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Artificial Intelligence

Jeff Lang

5/10/00

Mr. Roberts



Lacanian Psychoanalysis and ‘Surfacing'

The theories of Jacques Lacan give explanation and intention to the narrator's actions throughout the novel "Surfacing". Although Margaret Atwood may not have had any knowledge of the French psychoanalyst's philosophies, I feel that both were making inferences on behavior and psychology and that the two undeniably synchronize with each other. I will first identify the complex philosophies of Jacques Lacan and then demonstrate how the narrator falls outside of Lacan's view of society and how this leads to her demand for retreat from that society in order to become ‘whole'.

Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst that derived many of his theories from Sigmund Freud. His views of the conscious and unconscious being split and a phallocentric order as the center of society evolved from Freud's. Lacan views our development in life as three stages or phases that one must enter into in order to become a part of society. The goal of these phases is the stabilization of signifiers. ‘Signifiers', the elements of memory that make up the unconscious are floating around the unconscious. These ‘signifiers' are held together by the phallocentric order which is realized in the stages of development. This may be confusing, but related to the narrator it becomes clearer. The narrator was raised in a distinct situation. When she enters into society she does not have the typical experiences of that society and therefore does not feel that she is part of it. She returns to the lake and feels she can no longer be a part of this society because the ‘phallocentric order' is distorted. This is a brief explanation. First, Lacan's formation of ‘self' and ‘Other' must be understood in great detail.

The first of the three phases of development is the REAL, "Lacan''s infant starts out as something inseparable from its mother; there''s no distinction between self and other, between baby and mother (at...