he also mortal man. Until he has given up his narcissism, Lacan argues, Ham-
assumes his identity as "the Dane," that is, as his father's son. He let is prevented from acting by the narcissistic fear that in striking the
accepts, i$ effect, the name of the father as a substitute signifier for the king—his mother's lover and thus that which she desires—he would be
phallus, and this act of acceptance makes it possible for him to enter striking at the phallus, which remains rhe hi-arr of his imaginary iden-
into the work of mourning, the outcome of which will be the fantasy tity (D, 7:42/50). Thus, his mourning of Ophelia sets the stage for
object, Ophelia, the object of Hamlet's now hyperbolic love. Hamlet's final realization that there is no real phallus, that there is no
We have already seen how the process of mourning manages to Other fully endowed with the all-encompassing power that symbols of
produce an imaginary object meant ro fill the hole in reality left by the power always promise,' that any appearance of such a phallic Other is
loss of the mourned object. Lacan wants to insist on two fundamental always an "apparition," a mere ghost, what Lacan calls a "phallophany"
feature* of this object that enter into reestablishing the subject's iden- (D, 7:44). This realization is tantamount to the realization that his
tity. On the one hand, this object is constituted as "an impossible narcissism is doomed to inevitable failure, and it is this realization rhar
object" (D, 6:29/36): having died, Ophelia can no longer satisfy Ham- makes it possible for Hamlet finally to act.
let's desire. Lacan claims that "the very structure at the basis of desire It remains to return to the idea suggested early in my discussion of the
always lends a note of impossibility to the object of human desire" (D, Hamlet seminar, that Lacan's approach to literary criticism entails some
6:36), precisely because this object is always essentially a fetishistic analysts of the way works of literature transform their audiences. The
substitute for the phallus, which has had to be given up. 3 On the other scattered remarks throughout the seminar that address this issue are
hand, the very fact that the fantasy object is impossible makes it not summarized in the opening of the fourth session, where Lacan states: "Let
merely the object of desire but the cause of desire. Lacan elaborates this my desire be given to me {Qu'on medonne man de'sir), such is the meaning that I
by reference to the graveyard scene in Hamlet: "Laertes leaps into the have told you Hamlet has for all those critics, actors, and spectators who
grave and embraces the object whose loss is the cause of his desire, an lay their hands on it" (D, 4:26). Shakespeare's play is "a kind of appara-
object that has attained an existence that is all the more absolute tus, a web, a bird-snare, where man's desire is articulated" (D, 1:2A),
because it no longer corresponds to anything in reality. The one unbear- where the fictional structure of truth is presented (most notably in the
able dimension of possible human experience is not the experience of play-within-a-play; see D, 2:28), where it is revealed that we all are
one's own death, which no one has, but the experience of the death of caught up in the "note of impossibility" that characterizes the structure
another" (D, 6:29-30/37). If desire is essentially marked by a lack, a of desire. In effect, when Lacan claims that Hamlet challenges each
gap between need and demand, then the sort of object best qualified to spectator's own relation to his or her desire (D, 3:16), he is suggesting
open up such a gap and to maintain it in the midst of all sorts of partial that the play forces us to cry out for our desire—"Let my desire be given
satisfactions is nothing other than an object that is inherently impossi- to me." In asking us to model our actions on those of Hamlet, by taking
ble and, thus, always and inevitably lacking. Here again, we see the him as the tragic hero, the play's structure leads us as spectators to enter
necessity of the work of mourning in shaping the human subject's into the work of mourning: in mourning Hamlet, Ophelia, or Gertrude,
identity as a desiring being. we are brought to mourn the phallus as well. In this way, although Lacan
Once Hamlet has successfully mourned Ophelia, thereby reconstitut- himself never says it, the character of Hamlet—a character who, Lacan
ing her as a fantasy object, he is able to turn away from his narcissistic repeatedly insists, is not a real person (see D, 3:13- 15)'6—is offered to
dbsession with himself. Even so, his final act of revenge comes only at the audience as an objet petit a, a fantasy object in effect ready-made by
"the moment when he has made the complete sacrifice . . . of all Shakespeare so as to help us mend the hole in the real left by the symbolic
narcissistic attachments, i.e., when he is mortally wounded and knows castration of the phallus. Thus, our experience of Hamlet should, ide-
 122 Tbt Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst ' 123
JACQUES LACAN

ally, help us come to a realization of our own castration and of the Perhaps the best way to pursue Lacan's argument here is to begin by
corresponding necessity to get beyond narcissism in order to act in the reviewing briefly-his basic interpretation of Antigone, using the particu-
human world as desiring beings. . lar example as a springboard to his more general theory of tragedy. Any
commentator on Sophocles' play immediately faces a profoundly diffi-
Antigone and Tragedy cult task, a task made all the more awesome by the existence of a
striking interpretation of the play by the German philosopher, Hegel.
