Analysing Gaze in Terms of Subjective and Objective Interpretation: Sartre and Lacan

Author(s): Pallavi Sharma and Archana Barua

Source: Human Studies, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Spring 2017), pp. 61-75
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44979845
Accessed: 31-07-2023 03:29 +00:00

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Hum
DOI 1 Stud (2017)1 40:61-75
0. 1 007/s (ft) CrossMark
0746-0 1 6-9406-4 W
THEORETICAL / PHILOSOPHICAL PAPER

Analysing Gaze in Terms of Subjective and Objective

Interpretation: Sartre and Lacan

Pallavi Sharma1 • Archana Barua2

Published online: 13 July 2016

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract Considering the Hegelian master-slave dichotomy over the exchange of

the gaze , the paper focuses on the issue of vision and visibility, reinterpreted in
Sartre's phenomenological discussions in different ways. The Hegelian emphasis on
recognition finds reflection in the treatment of vision as force expressed through
visibility in Sartre and as an issue of self recognition in Lacan. Drawing the
Hegelian tag with a comparative argument between Sartre and Lacan, the paper
focuses on the different perspectives over the concept of gaze or look. It argues that
even sharing the same Hegelian legacy regarding the notion of gaze and recognition
Sartre and Lacan differs to a considerable extent in their treatment of the impact of
gaze. While emphasising more on the phenomenological-existential analysis of the
issue of individual recognition Sartre presents gaze as a strong alienating force
released from another powerful subject affecting the intersubjective power relation,
Lacan, stands on a non-reciprocal relation between seeing and seen by making a
difference between the eyes of the subject that looks at and the gaze which is on the
side of the object without having any capacity to become a subject. The paper
concentrates on these issues over a broader argument on Sartre's concept of
intersubjective gaze.

Keywords Gaze • Look • Sartre • Lacan • Shame

3 Archana Barua
archana@iitg.ernet.in

Pallavi Sharma
pallabiapril@yahoo.co.in; pallabiapril@gmail.com

1 Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, India

2 Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati,

Guwahati, India

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62 P. Sharma, A. Barua
Introduction

Conceptualising gaze as the main instigating factor behind changing intersubjective

relations, Hegel presents the world as a historic totality where such intersubjective
human relations work behind any kind of social process of change. According to
Hegel, the intersubjective dichotomy or the self-Other relation primarily hovers
around the issue of individual recognition over the exchange of gaze (Wollen 2007).
The T' consciousness or the sentiment of selfhood occurs only with a sense of
recognition against the Other. Carrying forward such concept of consciousness and
recognition, expressed in a broader context through the phrases "being-for-itself"
and "being-for-others," J.P. Sartre maintains that the "for-itself" is "for-itself only
by its denial of the "for-other". However, Sartre differs from Hegel and Lacan in
consideration of the concept of 'desire'. In the struggle of self recognition, where
Hegel considers human desire as the main concern, Sartre concentrates on
individual freedom threatened by the gaze of the Other. Like Hegel, Lacan also
considers desire as the central issue behind intersubjective recognition. For Lacan,
desire indicates lack, which is desired to fulfil and intersubjective relations are
determined by this lack. Touching on these basic issues, the paper analyses Sartre's
interpretation of the impact of gaze in intersubjective relations bringing in its
differences from Lacan' s interpretation.

The Other Comprehended in Visibility (being looked-at )

J. P. Sartre is considered to be the most visually oriented philosopher of his century

(Brosman 1987). It is almost impossible to think of the shift in the notion of vision
from traditional to modern leading to the post modern debate without considering
Sartre's concept of the Ļgaze' Vision, considered as a source of higher knowledge
and reasoning, has occupied a significant role in philosophy from the period of
Greek philosophy itself. However, Sartre introduces another possible phase of
vision emphasising on visibility. In Being and Nothingness rather than represen-
tation Sartre presents vision as a 'force' expressed through look or gaze exercised in
intersubjective human situations. While analysing intersubjectivity in a newer way,
Sartre introduces the Other through the characteristic of the look. The Other,
according to Sartre, is always apprehended as a look and one's status before the
Other remains as being looked-at. Through the notion of visibility expressed as a
force, Sartre presents the Other as a subject, capable of affecting the very structure
of the self. Sartre writes, ".. the realisation of the powerful upsurge of the Other
through his look makes it clear that Other is no way given as an object among other
objects. The Other's identity is the look-looking " (1992 [1943]: 359). Where the
earlier philosophers discussing the problem of the Other maintain a sort of
indifference regarding the nature of the Other, Sartre prefers to highlight on its
negative characteristics. According to Sartre, the Other is that which interrupts one's
lived experiences and affects the very structure of the self. One comes to be aware
of the existence of the Other through the experience of being looked-at and this is

