Lacan Study Sheet

1. How does the infant get the image of the "ideal-I"?

2. How would you define desire? Can it ever be fulfilled? If so, what happens when it is fulfilled?

3. What does Lacan mean by "méconnaissance" or misrecognition?

Lacan introduces the mirror stage, a developmental stage that he observed in infants from 6 to about 18 months. In this stage, the infant recognizes him or herself in the mirror as a whole entity instead of the fragmented movements and undefined boundaries between self and other (baby and mom especially) that have constituted his or her world up to that point. Lacan says this shows that the infant has desires to see him or herself as an "I." The vision in the mirror, which comes at a time when the infant doesn't have control over his or her own body yet, gives that image of the "I" as a "mirage" of control and "perfect self" or imago. Conversely, this imago has "the effect in man of an organic insufficiency in his natural reality" (73); it creates a permanent sense of being imperfect, but looking forward to perfection.

The mirror stage "is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation." It creates fantasies of both a very fragmented body and an alienating identity, or the idea that our "self" is protecting something more real within, or perhaps keeping us from having "real" interactions with others. As the specular mirror stage ends and the "I" must become social, we find ourselves at odds with ourselves. Instinct and desire become things that could destroy the ideal-I. But our very ability to say "it's me" depends on the external effect of some image of ourselves reflected in an exchange with the "other" (most often mom, a lover, a close friend). Built into the maturation process, then, is "méconnaissance," or misrecognition, of ourselves. It is the "différance" that creates the "I" (sound familiar?)

A few thoughts about Lacan's work that is not reflected in this excerpt:

Lacan concerns himself with the concept of lack as central to the human psyche. When baby looks in the mirror and has the complete vision of him or herself, it is an image in contrast with his or her actual experience of the world and the self as fragmented. The difference between the ideal image and the fragmented (le corps morcelé: the body in pieces) experience of the infant constitutes lack. The infant first knows itself as lacking.
Similarly, Lacan works out a model of desire that, like lack, is deeply rooted in the psyche and cannot be completely fulfilled. He describes it in terms of infant feeding: the little baby, when breastfeeding (or bottle-feeding for that matter) has a primary experience of completeness in that he or she is getting food and love all at the same time. When the baby cries, he or she is asking for food and love together. But as weaning occurs, either from the breast or from a primary caregiver to another, the child is forced to separate the two. The child still cries for love and food togther, but may only get food. Thus begins the great space of desire, which will characterize the rest of our lives, propelling us in quests for the ideal man, the ideal woman, the ideal job, the ideal child, etc. in which we set ourselves up for chronic disappointment.

The implications of Lacan's thought are rich, and I wouldn't pretend to summarize them here. We should note, however, the way that Lacan's model of the subject (the self) is very close to Derrida's analysis of différance; the "I" produces its idea of self relationally (like signs do). It seems to overcome its own lack and fragmentation as an adult, but is in fact always threatened by the thought of "going to pieces" or of discovering its own unreality. Literary critics have used these concepts to talk about the haunting effect of "others" to a character and the ways that the impossible desire for unity and completeness (to be without lack) drives characters' lives and, sometimes, writers' literary texts. Think about the ways you could do a Lacanian or a deconstructive reading of "Kubla Khan" as a text.

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