The year after his analysis of Hamlet, Lacan returned to licerary Hegel argues that each of the two central characters of the play—
interpretation in his seminar, and again he took as his object a work of Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, and Creon, Oedipus's brother-in-
tragic literature, in this case Sophocles' Antigone. The three sessions on law—personifies a different and conflicting order of ethics and law.
Antigone held between 25 May and 15 June I960 form part of the Creon represents the public law of the city and emphasizes the right of
seminar L'itbiqut tit la psychanalyse (The ethics of psychoanalysis), and the state over that of individuals within the political community. Antig-
Lacan's interest here focuses on the ethical core of tragedy as a dramatic one represents the private law of the family, the love between individu-
genret(S 7, 283-333)- in striking contrast with his use of Hamlet as als that is itself the basis of the ethical community. When Creon forbids
little more than an illustration of« great deal of psychoanalytic theory, the burial of Antigone's brother, Poiyneices, on the grounds that he
what Lacan offers in these sessions is nothing less than k general theory was an enemy of the state, this public law comes into harsh conflict
* of the "tragic effect," the effect of tragedy on an audience. with the familial and sacred duty to bury one's own dead, and Antig-
At the most fundamental level, then, the background to the seminar one, in choosing to go ahead and bury her brother, stands for the
is Aristotle's famous remark in book 6 of the Poetics that the function of priority of the individual to the scate. What the tragic denouement of
tragedy is "through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation the play reveals—the triple suicide of Antigone (after being buried
[katbarsis] of these emotions" (1449b 27-28). Indeed, Lacan opens his alive), of Haemon (Creon's son and Antigone's Vovei), and of Eurydict
discussion with a review of the literature on katharsis, stressing the (Creon's wife)—is that both of these conceptions of law or ethical duty
ambiguity of the Greek term, which evokes both the sacred notion of are in fact one-sided and that each contains the germ of its dialectical
purification and the medical notion of purging (S 7, 286-89). What collapse. Sophocles' play stands as "one of the most sublime and in
interests Lacan most in Aristotle's account (for the few details of which, every respect most excellent works of art of all time," Hegel insists,59 '
Lacan points out, we must turn to book 8 of the Politics) is the explicit precisely because it reveals the perils of such ethical one-sidedness and
linkage made between the process of katharsis and pleasure. The purg- suggests the terms for a fully ethical reconciliation of public and private
ing of the passions is inherently pleasurable, Aristotle argues in his interest and duty.40
discussion of musical education in the Politics: those caught up in a Given Lacan's own enthusiasm for certain aspects of Hegel's work—
religious or mystical frenzy can be "restored" by sacred melodies "as particularly his reflections on the struggle of master and slave and on
though they had found healing and purgation"; those who are simply the nature of language—we might expect Hegel's reading of Antigone to
by nature carried away by the emotions of pity or fear find their souls shape his approach to Sophocles. Yet Lacan dismisses Hegel, remarking
^lightened and delighted" by musical katharsis; and, in general, "the that his poetics is the weakest part of his work and asking how anyone
melodies which purge the passions likewise give an innocent pleasure to could possibly find any sort of dialectical reconciliation or synthesis of
mankind" (Politics, 8:7, 1342a 6-16). 3 8 This relation between kathar- opposites at the end of the play (S 7, 292). Going further, Lacan argues:
sis and pleasure suggests that one route toward grasping the essence of "It is not a matter of one right that is opposed to another right, but of a
tragedy is to consider how katharsis must be linked to desire, and wrong [un tort] which is opposed—to what? To something other, which
indeed Lacan argues that "Antigone makes us see in effect the target [le Antigone represents. 1 tell you it is not simply the defense of the sacred
point dt visit] that defines desire" (S 7, 290). Thus, if Hamlet is "the rights of the dead and of the family, nor, much less, is it what has been
tragedy of^desire," the seminar on Sophocles generalizes this position so portrayed as a saintliness on Antigone's part. Antigone is borne by a