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Analysing Gaze in Terms of Subjective and Objective... 63

what defined as the essential structure of one's "being-for-others," the third

essential mode of being (Sartre 1992 [1943]: 345).
Referring to Sartre, Kenaan (2000) and Brosman (1987) emphasise on the
constitutive role of the look or gaze which can give a different orientation to the
lived situation through the construction of newer meaning and identity (e.g., in the
social and political spheres). In this sense, vision no more remains limited to the
traditional understanding as receptive medium but thematised as one of the
formative components of that situation (Kenaan 2000: 195). More than a
representation, vision considered through the look is based on the notion of force.
This shifting notion of vision presented by Sartre is said to be an influence of Hegel
and a counter to the Cartesian interpretation of the visual. Descartes allows no scope
for judgment or interpretation in visual experience and affirms only the direct visual
appearance. With this emphasis on immediate visual experience Descartes also
shows resistance to the experience of other person as person, since he cannot be
grasped in direct experience. According to Descartes, our experience of another
person (as a person) necessarily takes the form of an interpretational construction as
it appears in a second order perception (Kenaan 2000: 200). Hence, the other person
is excluded from the direct visual field and made an object of second order
speculation, inference, or interpretation. A contradictory view to this argument and
a reply to some of the confusions of Descartes are found in the interpretation of the
'visual' in Sartre's philosophy. Sartre emphasises on the failure of the epistemo-
logica! approach towards intersubjectivity from Descartes to Husserl and advances
his argument in an ontological ground where the Other need not be targeted to know
but experienced as a self-evident existence in direct encounter. This direct encounter
takes place through the gaze or look of the Other. The evident presence of the Other
encountered in the gaze is crucial for Sartre in the context of a discussion of "being-
for-others". Here Kenaan (2000) notes,

... for Sartre, the philosophical need to prove or demonstrate the existence of
the other person is indicative of (1) a blindness regarding the fundamental and
indubitable presence of other human subjects and (2) a misunderstanding of
how this presence manifests itself, i.e., of how to find the evidence of this
presence. (2000: 201)

As already mentioned, in analysing gaze instead of vision Sartre concentrates

more on visibility. Like Descartes, Sartre also claims that the perception of the other
person cannot disclose to us the Other as a subject and hence he does not consider
vision as a sufficient ground for intersubjectivity. Emphasising on the fact of being
looked-at before the Other, Sartre holds that it is not through vision, but through our
'visibility' that we encounter the other person in his subjectivity as a look. It
expresses that no perception of the Other can be limited to mere optics since the
Other is not a given object but a freedom having the capacity to magnetise around
him the field of perception.
In order to express the powerful capacity of the Other's freedom, Sartre takes
help of the metaphoric sense of the term look going beyond of its literal meaning.
We can see a transition from the unconscious to the conscious again back to the
unconscious things in Sartre's philosophy while he refers to the subject bearing the

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64 P. Sharma, A. Barua
look. In his early writings he uses the term look as a metaphor in order to express the
threat of something indeterminate. Here, without relating it to any concrete person
or to the direct look of the eyes, Sartre considers anything threatening as a look.
According to him, though every look refers to something sensible in the perceptible
field, it does not refer to any determined form. It is not that two real eyes have to be
there to arouse the feeling of being looked-at. He claims the possibility of look
anywhere. The rustling of branches, the sound of the footstep followed by silence, a
slight opening of a shutter, or a light movement of the curtain- all represent possible
instances of the look as defined by Sartre. It is not that behind the curtain or
branches there is someone really gazing at. Rather, they themselves represent eyes.
At hearing the footsteps behind, before the apprehension that there is someone there,
what one realises is that he is vulnerable. It may be mentioned here that though gaze
is said to have broader applications than look , Sartre is mostly found using look and
gaze interchangeably. Without relating it to any other subject carrying it, gaze is
also sometimes articulated as the indeterminate causes of vulnerability like the
sound of footstep, the rustling of leaves or something like an unseen stranger that
threatens.

