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Lacan'sLetter
D. Chaitin
Gilbert
ASt
R(S . .. S')S - S(-)s; fa S - S(+)s.
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996 GILBERT D. CHAITIN
space betweenthetransfer-
storyis thusplayedout in thedifferential
enceof thenarrators and thetransference betweenan
ofthenarrative,
enterprise captureand thedisplacement
of seductionand ofnarcissistic
of a signifier,the transferralof a text.... (137)
What interestsme in this repeated juxtaposition of the two trans-
ferences is the possibilityof deriving from it a method of de-
scribingthe relationbetween signifiersand subjectsin reading, or
at least in narration,a method thatwould emerge fromthe articu-
lation of psychoanalysisand literature.In a shortessay,I cannot of
course hope to do justice to Freud, Lacan, or Felman, let alone
define the method I am seeking.What I would like to do is to open
a space for such a definitionby inquiring into the relations be-
tween rhetoricand transferenceas theyare formulatedin several
of Lacan's texts.2
In learning to deal with the unconscious, one is trained to be-
ware of gaps, omissions,and absences, and there are two such la-
cunae in Felman's text.The firstis her omissionof any mentionof
Lacan's algorithms.She does emphasize the "rhetoricalfunction"
as the "movementand energy of displacement;" and her analysis
of James's storydoes include a discussionof the phallic metaphors
of helm, mast and screw (169-179), a discussionwhich culminates
in the assertionthat"the turningscrewturnsout to be a functional
metaphor,the figureof a dynamicfunctioning; it is not so much the
screw itselfthat counts, as the very turningmovement of its twists
and whirls... ." (179). But thistropingon the etymologicalsignifi-
cance of tropicalitydoes nothingto disorientthe traditionalgeog-
raphy of rhetoric.Whether it be a substance or a function,the
signifiedof the metaphor is stillsimplyrepresented by the shape or
functionof its signifier.Moreover,the relationbetween metaphor
and metonymyis never specified, although the term "displace-
ment" is used extensivelyto describe the transferenceas the move-
ment from signifierto signifier,a movementwhose inertia pre-
ventsand opposes any tendencytowardmastery,towardthe fixing
of a meaning.
In "Lacan and Literature: a Case for Transference," Gallop
adopts and explains Felman's distinctionbetween a method of
reading oriented toward the fixingof meaning, here called the
"interpretation-relation,"and the mode of reading which attends
to the movementof signifiers,now called the "transference-rela-
tion" (305). Gallop refersto another passage fromthe same second
part of "The Agency of the Letter:" "psychoanalystswere fasci-
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M L N 997
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998 GILBERT D. CHAITIN
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M L N 999
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1000 GILBERT D. CHAITIN
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M L N 1001
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1002 GILBERT D. CHAITIN
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M L N 1003
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1004 GILBERT D. CHAITIN
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M L N 1005
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1006 GILBERT D. CHAITIN
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M L N 1007
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1008 GILBERT D. CHAITIN
III 213). And what other response can the analyst give without
exceeding the bounds of the analyticprocess,the rule of the game,
than to offeran interpretation,that is, to seek to bring forththe
latentsignifier(s)?
To refuse categorically to interpretunder any circumstances
would thus put an insuperable obstacle in the way of the subject's
speech, one which would not only put an end to the analyticpro-
cess, but would also undermine the short-termgoal of the subject
in analysis,its metonymicquest for being. The immediategoal of
that search is the reintegrationof the subject's historyas ego, the
historyof its specular identificationswith its objects. It is the be-
ginningof the latterprocess,the productionof the imaginaryrela-
tion between analysand and analystthroughthe operation of free
association,that marksthe onset of the transferencein the second
whose essentialrole is to close offthe
sense. This is the Verliebtheit
transferenceno sooner than it begins,by proposing the subject as
love-objectto the analystas ego-ideal, a process of seductionwhose
aim is deception, the avoidance of the unconscious truthstrivingto
be heard.
For Lacan there are two essential aspects to the transference,
just as there are at least two typesof identification,the imaginary
and the symbolic. An interpretationthat tends to reinforcethe
imaginaryinertiasof the subject willbe detrimentalto the process
of analysis;one thattends to help the subjectto verbalizehis or her
imaginaryexperience will furtherthat process. Analysisthus uses
interpretationto contributeto the fillingout of the analysand's
imaginaryhistoryby allowing her or him to symbolizethose parts
of it that had been excluded fromspeech, thathad been traumas.