as to show how tragedy as a genre is constituted in relation to desire. passion, and we will try to learn what passion" (S 7, 297). Thus Lacan
 124 JACQUKS LACAN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst 125

sees the dialectic of the play as working itself out between Creon's Creon's fault lies not in the one-sidedncss of his political philosophy
wrong and Antigone's passion, and he in no way tries to gloss over the but in his mistakenly taking the good of all as "the law without limits,
play's utterly devastating conclusion. As we shall see, it is in the the sovereign law, the law that overflows, that passes beyond the limit"
overriding image of desolation left by the play—and in particular by (S7, 301). Creon is guilty of an "error of judgment" (S 7, 300), an error
the image of Antigone—that Lacan finds the essence of the drama's not unlike that which any politician might make.
kathartic effect. Lacan stresses that the Greek term for such an error—bamartia—is in
Turning his attention first to Creon, Lacan emphasizes that Sopho- fact that used by Aristotle in the Potties to characterize the mistake or
cles portrays him quite simply as an ordinary human being. This tragic flaw that distinguishes the tragic hero from ordinary individu-
f dimension of his character is brought out most strikingly in the confron- als.42 Lacan argues, however, that Aristotle's analysis reduces "the dis-
tation between Creon and his son, Haemon, a confrontation in which tinctive teaching of tragic rites" to the level of an ethics conceived of as
Croon's love and pride quickly turn to hatred and threats {Antigone, the science of happiness (S 7, 300-301). In effect, Aristotle's analysis
626-765). Lacan notes that Creon is here showing us a tendency typi- would make Creon the tragic hero of Antigone, when in fact it is
cal of human beings when it is a matter of their own sense of the good: Antigone herself who is the true heroine of the play. Thus, the ordinary
there is a weakness here, a giving in to alternative notions of the good human error of judgment, bamartia, cannot provide the impetus for the
•or of happiness, which reveals the fact that Creon really does not know kathartic effect of tragedy. '
what he wants. "This point is extremely important in order to fix Thus, it is precisely the fact that Antigone is revealed to us as "an
Creon's stature—we will see in what happens just what he is, namely inhuman being" (S 7, 306) that makes h<.r the dramatic focus, the true
what executioners and tyrants always are—in the final analysis, human heroine, of Sophocles' play. The term in relation to which Lacan charac-
persons. It is only martyrs who can be without pity or fear" (S 7, 311). terizes Antigone is Ate: subjectively, this word designates the delusion
In short, like Hamlet through much of Shakespeare's play, like most or blindness sent to human beings by the gods and responsible for
human beings caught up in imaginary identities and symbolically con- irrational behavior; objectively, the word designates the doom or disas-
strained roles, Creon is unable to assume his own desire. ter attendant upon such delusion. In Sophocles' play, the second choral
Nevertheless, as leader of his city, Creon acts in a way meant to ode (lines 582-625), which follows Antigone's defense before Creon of
maximize the good of the community: here, it is clear that "he wants her illegal burial of Polyneices, is devoted specifically to Ate. Here the'
the good" and the good of all<S 7, 300). This is exemplified in his own chorus attempts to understand Antigone's fate in terms of the cross-
defense of the prohibition of Polyneices' burial that he has ordered: generational curses that characterize the entire family history and that
led in particular to Oedipus's downfall. Everything, the chorus main-
For I believe that who controls the state tains, can be related to a single law (norms) of human destiny: "Near
and does not hold to the best plans of all, time, far future, and the past,/one law controls them all:/any greatness
but locks hit tongue up through some kind of fear, in human life brings doom [ektos alas]'' (Antigone. 611-614). Speak-
that he is worst of all who are or were. ing of this ode, Lacan insists: "This word [Ate] cannot be replaced. It
And he who counts another greater friend designates the limit beyond which humaii life cannot too long go. The
than his own fatherland, I put him nowhere. text of the chorus is on this significant and insistent—ektos atas. Be-
So I—may Zeus all-seeing always know it— yond this Ate one can last only a short time, and it is there that
could not keep silent as disaster crept Antigone wants to go" (S 7, 305). In other words, Antigone knows
upon the town, destroying hope of safety.