Hence, any reference to the look defined by Sartre does not necessarily refer to
other people; rather it implies one's vulnerability before the Other. Anything that
makes one vulnerable in his original position may be defined as a look
(1992 [1943]: 346f.). The threat of the look is such that without even seeing
anyone concrete one experiences the look arresting all possibilities. This structure
implies a type of slavery, a permanent danger that makes one feel Other's freedom.
The Other's look may appear from anywhere, from behind, or from above, as
mentioned in Erostratus (1948) (Brosman 1987). Sartre, thus, defines look as
objectifying or alienating in nature which makes one conscious of oneself in a
negative sense. It negates the capacity to freely interpret oneself and one's freedom
is enslaved by the freedom of the Other.

Gaze in Lacan

While discussing the metaphoric interpretation of look by Sartre, a significant

reference can be made to Lacan' s interpretation of the gaze. The indeterminateness
of the gaze or look, advanced by Sartre, finds expression in Lacan with some
different orientation. Lacan' s account of gaze is similar to Sartre's early account of
the same where Sartre relates it to some objects like footstep, rustling branches etc.
in his initial account Lacan also relates gaze to something indeterminate like Sartre.
Lacan says, "The gaze is not located just at the level of the eyes. The eyes may very
well not appear, they may be masked. The gaze is not necessarily the face of our
fellow being, it could just as easily be the window behind which we assume he is
lying in wait for us. It is an x, the object when faced with which the subject becomes
object" (1991: 220). More than visual it has some aural impact.
Lacan does not establish the unbearably strong Other subject through the concept
of gaze like Sartre. Sartre's account of gaze is such that it can freeze a person that
moment itself without leaving any opportunity to think of any calculation for

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Analysing Gaze in Terms of Subjective and Objective... 65

recovery at least for some moment. The phenomenological analysis of conscious-

ness is to be noticed in his discussion. The force of the gaze blocks the spontaneity
of the pre-reflective consciousness arresting one's essential freedom. Lacan' s
analysis bears the impact of his structuralist analysis as he tries to explain the
experience of being seen or gazed through the symbolic interpretation, making one
grasp it as a kind of a game, a mathematical puzzle were from one can escape
through some rule following. Explaining gaze his puts forward the example,

We are at war. I am moving forward over a plain, and I assume myself to be

under a gaze lying in wait for me. If I am assuming that, it is not so much that I
am afraid of some sign of my enemy, some attack, because as soon as that
happens the situation becomes more relaxed and I know who I am dealing
with. What matters the most to me is knowing what the other imagines, what
the other detects of these intentions of mine, I who am moving forward,
because I must screen my movements from him. It is a matter of ruse.
The dialectic of the gaze is maintained on this plane. What counts is not that
the other sees where I am, but that he sees where I am going, that is to say,
quite precisely, that he sees where I am not. In every analysis of the
intersubjective relation, what is essential is not what is there, what is seen.
What structures it is what is not there.

The theory of games, as it is called, is a fundamental method for the study of

this relation. Simply because it is a mathematical theory, we are already on the
symbolic plane. However simply you define the field of an intersubjectivity,
its analysis always requires a certain number of numerical givens, which, as
such, are symbolic. (1991: 224)

As already discussed, Sartre emphasises on the fact of visibility while presenting the
phenomenological account of the Other through the gaze. When one experiences
being looked-at, it is a total ontological experience without any possibility of
knowing the Other or analysing the situation epistemologically. Sartre's phe-
nomenological ontology differs from his predecessors in this very respect and hence
bears some uniqueness.
In Sartre through the concept of gaze the predominance of the Other is
emphasised over the self. It is to emphasise on the fact that one's individual
perspective in the world is not the sole and final perspective, there are even some
other perspectives too and one just remains as an entity seen from such perspective
(Webber 2011: 189). This metaphoric look , in Sartre's opinion is equated with some
strong other-perspectives, other than the self has. That way also look need not be
always physical or eye-related. It is rather any kind of uncanny feeling of there
being strong presence of Other in any form. It may be some other perspectives, other
than mine, an article written somewhere that has strong affect on me, or a physical
gesture of the Other, or even a natural calamity, a strong flood that suddenly
overpowers me with its strong dark designs.
However, though in the first stage Sartre considers anything threatening as a look
without relating it to a concrete person, with stages of interpretation presenting look
as gaze he refers to the confrontation of another subject- a free human being
transforming the living situation of the self. The phenomenon of gaze is the most

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66 P. Sharma, A. Barua
significant tool for Sartre in pulling out philosophy from behind the Cartesian
window to the inter-human square outside. Referring to Sartre, Kenaan maintains
that in Sartre's interpretation 'vision' no more remains a private content of mind but
gets applied in the concrete field to understand human relations in the intersub-
jective world. With the reinterpretation of Cartesian form of vision, visibility is
presented as "the field of forces and effects within which the subjects (self and the
Other) are located" (Kenaan 2000: 202).

