First and foremost, thank you to Ashley for providing us with your thoughts and theories on Lacan and psychoanalytic theory. Your comparisons to Saussure and using Mantissa as an example helped tie everything together very nicely and cleared up psychoanalysis as a whole!

When reading the first section of Mantissa, the readers can consider the force of the death drive and jouissance and determine if the two can be traced together or separately throughout the book. The death drive, according to Lacan, is something that “occupies each of us; it is within each of us from the start.” Jouissance is defined as the “orgasmic shattering of the self for which the death drive aims.” It makes sense, to me anyways, that each of these terms is needed in order to complete the other. The jouissance is sparked by the death drive, and the death drive has a purpose because of the jouissance.

However, Lacanian theory states that only one of the two terms can be present at a given time. In Mantissa, Fowles therefore is refuting Lacanian Theory and shows that both the death drive and jouissance have a common objective of fulfilling a character’s personality. This is clear in Miles Green; his identity and his sexual desires go hand in hand, and even though he may not realize through the first section of the novel, Fowles created his character as such. Fowles wrote Miles Green’s character the way he did because that’s how he wanted his main character to be represented. He is showing the readers that one’s identity can help discover his or her sexual needs. One contributes to the other, despite Lacan’s best wishes.

Thank you again, Ashley! I feel like I have a solid grasp on Lacan and psychoanalysis, or at least I hope so!

La Sonrisita

Mantissa

When I began reading Mantissa, I continually got the feeling that I would not really know what to expect from the text next. At first glance, Fowles took me by surprise in his writing style and in the plotline of his novel. However, after getting a feel for the book and coming to terms with the fact that anything, literally anything, could happen at any given time, I really enjoy the direction that Fowles takes.

One of the more obvious theories that I initially related the book to is psychoanalytic theory. Fowles makes it a point to discuss the conscious and the unconscious of Miles, his main character who is located in a hospital and being treated for amnesia. The use of psychoanalysis helped me understand that the characters of the book and the scenery that are mentioned are being represented by some sort of sexual tension. The trick that Fowles snuck in there lies in the representation of the conscious and the unconscious in terms of the characters. For example, Miles’ wife stands in as his unconscious; he views her as a cliché woman of the times by stating that she is essentially the image of what a man would want, although her image is something that he really doesn’t want. On the other hand, Miles’ conscious lets him consider the nurse to be classy and desirable.

Similarly, Fowles incorporates the setting in terms of the unconscious and conscious. Certain things in the novel represent Miles’ feelings. The clock, for example, is a symbol of annoyance for him which he considers as “an incongruous reminder of all he could not remember” (p 11). He is upset that he is basically being outsmarted by the inanimate object of a clock which proves to be his reality.

With that being said, I feel as though it’s quite evident that psychoanalytic theory can be seen as controlling Miles throughout the portion of that novel that I have read. His thoughts are at stake, and I suppose it’s just a matter of time until we see if this theory can be traced throughout the remainder of the novel.

Hasta luego,
La Sonrisita

Thanks to Ken Rufo...

Not going to lie, when I first started to dive into Baudrillard, I was a little bit confused by his thoughts on simulation in general. But, I will admit that reading Ken Rufo’s post and hearing it explained again in class, it has become quite clear. I feel like I have a better grasp on Baudrillard’s ideas of simulation, simulacra, and the hyper-real and the distinctions between them.

Disney is probably the best way to explain something to me; I can relate to Disney and understand it in terms of a bigger picture, such as Baudrillard. Rufo remarks that Disneyland is a representation of other things. Take Epcot for example. The sites in Epcot are recreated to imitate something else. The ride “It’s a Small World” it meant to replicate a variety of countries around the world and give visitors an accurate sense of each country’s culture and what special characteristics it may or may not possess. Sure, Disney is pretty good at fabricating a thing or two, specifically the people that are seen in “It’s a Small World” and the set that the people live in within the ride. The tricky thing about that fabrication, however, is that people make actually believe what Disney is representing because they may not know anything different. Rufo refers to this attempt to make visitors believe something that may not be exactly accurate as fake.

Disneyland is a simulation, and with simulation there is no secure reference or connection to reality. Instead, simulation stands in for reality, then hides the absence of reality, produces its own reality, and finally reaches a fractal stage in which simulation no longer needs models. Take another one of Rufo’s examples: money. He brings up the point that a credit or debit card is in fact a simulation of actual money. In today’s society, I would have to say that one of the major methods of payment when purchasing anything is with a piece of plastic. Whether it is in a store or online, people resort to credit or debit cards so as not to pay for items up front. It’s basically like we have money, or is it? Is it just that credit cards are a symbol for fake money that may or may not be actually available? In this sense, credit cards are simulating a representation of reality. The funds act as the hyper-real as they are mediated through simulation.

Mr. Rufo, thank you! I greatly appreciate your insights on Baudrillard and furthermore putting it in terms that I can comprehend.

Gracias un otra vez!
Liz

After reading “The Death of an Author”, I found that one point that Barthes brings up that is of great interest to me is that language itself speaks, not the author. Rather than have the author speak to the readers and more or less tell them what to think or understand, the language itself has the capability to sway the perceptions of the readers by allowing them to interpret it in whatever way seems appropriate. Removing the author enables the readers to feel more in tune with what language is dictating, and therefore supports the readers being able to think for themselves. Barthes also suggests that the author is not the source of meaning in the text; but rather the reader is the source of meaning for the text. With the death of the author, the reader is born.

This link speaks of the impact of the death of the author. One post on the blog brings up Focault's statements that the author's remarks are still valid and should be considered, however it also touches on the fact that with the death of the author, the opportunities for the readers to live with the text are present. Another post in response to the original comments on the blog suggests that perhaps Barthes is attempting to decenter the author of the language by installing the readers to interpret that language.

Between the blog posts that I stumbled upon and my own thoughts on Barthes and his comments in "The Death of an Author", I feel that the opinions on allowing the reader to get the most out of a text through personal interpretation of that text is empowering to the reader. The author can be thought of as a catalyst of sorts for motivating readers to interpret their text however they wish. If that comes at the death of the author, at least the readers can experience a sense of rebirth through texts.

Hasta Luego,
La Sonrisita