This goal can only be reached, however,if the subject can recog-
nize that this imaginaryexperience was always already caught up
in an intersubjectivedialectic.
Here, finally,is the explanation of that "dialectic,"that move-
ment toward the truthof the subject,which Gallop equated with
literarity,and which, according to Lacan, early analyststhought
was contained in the unconscious meaningstheywere discovering.
Those unconscious significationsare none other than the imagi-
nary components of the non-symbolizedtraumaticexperiences.
But the dialecticis not contained in them. Rather,it consistsin the
intersubjectiverelation Lacan designates by the phrases, the un-
conscious is the discourse, the desire, of the other. The relations
described so well by Sartre in his analysisof the gaze in Beingand
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M L N 1009
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1010 GILBERT D. CHAITIN
game, without,of course, stopping it. Once the subject has played
its last card, its own loss, or disappearance; once it has recognized
its essential indeterminacy,or non-being,then it becomes possible
to change the game. The new game is one that is determined
purelyin the symbolicregisterof a true subject-to-subject relation.
Lacan often refersto it as the Oedipus complex; Freud calls it the
resolutionof the Oedipus complex. Some of its possibilitiesLacan
lists in "Position de l'inconscient"as "the exchange of signifiers,
ideals, the elementarystructuresof kinship,the metaphor of the
father as a principle of separation, an order and a norm estab-
lished to tell the subject what to do as man or woman" (Ecrits849).
In short,the dialecticof symbolicand imaginarythatis operative
in transferenceas in metaphor,produces three,not two, kinds of
relations: seduction, the fascination with the imaginary side of
meaning; the intersubjectivedialectic which links the desire for
plenitude to the strugglefor mastery;and response, the recogni-
tion of the desire of the other in speech, and the inaugurationof a
new, symbolic,relationamong subjects.
I would suggest thata Lacanian analysiswould not take place in
the space supposedly opened up between transferenceas seduc-
tion and transferralas textualrepetition.Nor is it a matterof cor-
recting a psychoanalyticinterpretationthat would master litera-
ture by attemptingto stop meaning,to arrestsignification, by "fol-
lowing the incessant slippage, the unfixable movement of the
signifyingchain" (Felman 191). Textual repetition,like transfer-
ence, willremain fruitlessunless and untilitis read as such. "When
not recognized [in the Dora case], transferenceworked as an ob-
stacle to the treatment.Once recognized,it becomes the best sup-
port of the treatment."(Se'minaire I 308). The struggleformastery,
in interpretationas elsewhere,is destined to remain in the register
of the perverse, and this regardless of whetherone fightsfor or
against it. (That is preciselywhat Felman's brilliantreading of The
Turn oftheScrewshows.)
I would propose, rather,thata Lacanian analysiscan operate in
the space that language opens up between sexualityand the rela-
tion to death; in the space of metonymyas the loss of meaning and
metaphor as the attemptto remedythatlack; between the radical
indeterminacyof the subject and the determinationthatcomes to
it fromthe Other.
What this means for narration and its participantsis that the
subject of narrationoscillatesbetween being writtenby the act of
narrationitselfand definingher or himselfin termsof the Other
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M L N 1011
NOTES
1 In fact,Freud used the word "transference"to designate one aspect of the rela-
tion between analystand patientat the end of Studieson Hysteria(301-304), that
is, as early as 1895.
2 In a second essay,"Interpretationand the Paradox of Transferencein Lacan," I
explore the possible uses of Lacan's notionsof rhetoricand transferencein lit-
erary theoryand criticism.
WORKS CITED
Aristotle.Poetics.Trans. Ingram Bywater.New York: Modern Library,1984.
Felman, Shoshana. "Turning the Screw of Interpretation."YaleFrenchStudies55/56
(1977): 94-207.
Freud, Sigmund. Fragmentofan Analysisofa Case ofHysteria.StandardEdition.Vol. 7.
London: Hogarth P, 1957.
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Gallop, Jane. "Lacan and Literature: a Case for Transference."Poetics13 (1984):
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Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits.Paris: Le Seuil, 1966.
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