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A Lacanian
of Sartre
Elucidation
De
Guillermine
Lacoste
For Genet,
of a
cure.'
psychoanalytic
Saint
Sartre,
Genet.
(and
how
is one
to open
J.-B.
'The
a strong-box
when
Preface
Pontalis,
to The Freud
Scenario.
that psychoanalysis
offers to modern man is difficult
understanding
and painful because
of the narcissistic humiliation
it inflicts.'
Paul
'Lacan's
Le Conflit
Ricoeur,
of the unconscious
conception
des Interprtations.
is more
interesting
[than
Sartre
on
Freud's].'
The Family
Idiot.
Sartre
answered
'On
calmly,
the
contrary,
I would
be
happy. Like all writers, I hide. But I am also a public man and people
can
think
what
like
they
about
me,
even
if it is severe.'1
choanalysis'
la famille,
tion
and
of his
Sartre's
which
which
thought
'aggressive
Sartre
played
beginning
"acting
uses
freely
an important
role
with
out "(passage
what
My
project
and of'psy
throughout
L'Idiot
throughout
the
evolu
has
called
Josette
l'acte)'
Pacaly
in 'L'Enfance
de
d'un
Volume
8, Issue 1, 2002
- 18 -
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A Lacanian
order
to
establish
rosis,
to Pacaly,
ing
that
undeniably
by an archaic
caused
of Sartre
Sartre
neurosis
aim
of the
present
is to
essay
on
a strong
his mother.
became
only
from
suffered
fixation
pre-oedipal
this
however,
Elucidation
more
neu
Accord
severe
during
works (SM).3
show,
how
rather,
Sartre
used
He
du
L'Ange
first
La.
morbide,
because
sciously',
carried
out
Nause
at that
this
and
self-analysis
Sartre
time,
was
in
unconsciously
et le Nant.
L'Etre
not
I say
'uncon
conscious
entirely
of
Doubrovski
Serge
gynotexte
dans
view
that
he
'the
bisexual
La
that
Nause1,
had
not
crisis
for example,
writes,
been
of
Sartre
while
conscious,
the
in his
admitted
'Phallotexte
to him
La
writing
and
character/narrator'
in an
et
inter
of
Nause,
that
he
only
Sartre
Similarly,
himself
admitted
to his interlocu
tor, at the time of an interview with the New Left Review in 1969,
that
he
although
ment
because
he
below
tried
this
not
had
consciousness,
He
experience.'
It was
that
is what
the
sees
subject
of his own
is that
in
the
later
call
his
would
unconscious.
text,
rationalistic
on
on
the
are
'lived
allowed
'lived
psychoanaly
and
psychoanalyst
that
makes
Cartesian
section
1960s
existential
'the
Sartre
his position
because
certainly
quite
which
in the
he
person',
What
'irrationalism',
et le Nant.7
that
same
a 'monu
into
an
processes
to call
chapter
the
end
the
began
of L'Etre
self-analysis.8
same
the
unconsciously
possibility
be
in the
Yet,
he
the
et le Nant
in
control
that
as he wrote
he
to
text
of psychoanalysis
conscious
ical,
able
the
L'Etre
became
concedes
thus
perhaps
in which
to make
text
been
to infiltrate
experience'
sis,
had
of rationality',
he
heritage,
'viscous'
the
became
paradox
of what
he
the
precludes
in L'Etre
et le Nant
having
with
Sartre's
come
unconscious,
out
en masse.
This is also the case with the four biographies of neurotic artists
that
Sartre
(1946),
Sartre's
in the
wrote
Mallarm
decade
L'Etre
et le Nant-.
surfaces
momentarily
Baudelaire
Tintoretto
(1948),
unconscious
after
throughout
these
(1952).
biogra
example,
the
fact
that
there
as
is the
Sartre
there is Baudelaire's
puts
question
of the
it, Baudelaire
young
was
poet's
androgyny,
a 'man-woman',
and
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Guillermine
De Lacoste
is the
of the
metonymy
look
as
rape,
In Saint Genet
which
look/rape
Sartre
calls Genet's 'original crisis': 'the look of the other surprised him and
and
him,
penetrated
transformed
him
forever
into
an
object.'10
Androgyny, desire for symbiosis with the mother, the look as 'origi
nal crisis' - these are all important signifiers in Sartre's unconscious.
I would
that
argue
his
were
biographies
him
for
a means
of
self
analysis, and that while writing them he became more and more con
scious
of
allowed
various
him
In
the
to terms
period
of L'Etre
the
unconscious.
concerning
his
of
aspects
to come
own
with
neurosis.11
it in a rather
et le Nant,
While
Sartre
This
eventually
particular
manner.12
rather
ambivalent
was
to recognise
beginning
the work
(1954)
denies
a theoretical
to
conscious
and
lived
is present
that
the
boon
verbalisable
the
that
later
incorporate
along
with
Lacan's
his own
import,
in
when,
film screenplay
himself
'invented'
is not
notion
of the
unconscious,
version
of the
unconscious.14
must
self-analysis
while
1958,
he
Huston,
from
in
psychoanalysis
that
order
to
not
but
treat
and
linguistic
a leap
for a
work)
had
only
that
heal
inactuel',
taken
and
he
vcu
Sartre
fact,
its
have
(man
realised
and
vcu
with
certainly
neurosis,
strong
In
of the
Freud
studying
'the
(le
present
awareness.13
Hesnardian
the
between
is, a conceptualisable
that
notion
for John
suffered
lived
non-verbalised
this
Sartre's
Meanwhile,
forward
'the
therefore
between
differentiates
that
actuel)',
and
is, a latent,
would
into
Hesnard
vcu
(le
was
unconscious,
of distinguishing
Instead
unconscious,
awareness,
inactuel)',
of the
existence
Sartre.
Freud
had
himself.
also
Sartre
could thus see that his own series of biographies were in fact a varia
tion
of Freud's
had
to
case-histories.15
convince
It is interesting
who
Huston,
did
not
that
understand
it is Sartre
what
the
who
uncon
scious really was, of its great importance for Freud (IT, 30 and FS,
Still, Sartre remained averse to what he termed 'Freud's
XII).
strange
of
representation
the
unconscious
as
a set
of mechanistic
out,
seems
the unconscious
Freud,
'enables
to have
them
to
repulsed
the
ignored
or transformability
plasticity
by their
some
140).
very
extent
to
be
satisfied
by
of
to
substitutes
corporality,
a repulsion
having
its roots
in
his neurosis. It is this very plasticity and corporality that are at the
heart
of Lacan's
theory
of sublimation,
a theory
that
I shall
discuss
-20
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A Lacanian
Elucidation
of Sartre
is only
Freud
to
an
one
of the
reasons
of
elucidation
I find
why
Sartre.
Other
Lacan
better
reasons
suited
include
than
Lacan's
it was
the
of cross-influence
history
Sartre
and
gaze
Sartre
who
lack
when
he
between
first influenced
are
discusses
these
and
Lacan.