what she wants: hers is the drama of the all-too-rare human being who
Nor could I count the enemy of the land
friend to myself, not I who know so well willingly assumes her own desire. "That Antigone thus leaves human
( that she it is who saves us, sailing straight, limits behind, what does this mean for us, if not that her desire aims
and only so can we have friends at all. very precisely there—beyond Ate!" (S 7, 306). Moreover, "Ate is not
(Antigone, 178-190)" bamartia, fault or error, it is not just a blunder" (S 7, 323). Where
 126 JACQUES LACAN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst •27

Creon, in his human, aLJ-too-human, weakness, makes a mistake and language, to a signifying chain in relation to which such terms as
suffers the mortal consequences of this mistake, Antigone directly con- "criminal" and "hero," "enemy" and "patriot" can have some meaning.
fronts and assumes as her own the profound otherness of desire, symbol- In contrast, Antigone focuses our attention on a. more fundamental
ized in the play by the uncrossable limit of Ati. Commenting on lines feature of human existence made possible by the "law" of language:
1259-60, where 'the chorus itself declares that Creon now suffers be- namely, the uniqueness of each individual human being.
cause "he himself made a mistake [autos bamarton]" and that this is "not Thus, Lacan maintains that the key to grasping Antigone's defense
an Ati of another [ouk allotrian atbi\," Lacan remarks: "Ati, which stems lies not in her contrasting of divine and human law, and indeed not in
from the Other, from the field of the Other, does not concern Creon; it tier defense itself. Rather, this key is to be found in the explanation of
is in contrast the'place where Antigone is situated" (S 7, 323). 44 her action that she gives just before she goes to her death, an explana-
In this way Antigone stands out as a paradigm of the human being tion the logic of which has troubled commentators as astute as Goethe
who assumes her own desire and who thereby recognizes the inherent (see S 7, 297-98). In an apostrophe to Polyneices, Antigone speaks as
Otherness of this desire and accepts the permanent intermixing of self follows:
and Other entailed by desire. It is'precisely this that Creon cannot do,
with the result that the drama of Antigone lies in the conflict between Had 1 had children or their father dead,
one who assumes and affirms desire and one who regularly gives up on I'd let them moulder. I should not have chosen
and denies desire. in such a case to cross the state's decree.
This conflict between Antigone and Creon is directly portrayed in What is the law that lies behind these words?
Antigone's impassioned defense of her decision to bury Polyneices (An- One husband gone, I might have found another,
tigone, 441-525). The heart of this defense is7 taken by most critics, or a child from a new man in first child's place,
among them most notably Hegel, to be Antigone's invocation of the but with my parents hid away in death,
no brother, ever, could spring up for me.
"unwritten laws" that contradict Creon's decree:
Such was the law by which I honored you.
(Antigone, 905-14)
For me it was not Zeus who made that order.
