Seeing by Psychoanalysis

I hesitate to write anything because it is sure to be full of mistakes; I have to remind myself that that is the point. So here we go... My inititial posts will likely focus on works from the classes I'm currently taking but as (or rather if) the blog takes off we should have a broad selection of comments on a wide swath of the reading list even if people who contribute stick to what they are working on in class. So I thought I would generate my own prompt (based on an example I found on the Cal Poly mock ma exam question page) and outline a response to it:

Perform a psychoanalytical reading that weaves together the novellas Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee.

I. Marlow's development in HofD follows a Lacanian pattern.

A. At home in England he experiences Lacan's "Imaginary" consciousness in which Victorian assumptions make up a secure and unfallen reality.

B. As he travels to the heart of the Congo and begins to become aware of difference and otherness as he enters the Symbolic realm.

C. Of course, in Lacan, the major determinant of having entered the Symbolic order is the acquisition of language, something that Marlowe has long since done, but perhaps read allegorically, Marlowe's experience of a strange incongruence of language and reality as he travels deeper into the Congo could signify a journey through the Symbolic toward the Real.

D. Finally, Kurtz's famous line, "The horror! The horror!" could signify entry into the Real order in which "all words cease and all categories fail and the object (which is not an object anymore) becomes an object of anxiety par excellence." (Lacan)

E. The Real threatens to break open the illusion of our social reality brought about by the symbolisation of our imaginary desires. Consequently, language becomes an exercise in repression as shown when Marlowe massages the facts of Kurtz's story when he relates them to the Intended. Language facilitates the conscious structuring of the Imaginary order by the Symbolic whereas the Real is opposed to the Imaginary and unattainable through the Symbolic, hence the need for Marlowe to use language to repress the Real.

 

II. Coetzee's Magistrate in Waiting for the Barbarians is blinded by his repression of guilt over his treatment of the barbarian girl.

A. The magistrate wants a guilt-free life of simple pleasure. The guilt he feels for using the barbarian girl threatens to disturb his repose therefore he must deny her beauty and humanity in order to keep the guilt in the dark of the unconscious mind; consequently, he is unable to see her when he tries to imagine her.

B. The magistrate gains the ability to see the barbarian girl after he has resisted the Empire and been imprisoned. His guilt has been expiated at least partially because he admits openly the dehumanizing nature of colonialism and his own part in the crime.

III. Language is repression and is used by the Empire to maintain an imperial version of reality

A. The Empire rounds up "barbarians" for torture. Joll has "enemy" writen on their backs. Friend/enemy or us/them binary is foundation of colonialism. The need to symbolically designate  enemies indicates an anxiety similar to what Marlowe experienced when he says that reality fades and the inner truth is hidden.

B. When language in the symbolic order is taxed to the point of a break in reality, repression requires an increase in violence since violence is a symbolic and repressive gesture. It maintains and  justifies  through dehumanization the social dichotomy and squelches the guilt that threatening to become conscious.

    

C.  The attempts of the Magistrate to decipher the language of  violence through the scars on the girl's body illustrate the notion of language as repression.

IV. My argument

A. Both HofD and WFtheB recall Lacan's notion of the Symbolic order and the role language plays in it. The social reality brought about by the discourses that justified and perpetuated colonialism is seen falling apart in both novellas, a feaure of the text that calls langauge itself into question for being inherently unreliable in communicating a "true" reality.

B. Language is a form of repression in which narrative can be used to evade the heart of darkness or what Lacan would call the Real even as it can express the guilt that blinds us thereby allowing us to see. It cannot, however, attain the truth.

C. Darkness is the inability to see.  Failing to see another human being means failing to understand that  individual and failing to establish any sort of sympathetic communion with him or her. Both Conrad and Coetzee explore blindness as an inescapable experience of the human condition. 

Well, I think I spent way too much time working on this but if you have any feedback, ideas, or comments please post away. 

Until next time,

John