It is clear
as far as the
Lacan,
since
concerned,
Lacan
refers
This
notions.16
and the
genealogy,
Sartre
notions
of
to
specifically
influence,
however,
lies outside of the scope of the present article. But Lacan's influence
on
the
Sartrean
notion
of comprehension
was
for the
important
suc
impossible
fies
which
because
decipher,
of the
represent
perpetual
of the
and
him/her,
of the
sliding
bar
which
signi
the
separates
Lacan
to the
in connection
with
and
unconscious
He
'comprehension.'
to lived
and
experience
links
this
notion
it to intellec
opposes
tual knowledge (IT, 41).17 This is the fist time that Sartre demon
strates
his acceptance
), and
this
well
of the
shows
the
unconscious,
(albeit
distance
he
that
his own
has
version
in
covered
of it
his
self
at that
realised
certainly
of Lacan's
between
opposition
time
the
the
two
great
kinds
importance,
for him,
of knowledge.
More
over, Lacan helped him grasp why his project of openly naming and
articulating his desire (such as psychoanalysis wishes it) should be
such
a Herculean
The
task.
terms
which
Sartre
uses
to
what
explain
with
Lacan
on
this
subject:
'never
comprehension
achieves
inadequate'
links
here
received
what
in
one's
'will
he
calls
often
'the
childhood
have
stress
-
to
a metaphorical
of a neurosis'
this
lived
structure.'
-
experience
a specific
which
Sartre
wound
can
be
(IT, 41-42).
-21 -
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De Lacoste
Guillermina
The
Lacanian
and
subject
between
opposition
the
the
knowledge
imaginary
symbolic
of the
of the
knowledge
is related
ego
to
his
necessary
other,
with
the
refuse
to the
Lacan
has
never
albeit
castration
it.
is a most
an
for it proposes
this
passage
end
described
sublimation
completed
that
It
is for
alternate
implies.
one
father,
Lacan's
that
from
passage
the
would
such
as
of
theory
of Sartre
for an elucidation
for the
to
Sartre
by the
reason
guide
path
from
But
castration
this
appropriate
passage
the
Imaginary
to the Symbolic, akin to the one which Sartre most likely followed.
Lacan succinctly defines sublimation in the following terms: 'it raises
the object to the dignity of the Thing.'19 The object relation is that
of the
fusion
pre-oedipal
is narcissistic,
with
to
belongs
the
the
and
mother,
of the
must
and
Imaginary
mirror
be
It
stage.
abandoned
at
the time of the oedipal crisis, but the Thing which Lacan, following
Heidegger, likes to call Ans Ding- is at the heart of the Symbolic.
The symbolic signifier denotes what has been lost - a lack of
being {un manque tre.) The reconciliation sought by desire,
between the symbolic signifier and the experience of an object that
represents imaginarily the rediscovery of the original lost object, is in
principle
but
impossible,
onciliation.
It
thus
after having
again,
The
Lacan
studies
which
he
lost
object
two
the
represents
what
has
been
success
of this
rec
found
paradoxically
forever.
Relation
Object
the
Thing
symbolises
been
devotes
the
in depth
relation
hundred
to Lacan
according
in
to
pages
his
the
fourth
in
Seminar,
of little
case
Hans
a certain
Herbert
Graff,
than
Sartre.
It is very
fruitful
- in
parallel,
similar
litde
Hans.
We
can
in 1904.
see,
He
to examine
Lacan's
using
thus
born
the
observations
not
how
only
was
two
thus
cases
and
Sartre
a year older
- in fact
very
of
interpretations
his
expresses
neu
rosis in his writings, but how these helped him to restructure his
insertion
in
enter
symbolic.
the
In
the
his study
come
world,
of the
object
out
relation,
of the
Lacan
imaginary
and
explains
that
eventually
the
mother
object
desired,
for her
presence
and
for the
satisfaction
that
her
presence brings the child,20 but the child is satisfied only if he feels
that
he
is also
'the
object
of his
mother's
love',
that
is to say that
he
-22
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A Lacanian
Elucidation
of Sartre
brings her pleasure and satisfaction, that his presence commands her
presence. This 'being loved' is fundamental for the child (RO, 224).
Between
six
and
in the
months,
eighteen
second
moment
of the
mirror experience (after the initial jubilation), the child has the expe
rience and the apprehension of his mother's and his own possible
lack.
Lacan
twist
to Hegel's
identifies
mother's
the
lack
of desire,
theory
the
as the
lack
of the
wants
child
In
phallus.
to become,
accord
ing to Lacan, the object of the mother's desire, by filling the original
he
lack
in the mother,
and substitute
perceives
- that is become
for her the phallus
to this
himself
lack
to Lacan,
According
this
of the
phantasy
which
provisionally
she
lacks.
mother
phallic
is 'essen
to the
everywhere,
in her
toilet,
bed.
She
underwear
changes
in
front of him. For Poulou, the situation was somewhat similar, since
he
was
his
mother's
and
Pacaly
in Les
the
Mots,
to a trouble
metonymy
till the
companion
Louette
Jean-Franois
told
episode
constant
and
both
that
suggest
trouble'
lvoix
troublant
of ten.
age
of the
in
Josette
the
mother
bath
refers
by
child.21
Lacan tells us that the oedipal crisis takes place rather suddenly -
when
child
the
discovers
that
his
mother
lacks
a penis.
For
little
Hans, this takes place in the game of veiling and unveiling, at about
For
four.
this
Poulou,
to
according
faked
being
beside
him,
Sartre's
unfolds
in
testimony,
in
asleep
drama
undress.22
order
to
And
the
see
at
only
his
mother,
also
child
twelve,
age
for
a hospital
an
who
discovers
when,
he
operation,
on
slept
that
the
a cot
mother
Mancy.
the
father's
role
He
is primordial.
is at the
centre
of the
oedipal
Lacan
the
Lacan,
of the
speaks
child
father's
his or her
to negotiate
successfully
which
intervention',
'sanctioning
Oedipus
allows
and
complex
to
of the
Seminar,
what
he calls
of the
unbearable.
relation
to
A short-circuit
the
mother
takes
'the
law
of the
father.'
place.
A chasm
But
anxiety-provoking
suddenly
when
case), the
opens
and
up
-23
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in
De Lacoste
Guillermina
by the
engulfed
Lacan
the
form
of a new
do
likewise
with
He
mother.
us that,
tells
as the
structure
and
regresses
child
to this
him
of supporting
capable
a neurosis.
develops
a solution
seeks
in
problem,
and
stopping
him from being engulfed, he (or the adult) creates a myth - 'the myth
of the neurotic.' This notion of myth allows Lacan to give a fruitful
analytic interpretation of the story of little Hans, and will allow us to
Sartre's
in La
story
Nause
and
et le Nant
L'Etre
and beyond in Les Mots, the Family Idiot, and L'Espoir maintenant.