Nor did that Justice who lives with the godi below,
mark out such laws to hold among mankind. Lacan, reducing this argument to her claim that her brother is some-
Nor did I think your orders were so strong thing unique—"My brother is what he is"—explicates the logic of
that you, a mortal man, could over-run Antigone's argument in terms of the effect of language on the human
the gods' unwritten and unfailing laws.
subject. He writes:
Not now, nor yesterday's, they always live,
and no one knows their origin in time.
(Antigone, 450-57) It is clear that Antigone represents by her position this radical limit, which,
beyond all characterizations, beyond all that Polyneices was able to do both
good and evil, beyond all that could be inflicted upon him, maintains the
Noting that everyone "understands" what Antigone means here, Lacan
unique value of his being.
stresses that "I have always told you that it is important not to under-
This value is essentially from language. Outside of language, it could not
stand in order to understand" (S 7, 323-24). He then goes on to argue even be conceived, and the being of one who has lived could not be detached in
that what she is really evoking here in the name of the dnwhtten laws is this way from all that he conveyed as good and as evil, as destiny, as conse-
something "that is in effect of the order of law, but that is developed in quences for others, and as sentiments for himself. This purity, this separation
° no signifying chain, in nothing" (S 7, 324). In other words, Creon's of the being from all the characteristics of the historical drama through which
decree concerning Polyneices owes the possibility of its existence to he traveled, this is precisely the limit, the ex nihilo around which Antigone
 128 JACQUES LACAN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst 129

holds fast. This is nothing other than the cut [coupurt] that the very presence of play with whom no man can fight" (Antigone, 795-801). It is with this
language establishes in the life of man. (S 7, 325) image that Antigone returns to the stage on the way to her death, and
Lacan argues that this is precisely the image that Antigone herself pres-
It is only through language that we are able to separate an agent and his ents (S 7, 311). Within the structure of Sophocles' play, she is "desire
actions, a human being and his characteristics: it is language alone that made visible," and in this way the heroine's image becomes "the target
allows us to conceptualize individuals as unique, that makes it possible that defines desire" (S 7, 290). It is Antigone's beauty, her visible
for us to disregard the qualities these individuals have in common with manifesting of desire through the radical nature of her action, that gives
countless other individuals. It is because we are speaking beings, us as members of the audience pleasure and that produces the kathartic
marked by the cut of primal repression, that we are able to think of effect that defines tragedy (S 7, 332—33).
ourselves as having characteristics and thereby also chink of ourselves as The kommos itself is effectively an invocation of Antigone's radiant
those unique beings to which such characteristics belong. beauty, dominated by Antigone's comparison of her fate to that of
In this way Antigone clearly stands for the value of the individual as Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, turned co stone on Mount Sipylus for
opposed to Creon's putting the good of all ahead of that of any individ- having boasted of having more children than Leto, the mother of
ual. As Lacan says, Antigone's defense is essentially "the making pres- Apollo and Artemis.
ent of absolute individuality" (S 7, 323). It is crucial, however, to note
that Antigone's position promotes a notion of the value of uniqueness The rock
that is independent of any particular good quality, a value that comes it covered her over, like stubborn ivy ic grew.
quite literally from nothing (ex nibilo). Polyneices is worthy of her Still, as she wastes, the rain
sacrifice, not because he was a good brother or soldier or friend, but and snow companion her.
because, quite apart from any particular characteristic, he was. To put Pouring down from her mourning eyes comes the
such value *on the simple fact of existence—perceived most clearly water that soaks the stone.
through the retrospection of mourning—is in effect to cast away the My own putting to sleep a god has planned like hers.
