An essay on why Lacan’s theory of the ideal I appeals so much to us when reading literature. How literature helps us feel closer to achieving our ideal “I”.
Literature has always been used as a mirror for society. It reflects the happenings, the reality that exists in a particular society. Whenever one takes on a literary work to read, the reflections of the society that the literary text is set in are clearly visible and for this reason, the text is a very important tool in analyzing our environment politically, economically, socially, and even geographically. The literary text is also used to express controversial and delicate ideas of a person in a manner that the person is not victimized. Because of the importance of a literary text, it is important to find ways of making good use of the text by creating a better understanding of the same. It is because of this that better ways to understand the text have been developed including psychoanalytic and development theories.
It is because of this urgency of making a better way to understand literature that contributions have been made by psychoanalysts such as Jacques Lacan a French psychoanalyst, so as to have a deeper insight into literary works.
Jacques Lacan initially trained as a psychiatrist but later developed his own version of psychoanalysis due to his knowledge accumulated from the fields of anthropology and linguistics. Lacan’s main influence was Sigmund Freud, the latter reinterprets the former turning psychoanalysis into poststructuralist theory from a basically humanist theory. One of the fundamentals of humanism is the stable self which incorporates things such as self-determination and free will. For Lacan, the self “I” is only an illusion which in
itself is a product of the unconscious. In discussing the stages of development, Lacan takes interest in how this illusion called the “self” is got by the child. This is where his essay on the mirror stage illustrates that process; it shows how an illusion is formed by a baby about an ego, of a united conscious identity recognized by the word “I”.
Furthermore, Lacan argues that the unconscious controls all the features of human Lacan describes the mirror phase as an experience that makes us resist in some way any kind of philosophy from the cogito.
This occurrence takes place, from the time of six months, and its reappearance has frequently required us to think about the surprising sight of the nursling in front of the mirror. Not when can walk yet, or even stand up, and barely restricted as he is within some support, human or synthetic, he, however, surmounts, in a waver of triumphant activity, the impediments of his support so as to fix his approach in a more or less leaning-forward pose, and bring back an immediate aspect of the reflection to hold it in his gaze.
To us, this action keeps hold of the significance it is given to the age of eighteen months. This connotation reveals a libidinal dynamism; has until now stays challenging, and an ontological arrangement of the human world that agrees with our mirror images on paranoiac understanding. The mirror-phase is thus understood as identification, in the whole sense given by analysis to the expression: namely, the change which occurs in the subject when he supposes an image -whose fate to this phase-effect is adequately shown by the use.
After completing his psychiatry training he started working in psychiatric clinics and there he had the opportunity of working with great psychiatrists the likes of Clerambault. He passed a doctoral thesis based on paranoid psychosis. When the Nazis were in France, he gave up all his official duties and protested. After this, he became a member of the SPP and due to the controversial nature of his views, he became very famous internationally in the psychoanalytic community. He later established a school that mainly taught psychiatry and psychoanalysis according to the stipulations laid down by him.
In the mirror stage, a child is able to notice that he/she is one of the parts that the whole world is made of but is uniquely different, distinct from it as an individual. When the individual notices this, the reflection of his/her image, that it is not real but rather a virtual image of herself, a desire develops in the individual to make an image of him/herself which other people can be shown as the representation of the person. This results in a situation where the real self of the individual is hidden away from the outside world and instead the individual presents to the outside world an image, a person who he/she thinks or feels is best suited to his ideals. The person, therefore, achieves the ideal I.
During the mirror stage, the baby starts to fight with his/her self-image caused by the drama of the mirror. The child “manufactures” dreams that influence the child’s idea about his image in the mirror. From that, he builds up an ideal ego known as the ideal “I“ where he sees himself as a whole.
At this point, the baby’s inability to differentiate between reality and the truth commences. At this point, the baby resorts to language as the major means of preserving his identity. The baby, therefore, uses the newly acquired device (language) to express his thoughts and desires to uphold his self-conceived impression of entirety and self satisfactoriness. In this stage, therefore, language replaces what is lost or absent. Lacan however supports the idea that this is illusionary and that nothing replaces the loss of one’s self since the truth of the child’s inadequate identity is far from the ideal ego.