It is by organising his imaginary into a myth that the neurotic can
progress from the imaginary to the symbolic. According to Lacan,
the
serves
myth
as
a revision
the
to
which
system
structured
the
Anxiety suddenly appears when the child (or the young adult)
feels 'sidelined' ( hors de jeu) each time that he becomes, no matter
how imperceptibly, 'unstuck from his existence' (RO, 244, 226). It
is the end of the game in w hich he was what he was not, in which he
was
that
Hans,
the
'he
function
As
soon
ated
child
adult
mother
from
who
points'
world
(RO,
is anxious
to restructure
neurotic
Phobias
of his
that
the
from
to him
seems
of
245).
affirms
245).
little
about
he is relieved
(RO,
the
because
writes
once
Lacan
protects
'the
emerges,
Lacan
metonymy
anxiety.
of phobias
alarm
dangerous
or the
by the
heart
as a phobia
by
desired.
as nothingness'
his mother's
different
is at the
which
himself
imagines
are
mother
the
of being
Phobias
he
that
everything
to be
punctu
thus
imagined
fear
anxiety.
help
the
rejection
his world.
Little Hans'
feels
to give
unable
unfolds
opment
his mother
around
the
she
wants.
His
mythic
devel
of the
horse
and
of the
phobia
what
signifier
that he has of the horse. Pie tells his father 'A cause du cheval, j'ai
attrap
la
btise'
('Because
of the
horse,
I've
nonsense'
the
caught
Lacan's
two-hundred
page
lucubration
on
the
subject.
It
indicates
that the four-year old boy well realises that the horse signifies his
- which he dubs 'la btise'. He seems to have chosen that
phobia
word,
(a
'btise',
or
nonsense,
being
something
incongruous
or
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A Lacanian
Elucidation
of Sartre
his
part.
Central
to
his
is that
phobia
horse
the
bites
the
(thus
possibility of being devoured), and falls (little Hans has fallen from
his mother's love). His phobia always appears when he feels that his
mother's love is lacking.
Little Hans is learning to play with images. The two giraffes that
he has drawn are the product of a teeming imaginary trying to find a
new
symbolic
configuration.
to
According
with
Lacan,
the
two
could
not
have
found
a better
to express
metaphor
his new
tenta
tive relationship to his mother and thus effect a firstpassage from the
imaginary to the symbolic. But his analysis with Freud remained, at
that point, unfinished.
Lacan notes that, since his anxiety had disappeared, little Hans
had achieved a partial resolution of his Oedipus complex; however,
as
he
did
not
- Lacan
path
go
the
through
asserts
that
this
castration
resoution
but
complex,
was
In
atypical.
via
the
another
that
path
tells
culinity
with
Lacan's
final
'the
us,
this
of two mothers',
daughter
- and
he thus
has no
phallus
his
assumes
mas
His
superego.23
ation,
proven
by
adult,
he does
not
La Nause,
is that
the
fact
remember
little
that,
Hans
underwent
when
Freud
sees
an
essential
him
again
alien
as
an
anything.
first version
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Guillermine
mother
ning
the
to be
began
of La
lacking,
Nause:
nausea.'25
Roquentin
are
'Things
Like
his
De Lacoste
bad:
he
predecessor,
exclaims
towards
caught
it, the
I've
realises
his
that
the
begin
thing,
filthy
is unwillingly
anxiety
is
when
he
Cheminots
is absent,
Roquentin
catches
ne's
absence
second
by the
engulfed
discovers
that
the
he
was
as
patronne
nausea,
could
be
as a metaphor
that
nausea
time
seizes
of
to
coming
for good,
read
- as discussed
mother
him,
the
love
make
for the
by Lacan.
to
of the
Roquentin
her,
The
first time.
absent
that
patron
mother.
The
'the
laconically:
says
It
des
Rendez-vous
Thing which was waiting, was alerted, it swooped down on me' (N,
141). And in the park scene he says about the Thing: 'It must
invade you suddenly, weigh heavily on your heart, like a great
motionless beast' (N, 186). As the numerous signifiers in this scene
indicate, the Thing is the signifier of the mother in her negative,
obscene
instance.
world
afraid.
Thing
First,
into
dispersed
there
are
all
the
- that
plurality
things
that
is
Roquentin/Sartre
touch
the
you,
stone
that
Roquentin cannot pick up, then the paper lying in the mud. They
touch him 'like living beasts' (N, 10,20,21,22).
There is also 'the
with
its
flaccid
and
flesh
that
grey thing'
insipid
palpitates with
obscene laisser-aller (his face), followed by his whole body - about
which
Roquentin/Sartre
in parallel
speaks
with
the
raped,
strangled
body of little Lucienne, assaulted from behind and left bruised, in the
mud (N, 30, 144-146). The thing of the human body is thus linked
to the sexually perverse, to the sordid. Finally all the things in the
park
that
order
are
of nature,
part
naked,
these
in a frightful,
monstrous
'soft,
obscene
nakedness',
all in dis
masses,
are
also
related
to
L'Etre
first
reading
expressing
Sartre
had
world,
and
his
L'Etre
anxiety
now
Nant
through
been
able
had
Roquentin's
reoriented
completely
had
et le
the
to create
of the myth
reassured
phobias
signified,
a logical,
us
in
that,
La
restructured
rational,
after
Nause,
his
systematic
-26
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A Lacanian
However,
compendium.
are
there
in
fact
two
Elucidation
subsequent
texts
in
of Sartre
made
readings
L'Etre
et le Nant,
me
realise
that
and
superimposed
imbricated with each other. The firstis that which Sartre had dubbed
'a
monument
of rationality.'
It
tells
the
known
story
is
and
nothingness
and
transcendence,
all
by
French
or the for-itself,
whose
existential
nature is that of a lack; and of the in-itself, which is being and full
but
ness,
which,
being
carries
for-itself
is pure
non-conscious,
two
out
simultaneous
immanence.26
the
projects:
But
first is that
the
of fill
ing its lack, of being at once consciousness and fullness, that is to say
of becoming in-itself-for-itself;and the second is that of appropriat
ing the world as a totality of being-in-itself, under the form of the
consciousness of the other, of the body of the other (le trouble) and
finally of the in-itself itself (the viscous). According to the rigorous
Sartrean logic and ontology, the firstproject is impossible to realise,
the
and
But
for-itself
is thus
second
the
a useless
passion.
of the
project
that
for-itself,
of the
appropriation
mother
engulfing
of
the
of
myth
the
threatens
neurotic,
to
of its second
with
dealing
it becomes
the
in fact a new
Towards
that
the
version
this
bestowed
to be
anxiety,
the
are
of Lacan's
subject
which
because
the
fear
of the
men
tax
forms
which
viscous,
- are for Sartre
or
at the
absence
plenitude?
of the
heart
that
(IT,
the
guardrails
say,
which
is
41-42).
announces
in the
face
of
of the
second
of the
mother
who
reveals
itself
Anxiety
of the
phobias
far more
is to
and
Sartre
signification
his original
to the
'irrationalism',
of its freedom
of the
and
an
neurotic
et le Nant,
because
to
called
it is imbricated,
of the
L'Etre
trouble,
linked
has
consciousness',
myth
of
according
if not
Sartre
below
with
is anguished
But,
on
text,
beginning
for-itself
nothingness.
why
that
second
the
what
project,
'processes
than
look,
alarms,
that
text,
of le
police
protect
him
the signified.
more
importantly,
they
lead
towards
a reorientation
-27
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of
The Look
The phobia of the look is the first phobia of the neurotic. The text
on this phobia (of being seen by the other) swarms with signifiers.