"historical drama" of human life, and thus Antigone's action situates {Antigone, 826-33)
her in a special pos'ition, "between life and death" (S 7, 326). As is the
case with most Sophoclean heroes (Oedipus may be the exception), What Lacan emphasizes with respect to this striking example of the
Lacan notes, Antigone is in the position of being "at the end of the race personage between life and death, at the end of the race, is that Anrig-
[a bout de, course]" from the very beginning of the play (S 7, 317). Her one in effect wants this solitary death that she is living. From this
love for Polyneices takes her quite literally out of the world of the perspective, Antigone's desire is for precisely the state of inanimation
living, and her status as simultaneously living and dead is perfectly toward which Freud's death instinct propels all living beings. Antigone
captured in the punishment rp which her action destines her: live "incarnates" the "pure and simple desire for death as such," Lacan
burial. maintains (S 7, 328-29). Nevertheless, as an effect of her beauty we fail
Thus, Antigone's desire is made possible only by language, and it is to recognize immediately that the desire made visible here is ultimately
through language that her desire effectively intermingles life and death. a desire for death. Indeed, "the effect of beauty is an effect of blindness"
The image of Antigone as reflecting this web of conceptual linkages is at (S 7, 327).
the center of the great kommos or lamentation sung by Antigone and the What che chorus sees in Antigone is someone who lives by her own
chorus as she goes off to her death (Antigone, 802-82). The kommos is laws—she is autononws (821)—someone whose fate is chosen by her own
introduced by a choral ode in praise of "love [eros] unconquered in fight" self-knowledge—she is autognotos (875)—and they see these characteris-
(Antigone, 781-801), an ode that ends with an image of "desire made tics as responsible for her tragic end. What the chorus is blind to is the
visible [imtros enarges]": "Desire looks clear from the eyes of a lovely fact that her autonomous status is itself simply the relation of the
bride:/power as strong as the founded world./For there is the goddess at human being to the coupure, or cut, introduced by the signincr (S 7,
I3O "JACQUES LACAN The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst 131

328). As we have seen, it is this effect of language that makes it tion, in order to make him a support for what must be called in this
possible to separate the unique human being from his characteristics, case—borrowing a term from the domain of aesthetics—the games of
and it is this separation in turn that makes it possible for Antigone to pain. For it is a matter here of the same region as that where the
reject as worthless all of Creon's arguments concerning Pplyneices' phenomena of aesthetics frolic, a certain free space. And here lies the
criminality. Regardless of his deeds, Polyneices has the ultimate value conjunction between the games of pain and the phenomena of beauty,
of individuality conferred by language. Thus, from Creon's perspective never underlined" (S 7, 303). The aesthetic theory Lacan has in mind
and from that of the community (as reflected by the chorus), Antigone here is that of Kant (S 7, 304), for whom any judgment that an object
takes a stand on the side of crime. To stand for the unique individual is is beautiful must be "disinterested" and thus independent of the actual
to stand against the community, and this is precisely the going beyond existence of the object. 4 ' For an object to be described as beautiful, its
All that Antigone unshakably pursues as she assumes her desire (S 7, representation must stimulate our cognitive powers into "a free play"
329). experienced as delight, quite apart from any actual interest or desire
Now it is a precisely similar stand on the side of crime that lies at the that might be satisfied by the real object itself. '' As Kant writes, "One
heart of Lacan's general theory of the tragic effect. Antigone's beauty, must not be in the least prepossessed in favor of the real existence of the
the image of her as desire made visible, is the "center of the tragedy," thing, but must preserve complete indifference in this respect, in order
inasmuch as the entire action of the play is articulated around the zone to play the part of judge in matters of taste." If Antigone's beauty lies
between life and death that she so radiantly occupies (S 7, 290). Gener- in her occupation of a region between life and death, Lacan's Kantian
alizing from this example, Lacan describes his own critical task as gloss adds that this is the region where ordinary pleasure is left behind
follows: "Tragedy is that which spreads forward in order to produce this for the sake of the disinterested delight we take in beauty. Lacan's
image. In analyzing it, we go backward, we study how it was necessary Sadean gloss adds to this that beauty's region is that "between two
to construct this image in order to produce this effect" (S 7, 318). In deaths": between the "first death" of the living being and the "second
other words, what Lacan turns to at this point is the effect that beauty death" of the unique individual separated from all his qualities.