Due to the dynamic nature of human wants, likes, dislikes, aspirations, emotions, and even to some extent, character, the person will keep changing the image presented to the outside world. This, therefore, ensures that the real person remains unknown to the outside world. In its place, there comes the image which the person wants, desires to be associated with, and goes to the extent of enforcing the image as his/her identity.
There are a number of factors that usually influence the kind of image that we would like to present to the outside world. As we see them, so we would like to see ourselves, imagine ourselves as seen by others, and make others believe that we are so.
This speculation of the mirror stage is demonstrated in literary texts. In The Crying Lot of 49 by Thomas Pynchon where the main character reveals both exterior and interior resistance to develop an identity and ego. This is similar to the baby in Lacan’s mirror stage since Oedipa undergoes moments of crisis of identity. He experiences his image that undergoes steady deterioration all through the course of the text.
As a result, she does not attain n perfect ego as observed on what she perceives as real, she thus searches for the troubling fact of her identity. In real life identity crisis is a major issue of concern. People tend to spend some time of their lives working out this crisis. One is always disturbed about whom he/she really is, it is even worse when one cannot find these answers. As for the case of Oedipa, the more she tries to solve this crisis, the more the puzzle gets complicated for her; she gets her view imprecise more and more with time.
To start with, when she enters San Narciso, she encounters a fairy resembling her very much. She is not perturbed though at this sight but rather at the blower system that maintains its gauze chiton in regular agitation. Oedipal is thus contrasted to the Lacanian baby because she builds a misconception of itself and the mirror image. Although the baby transforms itself to be a complete person, Oedipa at first observes that something is not right when she sees the bare legs of the fairy and its breasts. She however goes on to see reflections of her personality throughout the text and her personality is exemplified with each moment and recognition of the lack of control she exhibits. She only feels certain of herself when she wears layers of clothing. She looks at herself in a full-length mirror and is amused by her image which she calls “a beach ball with the suit”. This moment however lasts for a very short period of time and it is followed by a period of almost “pure terror” just like the baby in the mirror stage who realizes her partial being.
Oedipa too is scared of her image when at some point she cannot realize her representation in the mirror and all she says after the glance is that she will experience seven years of dreadful luck.
Furthermore, Oedipa wants to finish Pierce’s will as the story progresses. She however discovers the importance of Pierce that not even her identity means anything without him. The discovery of the absence of Pierce makes her realize how reliant on him she is and through this, we realize the importance of the non-sensical incidences in the text. During this time, Oedipa has no power over the happenings but rather she is more confused and unsure of her identity.
A baby’s spatial personality largely depends on her mother, so is Oedipa’s. As she makes her journey of life, she discovers that most of her vanished with Pierce. The only way she would get back this loss is to replace that which she lost with a prosthetic mechanism, but since the truth is that she is missing whatever went with Pierce, she finds it hard to get used to the reality she thus reacts with shock at the sight of the uncovered nymph and the truth of her incompleteness dawns on her; she even finds it difficult to get used to this truth of her insufficiency.
This insufficiency explains why she is joyous and confident when she views herself in a full-length mirror. She is at ease because she can comfortably cover whatever part of her that is irrecoverable or had vanished with the death of Pierce, as a result, she feels whole again. Because of this partial joy, she declines her way into reality because she is used to her ideal “I”.
When she is totally beaten, reality dawns on her nothing is her management and she declares that she really longs for Pierce.
Thus Lacan’s Mirror stage is thus important in creating a better understanding and analysis of literary texts. It is also important to note that the major characters in literary texts have faults that make them be seen as human beings as opposed to superhuman characters. The Lacanian child escapes the truth of his defective, rebellious self and thus tries to build an ultimate identity.
The importance of this is that humans will tend to give a positive portrayal of themselves to others. This may be in terms of appearance whereby we would like to look the best possible, resemble the ideal person we have in mind. We can also have this in the form of behaviors where we tend to portray the best ideal kind of behavior which in most cases is positive, helpful, and is of great benefit to others. This may be in direct contrast with our real selves. This is all due to the importance humans tend to attach to images, the perception others have of them. It is through this that humans are able to form the identity of themselves and perceive the identities of others.