The
look
of the
other
degrades
and
alienates
me
scendence
freezes
me,
from
me,
me
strips
of my tran
It is thus
my possibilities.
extremely
of prime
the
importance:
shame
that
the
accompanies
look
is
'my original fall' (EN, 349). The word 'fall' evidently refers to the
Fall of Adam and Eve when, guilty in the eyes of God, they are cast
out
from
But
paradise.
Sartre
to the
adds
'fall'
word
the
word
'origi
was
then
from
expelled
by the
paradise
los
thus
Mancy,
engineer
ing his Edenic life with his mother (during which he could calmly
dream of incest with an older sister.)
Certain critics, such as Alain Buisine, associate Sartre's fear of the
look primarily with his ugliness, which he discovered only at the time
of the
traumatic
in question,
event
Sartre
seems
to
even
the
though
corroborate
this
speck
on
his eye,
had developed
when
interpretation
he
writes in Les Mots that his discovery of his ugliness, was for him 'the
caustic lime in which the marvellous child was dissolved' (M, 204).
29
To
be
seen
love
unique
as
ugly
one's
by
mother
not
is evidently
to
be
her
anymore.
it is not
However,
Poulou's
but
ugliness,
the
compound
of
guilt
his original 'sin' that is the principal signifier of the phobia of the
look.
The
which
scene
in the
by Sartre
(told
Poulou's
mother
him
gives
film
two
Sartre
on
slaps
par
the
in
lui-mme),
face
because
he
above
is,
other
can
all,
become,
by incantation
unable
to
to his
keep
mother's
the
fear
of the
and
that
this
instrument'
'explosive
fear
is 'a
conduct,
magical
(EN,
look
This
356).
(which
was
the
tending
which we are
is certainly
for Poulou
that
a reference
alienating
and
- that
degrading, and which made him 'fall into the midst of things')
her
accompanied
one
the
slap,
that
Sartre
later
look,
which
he had
on
called
the
'the
for many
occasion
of this
intruder'
long
(EN,
years,
may
altercation
349).
well
The
have
with
the
of
phobia
been
such
-28
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A Lacanian
a 'magical
conduct',
at a distance.
what
Lacan
Elucidation
in this
designed
has
written
on
the
of Sartre
case
to keep
his
mother's
anger
to
of phobias.
subject
Le Trouble
When the engineer Mancy expelled Poulou from his paradise by tak
ing his mother from him, he could nevertheless not accomplish the
child's
the
- either
castration
instead
of four),
mother
or
with
because
because
he
enough
it was
was
too
too
or
authority,
late
weak
both
was
(Poulou
did
and
not
at once.31
twelve
interdict
Poulou
thus
continued to live in the pre-oedipal stage and to desire his mother and this desire was multiplied tenfold by the presence of the
intruder.
But
he
must
have
certainly
had
to effect
on
himself
a pow
the
writes
'desire
to discuss
how
can
fact,
risks
that
rather,
like
to
the
defined
wreaks
devoted
as
havoc
to
le trouble',
with
the
Sartre
desire,
and
he
for-itselPs
goes
on
search
for
456).
a manual
le trouble
et le Nant
be
only
le trouble
translucidity (EN,
almost
of L'Etre
section
long
that
poses
for
seminarians,
to the
salvation
transcendence
of the
the
enumerating
of their
for-itself
(or
immortal
to
various
or
souls,
of Sartre.)
that
For, in le trouble, the for-itself (or Poulou / Sartre) would risk the
submersion, the thickening, the glue ing up, and the clogging of
their
consciousnesses
transparent
by
themselves
abandoning
to
the
know
of her
days
Beauvoir's
relationship
with
of her
passion
ble,
through
during
Entretiens
with
and
desire,
which
she
Sartre,
Sartre,
that
was
La
torn
this
led
de
We
in his
that,
l'ge
unable
to her
apart.33
in fact,
that,
Force
he was
long
also
in the
to respond
bout
learn
relationships
with
in
with
early
to the
le trou
her
1974
women,
presents
the
existential
section
psychoanalysis
of L'Etre
et le
under
tential
the
pretext,
psychoanalysis
or
the
of the
unconscious
viscous,
Sartre
camouflage,
lets
himself
of this
fall head
exis
first
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Guillermine
the
mother.
For
that
itself,
the
the
Sartre,
for-itself
De Lacoste
is a perfect
viscous
wants
to
metaphor
in
appropriate
its
of the
in
in
the
entirety,
be
read
as a displacement
of that
of Poulou/Sartre,
for whom
till
time
the
reversal
of her
in their
an
remarriage,
and
relationship,
which
event
because
a sudden
caused
of which
Poulou
developed
ety
engulfment
the
by
or
viscous
the
by
mother
rise
gives
to
in
the
amorous
act
that
the
for-itself
(and
engulfment
the
here
father)
well
as the
denial
mother
becomes
of the
salient
point
absence
or the
of castration
anxiety
and
The anxiety of
by the
of
weakness
as
mother,
father.34
Towards
The
by the
(caused
the
706).
have
Sartre)
of the
the Symbolic
Lacanian
of the
interpretation
three
phobias
her
look
alienating
anymore;
makes
le trouble,
him
that
realise
desire
that
for
the
he
is not
mother
everything
makes
him
(Poulou/Sartre),
become
unbearable,
the
and
lure
that
of the
relationship
a short
by
circuit
to the
mother
has
developed
he
these
elements
are
in the
imaginary,
but
according
to
has
Lacan,
his world
and
to progress
towards
the
symbolic.
L'Etre
-30
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A Lacanian
Elucidation
of Sartre
the
replaced
of the
other.
desire
But
to appropriate
masochism
or
the
consciousness
sadism
have
not
or the
completely
body
disap
The loss of the neurotic's anxiety and of the phobias that accom
pany it, is, according to Lacan, the sign that he is on his way towards
the
we
Indeed,
symbolic.36
L'Etre
et le Nant
only
in Sartre's
find
few
very
works
after
elements
phobic
the
that
of
period
the
protect
anxiety
when
he
Carnets
by the
discovers
de la
engulfing
that
drle
de guerre
such
mother),
Marcelle
is pregnant.
that
Sartre
as Mathieu's
But
we
to write
began
he
that
romanesques,
Le
wrote
Sursis
and
reaction
know
from
the
de Rai
L'Age
provided in the
L'Etre
et le Nant
et le Nant.