has on desire, understanding that it is the imag$ of beauty that serves as Thus Antigone's "crime" is that of Sadean "second death," and the
the "target" denning desire (S 7, 290 and 299). It is this effect of Ate beyond which she dares to go is in some sense the limit to human
beauty on desire that Lacan identifies as the (catharsis that is essential to action imposed by nature. The separation of the individual from his
the tragic effect (S 7, 332). qualities is—precisely because it is effected by language;—something
The connection between beauty and crime is mediated by Lacan's contrary to nature, Thus, just as it is to the extent that Sade's heroes do
reflections on Sade and, in particular, on the notion of the "second not respect the natural order that their actions become "crimes" (S 7,
death imagined by Sade's heroes" (S 7, 291). What mqst impresses 302—3), so too Antigone's defense of the unique value of the individual
Lacan here is that the basic structure of fantasy in Sade's writings is one is "criminal" insofar as she also introduces a break with natural law, a
of "an eternal suffering": the victims are rarely put to death by their break marked by the coupure of language.
suffering, and "it seems on the contrary that the object of the torments What, then, is the effect of beauty on desire? Lacan argues, building
must preserve the possibility of being an indestructible support" (S 7, on his subtle reading of Antigone through Sade and Kant, that beauty's
303). There is a parallel here between the separation in Antigone of the effect is the "disruption of every object" of desire (S 7, 291), and this
unique human being from his actions and characteristics—a separation disruption is the key to understanding Lacan's theory of katharsis. It
made possible by the advent of language—and the Sadean separation of must be emphasized that the "disruption" at issue here is not that
the victim from his various torments. Antigone's defense of the zone involved in Freud's notion of the "overvaluation" of the sexual object
between life and death is, indeed, simply a variation of this Sadean leading to "idealization" in the experience of being in love: far from
theme. idealizing the object of desire, the image of desolation left by tragedy
Lacan continues his argument: "Analysis clearly sho.ws that the sub- effectively de-idealizes and, thus, renders real, this object.
ject detaches a double of himself, which is made inaccessible to destruc- The beauty at which desire aims is that of an image, but even as "one
 132 JACQUES LACAN

image among others" this image has the power to purify us and thus to
give us pleasure (S 7, 290). This power rests in beauty's reflection of the
utter Otherness involved in human desire, an Otherness that implicates
language, life, and death in the very possibility of identifying a human
individual as the object of love. The "disruption" of desire's object that
beauty effects is, in fact, the transformation of a mere object of desire
into a human being loved.
Antigone's "crime" is essentially the antisocial scandal of love.19 Her
response to Crebn's claim that Polyneices was an enemy of the state is
simply: "I cannot share in hatred, but in love" (Antigone, 523). In
effect, all attributes of social welfare and community significance are
sacrificed in Antigone's invocation of her brother's absolute uniqueness,
a uniqueness that grounds her loving desire.
Similarly, Sophocles' play has the effect of presenting us with an
image in which such sacrifice is concentrated, and the kathartic effect of
tragedy in general lies in the power this kind of image has to purify us
as members of the audience. Tragedy confronts us—indirectly, to be
sure—with the "criminal" fact of our individuality, with our indisput-
ably teal existence, and it accomplishes this through the mediation of
an imaginary image that itself reflects the mark of coupurt brought to
human life by symbolic systems. The effect of tragedy, then, is to jolt
us out of our imaginary identities and symbolic roles and to force or at
least to encourage us to assume our real identities as unique, mortal
beings. This is to say that the "tragic effect" is brought to fulfillment
with our assumption of the inherently tragic character of human life.
And it must be emphasized that love itself is a primary symptom of this
tragic dimension. Antigone stands out as a paradigm of the human
subject who assumes the full weight of her desire, thereby recognizing
the ineluctable Otherness of human individuality and accepting the
inevitable, although generally misrecognized, intermixing of life and
death, of self and Other, involved in the real structure of love.