When humans have their past to look back to, they can use it as a point of reference, and from it, we can develop the identity to pursue taking. Through the mirror, humans can be able to get self-assurance and establish their identity. This is because we can have other people see us the way we want them to see us and reaffirm that indeed we are as we want to be.
This is the reinforcement of our orthopedic. As we look at other humans and acknowledge their identity, so will our identity be validated.
Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage is important in the way it reinforces humans compassion, through which we are able to feel the way others may be feeling, we are able to see things the way others see them. This, therefore, instills into our emotions. It is through the diversity of our identities and the various reactions to situations that are a result of the ideal personalities we desire to inculcate into ourselves that there come about differences in us as humans from other animals.
When the humans look at themselves from the perspective of the ideal I project, they become able to also see and recognize other people’s ideal identity as they desire to be. Humans, therefore, become able to empathize with one another and respect other beings.
It is at the mirror stage that the functions of the “I” are developed. It is the structure of subjectivity, and the human becomes really interested in the image he/she sees. According to Lacan, “the mirror stage is the phenomenon to which I assign a twofold value. In the first place, it has historical value as it marks a decisive turning point in the mental development of the child. In the second place, it typifies an essential libidinal relationship with the body image” (Lacan, 1949).
There is more emphasis placed on the structural importance of the mirror stage as it is the one that gives an elaboration of the nature of the conflicts arising from the association of mind and the body.
It is at this stage that the Ego is developed through objectification; it is as a result of the dissention that exists between an individual’s supposed physical appearance and the supposed emotions. Lacan referred to this kind of identification as alienation. When the child becomes capable to identify his/her image in the mirror but still lacking motor coordination and control of the body movements, the child perceives the image of the body as a whole and as he processes this image, there ensues contrast due to the absence of coordination of the body whose perception is that of disintegration. Tension ensues as a result of this antagonistic dissimilarity and to achieve a solution to the problem of apprehension, the child opts to choose the image and this is what develops the Ego and during this period the child is triumphant as it gets a feeling of mastery.
Lacan was an ardent believer of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories and this was more so on the development stages of the individual. This is mainly manifested and witnessed as they agree on the developmental stages of the human intelligence capacity. This starts with the stage of the Id. At this stage, just before the mirror stage where the Ego is also established, there are a number of characteristics that are very evident of the initial developments of the individual “I”.
At this stage, as illustrated by Freud, the individual has the Id which the child is born with. It is purely founded on the human desire to have pleasure in that we always seek to be happy and comfortable. (Psychology 101, 2008). There is a lot of attachment given to this stage in terms of the development of the later characteristics of the individual.
During this stage, though not to an advanced stage, an individual, the child starts to develop some noticeable behaviors. In as much as they may change later, these behaviors may be carried on later in life. These characteristics are what will shape the likes and the dislikes. These are the factors that would eventually influence the individual when establishing the ideals of how he/she would love to be perceived or seen by the outside world.
The kind of image we show to other people is greatly dependant on our characteristics. It is, therefore, true that the ideal “I” that we as humans exhibit is shaped by the unique personality traits that are developed from early childhood when the individual is still at the Id stage, the mirror stage, and also at the stage of development of the Id.
In as much as humans relentlessly try to achieve and maintain the ideal I, it is something more like chasing the wind in the sense that, no matter how hard humans try, they will always have some fundamental questions without answers. Some of these questions are like, “who am I?” Humans are and have been on a constant search for the answer to this question. To some extent though, it may be taken that getting attaining the ideal I has to a big extent helped many humans find an answer consoling enough to this question.
References
- Gischelar V. Image Is Everything: Lacan’s Mirror Stage and Blade Runner.
- Jacques Lacan (1901-1981). “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience.” Delivered at the 16th International Congress of Psychoanalysis, ZĂĽrich, 1949.
- Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits. New York: Norton, 1977.Web.
- Wagner K. V., 2008. About.com. Psychology. The Id, Ego and Superego.
- Elizabeth Kim, 2005. Lacan’s Ideal “Ego” in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49.