Sartre
However,
dans
l'me,
pour
une
to
young
Goetz
accuses
volume
can
be
of Les
at the
same
of attitude
in
seen
as
the
tender
but
between
the
Mort
Cahiers
female
place
body
passionate,
Pinette
takes
clerk
La
Chemins,
time
towards
the
love
scene
sexism),
- which
moreover
without
woman
third
1948,
his change
as
there,
not
(though
the
1947
and
morale,
is noticeable
wrote
in
only
and
the
in a field
of
of being
a 'bag
of excrement',
that
we
find
backwash of the phobia which Sartre had, for a long time, of the
female body - the metonymy of his fear of the phallic mother.
neurosis
Sartre's
being
similar
to
that
of
little
Hans,
Lacan's
Sartre
Hans,
Pacaly
asserts,
of references
to
took
and
all
another
backs
of Sartre's
up
path
her
than
that
assertion
(auto)biographical
of castration.
through
a great number
- references
works
-31
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Guillermine
that
she
in the
summarises
-
conclusion
mother
the
and
tification.
the
fact
she
But,
form
of a psychoanalytic
Sartre's
identification
alienation
deep
of castration.
that
of
does
that
notice
not
Thus,
De Lacoste
he suffered
that
to
according
he
the
took
phallic
of this
because
another
Sartre's
her,
in her
narrative
with
iden
than
path
or
alienation
his
other
but
ation/neurosis,
alienation
deep
continued
morbide
taken
path
was
was
by Sartre
I suggest
the
here,
result
of
unlike
that,
an
that
maintenant,
L'Espoir
devoid
of alien
Hans,
whose
analysis,
Sartre
little
uncompleted
to
not
certainly
is to
some
say
forty
du
an
years),
accept
lack
in
her
and
in
himself,
and
come
to
which
he
terms
with
his
wrote
in paral
alienation/neurosis.
It is especially
lel
from
1952
undertaken
marise
in Les Mots
and
we
can
that
on,
by Sartre.
Lacan's
But
in L'Idiot,
the
perceive
it is necessary,
of
work
first, for us
sublimation
briefly
to
sum
of sublimation.
theory
Sublimation
to Lacan
according
One of the principal dogmas of Freud, and of Lacan (in his fourth
Sminaire), is that we must not only go beyond the 'primitive, imag
inary relation' to the mother (the object relation), but that the redis
covery of this eminently satisfying object is impossible (RO, 214).
However,
before
his
seventh
Lacan
Sminaire,
read
Heidegger's
- Das
- in which he
essay on the Thing
Ding
distinguishes between
das Ding, with its almost mystical aspect, and a simple object. Lacan
was extremely influenced by this distinction. He hinges his theory of
sublimation
in the
incline
on
it, noting
of the
that
difference
the
problem
between
'the
of sublimation
object
is situated
structured
by the
leaves
open
the
door
to sublimation
and
which
offers
the
sibility of the recovery of the (lost) object (EP, 102, 109, 125).
pos
He
-32
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transforms Heidegger's
for him
becomes
the
the
spectrum
Maternal
to the
of Sartre
Thing
horrifying
Thing
at the
evidently
of La
other
or the
Nause,
end
of
engulfing
of the
aspect
enchanted
and
Thing
around
circle
he
'lacanises'
it which
it: it is veiled,
us
separates
from
It.
there
We
is
must
going
Simultaneously
to
Freud,
he
(as
to
purports
always
have done), and going beyond him, he insists that the Thing is
totally imbricated in the libidinal economy. Sublimation
only it
offers the felicitous possibility that the libido's tendency always to
seek
satisfaction
be
This
fulfilled.
does
tendency
not
include
the
affects, das Ding being beyond affectivity.It is in the Triebe (the dri
ves) that are characterised by what Lacan (here following Freud) calls
their fliissigkeit - that is their plasticity or transformability _ that we
can
catch
a glimpse
of das
For,
Ding.
to
according
das
Lacan,
Ding
must be there from the beginning (EP, 108, 114). He defines subli
mation succinctly and playfully as that which raises 'the object to the
dignity [Dingnity] of the Thing' _ thus bringing to the Trieb a satis
faction different from its aim (EP, 133).
At the time of its rediscovery, the (lost) object is represented by
'Autre Chose' (Something Else). This 'Autre Chose' has a primordial
role,
since
it defines
the
human
and
maintains
its presence,
or as Lacan
de la famille:
at sublimation
In Les Mots and L'Idiot de la famille, Sartre is at the point where his
relation
mother
to the
et le Nant
have
by the mother. He
Nause.
the
From
mother
has
made
him
helped
to
a turn-about.
get
out
has outstripped
now
on,
he
who
is going
is on
to
his way
become
La
of the
Nause
and
very
L'Etre
of engulfment
anxiety
a new
relation
of La
with
Maternal
positive
in the
object
relation,
and
is, as Lacan
says,
'at
the
heart
of the
Sartre
who
was
for a long
time
anguished
by the
lure
of his
object relation with his mother, and has finally gone beyond this
-33
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Guillermine
must
anxiety,
now
a new
under
retrace
his
More
light.
De Lacoste
to
steps
find
he
specifically,
this
must
relation
find
but
again,
the
in
Thing
the
the
degraded
iot which
well
discusses
as
good
the
that
corporeal
for so
long.38
Caroline
of
sections
with
mothering
he
The
had
found
whole
Flaubert's
Les
Mots
which
of Volume
an
I of L'Id
of Gustave,
mothering
comment
in fact
are
Poulou,
bad
devalorised
repugnant,
section
on
effort
as
Anne-Marie's
of revalorisation
relationship.
extols
the
notion
of flesh,
like
Merleau-Ponty,
choanalysis
mother
must
on
a philosophy
become
of the
in order
flesh
to
Sartre
flesh.39
'feed,
writes
that
caress
nurture,
the
the
flesh
of her flesh', thus instituting between her and the child a libidinal
even
erotic
relationship.40
Since this relationship did not exist between Caroline and Gus
Sartre
tave,
concludes
that
Gustave
was
not
by his
loved
mother
and
that this caused his future problems of insertion in the world. But in
his interview on L'Idiot with Contat and Rybalka, Sartre affirms
he
what
had
Flaubert,
insinuated
already
his
mother
had
in
sufficient
Les
that
Mots,
unlike
for him
tenderness
to
Caroline
be
able
to
and
his
ian
aura
to
gesture
I shall,
it through
mothering.
able
his
concerning
that
putting
between
opposition
affirmation
at this
the
litmus
to
According
meet
her
- and
to adapt
the
own,
two
test
assess
have
such
validity
Winnicott's
the
'good
omnipotence
to it, thus
the
of D.W.
Winnicott,
infant's
self,
strong
point,
of mothering,
kinds
the
of his
stand
by
own
theory
of
mother'
enough
in
revealed
allowing
a Winnicott
infant's
is
a spontaneous
True
self to be
born. But the 'not good enough mother' is not able to do this. She
substitutes
her
to become
a False
own
gesture,
Winnicott's
Following
the
forcing
infant
to
be
compliant,
and
self.41
criteria,
Sartre's
that
theorising
Caroline's
tenderness
in
the
interview
on
L'Idiot
seems
to
have
been
an
attempt, on his part, to hide from his two bibliographers (as if they
did not know! ) the vicissitudes of his relationship with his mother,
and
thus
her
'not
good
enough
mothering.'
In
Les
Mots,
we
learn
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A Lacanian
Elucidation
of Sartre
constant role-playing (the essence of the False self), for which he was
prompted by both Anne-Marie and Karl; and of course his non-sepa
ration from Anne-Marie, which became his phantasy of the phallic
mother, (with its non-acceptance of lack in the mother and in him
Sartre
self).
would
later
in L'Espoir
succeed,
to rid him
maintenant,
self of this phantasy, and thus to transform his maternal ideal object
into the Symbolic Thing. But in doing this, he will minimise the role
of the father, a possibility which, it seems, Lacan leaves open in his
theory of sublimation.
In
is trying
Sartre
L'Idiot,
to formulate
a notion
of the
flesh
that
libidinal
of
tendency
the
he betrays
but
economy,
what
remains
when
relation,
object
he
of the
incestuous
that
Caroline
writes
Flaubert should have 'loved [her son] violently' (IF, 396). However,
his open exploration of the ramifications of the identification of the
son to the maternal phallus - with his desire for incest and his refusal
to
of the
metaphor
on
in
lack
accept
the
his
This
himself
means
by
is a continuation
is
metaphor
de la famille,
L'Idiot
in
and
mother-goddess,
subject.
throughout
mother
at
repeated
always
of
a new
of his self-analysis
least
seven
the
concerning
times
relationship
respective
When
the
Sartre
stand
oline
be
in the
of this
arms
desire
by the
of young
presence
his
text
for his
about
be
to
full mean
the
pleasure
Car
that
The
704).
(IF,
Gustave,
young
mother
'demands
passivity
of
aspects
by the
for example,
liked,
in Sartre's
evident
negative
represented
have
of a mother-goddess'
mother,
would
the
only
because
becomes
organised
Gustave,
phallic
Gustave
a mother-goddess
recreated
soires
out.
with
the
with
relationship
goddess,
ing
is dealing
'Garon'
and
his
lib
dildos
wearing
accord
expresses,
which
signifiers
Sartre
to
uses
describe
Gustave's
desire:
'vir
Anne-Marie.
But
on
this
question
what
the
positive
dence
and
traits
had
of a mother-goddess?
given
her
son
all
the
She
nurturing
about
Gustave's
and
a calm
self-confi
attention
neces
-35
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Guillermine
for a perfect
sary
De Lacoste
she
However,
development.
was
Sartre
also,
points
great
of self-analysis,
made
of his
a mess
life and
eventually
committed suicide.
The
tive
She
nary.
of L'Idiot
mother-goddess
maternal
traits
is far from
towards
the
articulated
the
Thing
helped
the
one
to effect,
the
myth
last
posi
imagi
his way
on
of the
of imaginary
a reactivation
Sartre
under
still in the
by Sartre
sought
to
according
such
even
is thus
Poitevin,
Maternal
Symbolic.
have
de let famille,
Le
But
by Lacan,
must
tainly
of Madame
neurotic
cer
elements
a new
time,
config
uration of his world, and thus have led him towards the possibility of
an authentic
sublimation.
maintenant
L'Espoir
a successful
maintenant:
L'Espoir
is Sartre's
second
about
emotion
and
desire.
that
the
human
Sartre
latter
between
tells
the
him,
'born
can
of the
form
us
also,
and
members
same
1963)
because
brother)
born
an
idea
with
the
totem.
clan
that
mother
rela
family
other.44
to
preposterous
of an
intimate
of years
brothers
by the
represented
an incestuous
the
each
Thousands
were
and
more
between
of one
seems
that
at first glance),
of the
woman,
are
no
bond
for him
implied
they
of humans
Levy
the
the
brought
for him,
of 'fraternity'
bonds
to Benny
to
mother
the
and
liberation
it is because
transform
death, in 1969,
great
in
first relationship
presents
(and
sister
(or
contrary,
beings
is the
tionship
the
son
On
Mots
to
attempt
Mancy's
Sartre:
in Les
(admitted
mother
in
change
sublimation
Sartre
ago,
because
totem',
bond
they
were
he
adds
and
that this mother might as well have been a totemic bird (having in
fact all the characteristics of the Lacanian symbolic) (EM, 59). The
totem was thus at the basis of a 'profound reality' (fraternity) and by
the same token of the interdiction of incest (EM, 58).4S
Sartre could not have found a more appropriate signifier than that
of the
in order
totem,
Formations
to attain
de l'inconscient,
'the
the
Thing.
totem
For,
is the
as Lacan
all-purpose
writes
in Les
signifier,
the
key signifier, that according to which everything falls into its right
place, and principally the subject; because the subject finds in the sig
nifier
what
he
is, and
it is in the
name
scribed is ordained.'46
of the
totem
that
what
is pro
-36
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A Lacanian
Elucidation
of Sartre
Critics might say that Sartre (and I), have not understood Freud
for
it is clear
the
though,
that
for
certain
only
Freud
the
well
fact,
totem
is
the
documented
father.
Actually
in
Freud
by
Totem
and Taboo, is that for primitive peoples the totem is a bird or an ani
mal, and the source of the interdiction of incest (and of endogamy).
The killing of the hither of the primal horde by the sons, the subse
of fraternity
discovery
quent
the
by
and
brothers,
the
notion
that
the totem is a substitute for the father, all this is pure theorising on
Freud's
part,
that
theorising
the
result
the
mother
of his
as
because
fraternity
and
his
are
they
his
own
father.47
that
suggestion
of one
born
in the
understood
context
of
with
problems
totem
be
should
Sartre's
the
notion
brothers
- therefore
mother
of
discover
foregoing
But
are
they
an
ingenious
to
counterpart
Freud's
theoris
ing, being as they are the ultimate objective of the Lacanian path of
sublimation which he followed.
Lacan's
In
Sartre.
the
first place,
Sartre
did
in
find
the
'what
totem
he
is.'
And
when
Le
Jean
and
Bitoux
Gilles
Barbedette
of
Le
Gai
and
to the way
the
Secondly,
name
the
who
mother
while
itive
of the
the
matriarchal
I see
has
answered:
'This
well
corresponds
myself.'49
forbidden
became
incest
in quite
totem,
is the
father
he
of Mathieu,
in which
who
totem,
and
a very
small
societies.50
a special
is at the
akin
role,
Sartre
was
for
crystallised
manner.
heart
to the
thus
For
of the
one
able
he
to
Sartre
in
it is the
here,
symbolic,
had
trace
in prim
back
his
steps, successfully this time, and to find das Ding in the Trieb of the
- but liberated of
object relation, with its important corporeal aspect
his desire for incestuous fusion. The new mother is not phallic any
more
but
Levy
in
mothering,
an
offhand
not
but
personal
manner,
that
the
universal.
totemic
could
He
mother
has
thus
tell
'the
sex
which engenders [humans], the breasts which feed [them], the back
which carries [them]' (EM, 59). With this notion of the matriciel,
Sartre
gives
the
mothering
or nurturing
mother,
the
one
who
engen
ders her child, gives birth to him/her, feeds him/her and carries
him/her,
an essential
role
in society.51
-37
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De Lacoste
Guillermine
Sartre
uality,
of the
Sartre
time,
has
certainly
nor
no
look.
more
the
has
Colombel
Jeanette
transformed
of le trouble
phobias
look
of L'Etre
or feminine
shown
how,
et le Nant
sex
at
that
by speaking
of 'the original reciprocity of the first look that the baby gives
look, which had
his/her mother'(JPS: TD, 482). Anne-Marie's
alienated and frozen Poulou at the time of his altercation with
Mancy, is now forgotten and gives way to another look, which pre
ceded it, the firstlook Poulou gave her (which is part of the Triebe),
and which was immediately reciprocated.52 It is this reciprocity that
can
become
Sartre
the
basis
of a true
in this
that
hopes
human
community.53
one
each
community
will
have
the
will
to
share everything that s/he has 'that is to say, what I have is yours,
what you have is mine, and if I am in need you give to me, and if
you are in need I give to you' (EM, 61). Sartre is here close to Freud
who, according to Lacan, uses, concerning the first foundations of
the
the
Thing,
word
- close
Nebenmensch
to
the
of the
'apotheosis
was
terms
with
mother.
able
But
Lacanian
since
and
its
to
interesting
naire,
traced
likely
followed:
of the
totem,
took
of
that
the
Sartre
Thing,
to
was
her
this
of the
thus
the
alternative
mother
is 'at
Universal
the
heart
its
to
phallic
'typical'
law
of
seventh
that
sublimate
of human
is
Smi
Sartre
most
signifier
primordial
Mother.
the
It
destination.
in his
the
the
of the
with
itinerary
to effectively
of
to
that
who,
Through
able
role
to
a different
himself
of sublimation.
him
complex,
reached
it is Lacan
path
come
and
self-analysis
bound
long
Oedipus
he
vectors
that
had
a different
the
castration,
attribute
Maternal
that
he
note
a successful
complete
neurosis
resolution
father
and
to
the
the
Like
mother
Lacan's
endeavors'
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A Lacanian
Elucidation
of Sartre
Notes
Contt and Michel Rybalka, 'Interview with Jean-Paul Sartre on 'The
of the Family', in Life/Situations: Essays written and spoken by Jean-Paul
Sartre, New York: Pantheon Books, 1977 p. 122. Originally published in Le
Monde, 14 May 1971. Sartre might have said: I hide like all neurotics. For, as
1. Michel
Idiot
Lacan
simulate
2.
1990 p. 48.
Judith Buder, Gender Trouble, New York: Roudedge,
Josette Pacaly, Sartre au miroir: une lecture psychanalytique de ses biographies,
Paris: Klinksieck, 1980 p. 29 [hereafter SM]. Pacaly notes that by 'passage
l'acte,' she is referring to what J. Laplanche and J.B. Pontalis have called 'acting
out' with its impulsive character and its rupture with the way in which the subject
usually acts (translation mine).
3. This theme runs throughout the book.
4.
Contat
since
remarriage,
and which
were
boiling
in his
to escape.
'Phallotexte
Doubrovski,
unconscious,
7.
in Autobi
et gynotexte
dans La Nause'
ographiques: de Corneille Sartre, Paris: PUF, 1998 p. 96. Translation mine.
in Between Existentialism and
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 'The Itinerary of a Thought',
Marxism, new York: Pantheon Books, 1974, Situations VIII and Situations IX,
Paris: Gallimard, 1972 pp. 41-42. [Hereafter IT]
8.
Jean-Paul
6. Serge
Sartre, L'Etre
et le Nant,
Paris: Gallimard,
1943
p. 659.
[Hereafter
EN]
9.
10.
pp. 81
82).
11.
According to Douglas Collins, Sartre's biographical works were mirrors for him.
They all sent him back his inverted image: Sartre described himself by describing
his opposite. See Douglas
Collins, Sartre as Biographer, Cambridge, MA: Har
vard University Press, 1980 p. 185. [Hereafter SB]. But this may be true only in
the case of Flaubert, whom Sartre describes throughout L'Idiot as psychologically
39
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Guillermine
De Lacoste
and sexually passive, while he sees himself as entirely active. The Baudelaire of
Baudelaire is, on the contrary, as Pacaly has shown, the exact image of Sartre,
especially through his relation to the phallic mother (SM, 201-205).
12.
I shall discuss in this essay how Sartre will go through what Lacan calls an 'atypi
complex' and will come to terms with his neurosis by means of a
which will be finalised in L'Espoir maintenant.
cal Oedipus
sublimation
13.
14.
been quite gradual, taking more than twenty years, with some regressions.
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Freud Scenario, Chicago:
Press,
University of Chicago
1994. See J.-B. Pontalis's preface. [Hereafter FS]
In the Sartre-Lacan session of the GES 2001 colloquium,
Paul-Laurent Assoun
and Wilfried Ver Eecke both spoke about this influence, which is most interesting
because it shows Sartre's creativity. Assoun showed how Lacan adopted in toto
Sartre's notion of the look until Sminaire XI in which he frees himself from
Sartre by introducing
explained how Lacan
I do not imply here that it is Lacan who gave Sartre the term or the idea of com
It is an idea about which Sartre wrote as early as 1932 in his notes on
He called it at that time 'a preconceptual
faculty' (Cf. Rhiannon
prehension.
La Nause.
Thanks
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A Lacanian
Elucidation
of Sartre
years prior to the New Left Review interview, to oppose them to each other. Cf.
on this subject 'Entretien avec Jacques Lacan,' Les Lettres Franaises, 05 Decem
ber 1966:
Gilles
19.
20.
Laponge,
rpond,'
Jacques-Alain Miller, (ed.) Jacques Lacan, Sminaire VII, L'Ethique de la psych
analyse, Paris: Le Seuil, 1986 p. 133. Translation mine. (Hereafter EP).
Miller, (ed.) Jacques Lacan, Sminaire TV, La Relation d'objet,
Jacques-Alain
1956-57 Paris: Le Seuil, 1994 p. 223) [Hereafter RO]. Unlike Freud, Lacan sees
little difference between the way girls and boys go through the Oedipus complex.
But typically, considering the time he was writing, his language is not gender
21.
inclusive. When dealing with his theories, I have therefore followed his style.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mots, Paris: Gallimard, Livre de poche, 1964 pp. 38-39.
[Hereafter M], Jean-Franois
Louette, 'Ecrire l'universel singulier,' in Michel
Contt, (ed.) Comment et pourquoi Sartre a crit Les Mots, Paris: PUF, 1997 p.
394. [Hereafter CPSEM],
(SM, 79). In the bath story in which Anne-Marie tells
the story Les Fes to Poulou as she is scrubbing him, Sartre implies Poulou's and
his mother's trouble in significant phrases such as: 'I only had eyes for Anne
Marie
... I only had ears for her voice trouble by servitude' and 'the whole time
she was speaking, we were alone and clandestine, far from men, from gods and
from priests, two doves in the woods' (M, 38-39). Translation mine. Le trouble
(along with its cognates troubl and troublant) is an important word in this essay.
Yet there is no exact or even approximate word in English for it. Hazel Barnes
translates le trouble literally as 'trouble,' which it absolutely is not - unless one is a
Catharist.
22.
23.
24.
The
25.
Jean-Paul
his paternal grandmother whom he went to see every Sunday with his grandfather.
Thing of La Nause which is here a metaphor of the devouring mother
is evidently at the other end of the spectrum of the Maternal Thing of Lacan's
symbolic.
26.
27.
Sartre, La
Nause,
Paris:
Gallimard,
1938
p. 32.
Translation
mine.
[Hereafter N],
This story takes place in the imaginary since, first, the pour-soi is nothingness,
an analogon of the real object,
that is to say what Sartre called in L'Imaginaire
second, the dream of the for-itself is illusory, that is to say imaginary. Cf. J.P.
Paris: Gallimard, 1940 p. 45 and IT, 46.
Sartre, L'Imaginaire,
Sartre notes that the culpability thus inflicted is not that of having committed
precise fault, but that of having 'fallen into the world, in the midst of things.'
-41
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De Lacoste
Guillermine
28.
Alain
29.
[Hereafter LS].
Much later, reminiscing
Buisine,
Laideurs
de Sartre, Lille:
Presses
Universitaires
de Lille,
1986.
30.
31.
33.
34.
H.
Bauer,
Paris: Gallimard,
Bibliothque
de La Pliade,
1981
p. XIV.
[Hereafter OR]
Simone de Beauvoir, La Forte de l'Age, Paris: Gallimard, 1960 pp. 67-69. Cf. on
this subject Guillermine de Leoste, 'The Transformation of the Notion of Trans
Pact was Based', in Simone de Beauvoir
parency on which the Beauvoir/Sartre
Studies, vol. 15,1998-1999
p. 50.
According to Alphonse de Waelhens and Wilfried Ver Eecke, castration by the
mother indicates foreclosure of the name of the father and signals a psychosis.
For Sartre, it fortunately signals only a neurosis, most probably because, during
his childhood,
his grandfather had partly taken over the father's role. Cf.
Alphonse de Waelhens and Wilfried Ver Eecke, Phenomenology and Lacan on
Schizophrenia, after the Decade of the Brain, Leuven: Leuven University Press,
35.
2001 p. 156.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Cahiers pour une morale, Paris: Gallimard, 1983. Hazel Barnes
writes in her 'Sartre's War Diaries: Prelude and Postscript,' that in fact Sartre
himself acknowledged
that he was a Pygmalion with women: 'He regarded each
woman as raw material to be moulded into a form in which he, as creator, might
find his image in the work he had created.' Cf. William McBride, (ed.) Sartre's
Life, Times and Visions du Monde, New York: Garland, 1997 p. 106. [Hereafter
36.
SLVTM],
Lacan writes in his fourth Sminaire
plex (and
37.
38.
anxiety.
He is also, like little Hans,
-42
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A Lacaman
Elucidation
of Sartre
Barnes
and Annette
Sartre following
infancy.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
Lacan
Le Visible et l'invisible,
as beginning
Paris: Gallimard,
1964
during
p. 321.
[Hereafter VI],
Jean-Paul Sartre, L'Idiot de la famille, Paris: Gallimard, 1988, Nouvelle dition
revue et complte, p. 57. Translation mine [Hereafter IF], Note that the pages
of this new edition do not coincide with those of the 1971 edition. According to
Merleau-Ponty, the notion of flesh implies a certain erotic element. (Cf. VI, 321).
I agree completely with Debra Bergoffen, according to whom the term erotic
should not be limited to its androcentric meaning. The erotic relationship of the
child with its mother is very different from the erotic relationship between two
lovers, and the caresses of each erotic are also different. Bergoffen writes that the
mother-child relationship reveals to each of them 'the intimacy of their flesh'
206).
(BSBGPEG,
D. W. Winnicott,
the manner in which this influence might have taken place, and
greatly appreciate any comments from the reader of this article to that
effect. I surmise that, if influence there was, it was most likely through R. D.
Laing, a student of Winnicott, whom Sartre knew well (Cf. Sartre's letter to R.
track down
would
D. Laing, which Laing and D. G. Cooper used as a preface to their book, Reason
and Violence, New York: Vintage, 1964 p. 6).
of Totem and Taboo who
Is this metaphor an allusion to the mother-goddesses
were all-powerful - without any lack - and who often had incestuous relation
ships with their sons?
Jean-Paul Sartre and Benny Lvy, L'Espoir maintenant. Les Entretiens de 1980,
Paris: Verdier, Lagrasse, 1991 p. 57. Translations mine. [Hereafter EM]. Both
William McBride and Elonor Kuykendall have objected to Sartre's use of the
to
term 'fraternity' because of its limiting and sexist connotation.
According
McBride, it limits Sartre in his search for 'the community of free human beings,
and Hope in Light of
(Cf. 'Abandonment
freely entered into and maintained.'
Sartre's Last Words,' in SLTVM,
333). According to Kuykendall, Sartre's linking
of 'fraternity' to the 'matriciel' implies 'the brothers' non-reciprocal dependence
and Fraternity,' SLTVM,
upon the mother's nurturance' ('Sartre on Violence
- with which I agree - in my text, I
293). In order to include these objections
-43
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Guillermine
De Lacoste
46.
47.
48.
to the canonic Lacan, Sartre would thus seem to be here purely in the
imaginary, since the father has almost no role, and since the return to the matri
archy is a utopia. However, this is definitely not so, as we shall see shortly.
Jacques-Alain Miller, (ed.) Jacques Lacan, Sminaire V, Les Formations de l'incon
According
Jean-Paul
l'espoir,'
49.
50.
51.
Psychoanalysts usually speak of the first look of the mother at her child. Sartre has
chosen to invert the situation for reasons given above.
53.
Alain Buisine
still sees Sartre as the narcissistic neurotic that he was for a long time, and ignores
the sublimation effected by Sartre, during the course of his long self-analysis,
which transformed his narcissistic desire for the mother (or for her infinitely
look) into a desire for true reciprocity between people.
I wish to thank here Dominique
Stassart, Bill McBride and Wilfried Ver Eecke,
whose remarks on an early reading of this text were most helpful.
benevolent
54.
-44
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