Negative Intersubjectivity Exercised Over the look in Sartre

Sartre's fusion of existential concepts of emotion and negation with the

phenomenological concept of intuition leads to his peculiar explanation of the
intersubjective relation. The most significant thing that Sartre brings into the
discussion of intersubjectivity is the importance of negativity in understanding the
Other. Critics have often criticised Sartre of being blind to the mother-child
relationship. But it is significant to note that Sartre's phenomenology of the look
takes birth from this mother-child relationship itself. The relationship is so
demanding that any disturbance may cause an adverse situation. The reflection is
found in the analysis of Sartre and Lacan. Sartre's experience of gaze started with
the slap accompanied by an irate gaze that his mother gave him because of being
insolent to his step-father (de Lacoste 2004). With this childhood background, later
on engendered by the influence of the Hegelian note on recognition and gaze
expressed through the master-slave dichotomy, Sartre develops his theory on look
which is both phenomenological and psychoanalytical at the same time. Though
Lacan also follows the same Hegelian tradition, the analysis of negative
intersubjectivity is not that intense in his discussion as like that of Sartre.
Sartre explains our existence in the face of the Other through the phrase "being-
for-others" (pour-autrui) and considers it to be another distinct mode of existence in
human reality as fundamental as "being-for-itself" (1992 [1943]: 289). It is a mode
of consciousness which even being pre-reflective self-consciousness refers to a kind
of ontological structure that is my being without "being-for-me"; a structure which
I cannot grasp even when it belongs to me. It activates when the Other appears on
the scene transcending my free possibilities passing the alienating look. It is a mode
of existence when the Other is apprehended directly as a subject in relation to me
and I realise being an object in his determined universe existing in pure reference to
the Other. It refers to a person's presence in the world as an object among other
objects while the Other is revealed as a subject (Sartre 1992 [1943]: 489).
Unlike in Hegel, "being- for-others" is not an ontological problem for Sartre, it is
not to be reflected upon, shedding more light of consciousness and then to be known
in a better way, Being is not a piece of knowledge. In Hegel one becomes an object
for another and vice-versa. But Sartrean subject that looks at the Other as object,
cannot restore its pre-looked character of subject for itself by providing more inputs
and information about its nature and its activities. It is not a matter of more
knowledge or of less knowledge that makes one an object or a subject. The very

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Analysing Gaze in Terms of Subjective and Objective... 67

'being' of consciousness cannot be revealed by others even by shedding more

knowledge.
Criticising the earlier interpretations which consider the Other as an object that
can be known through intentionality, Sartre with certain illustrations establishes that
the Other cannot be an object of knowledge as he causes immediate transformation
in me making me realise his subjectivity. This pre-reflective being rather measures
truth and knowledge than being measured by knowledge. The Other is revealed not
in knowledge and with proof and verifiability but in the experienced relation where
there is an encounter of the one and the Other in their facticity. Look , thus, explains
concrete relation as the look 'fixes us,' making unable to move. Unlike in Descartes,
it is from the certainty of the Other that I derive my own certainty. While both pre-
reflective and reflective consciousnesses fail to capture or intuit this independently
existing conscious identity of oneself, look can. Thus, reflecting and reflected
consciousness are not two consciousnesses in Sartre. It is an internal division of
consciousness in which one can shed some light on the other side of the same coin
and the reflecting one knows something about the reflected one also. But the one
who is looked-at , does not know what it is for the 'one who looks' it remains
beyond the grip of reflective gaze.
Even then, Sartrean position does not differ drastically from the one that we find
in Descartes or in Husserl with their emphasis on free subjectivity although what is
meant by free subjectivity differs in each individual position. The way Sartre sets up
the encounter with the Other, suggests that one is and foremost an absolutely free
"being-for-itself" and then only becomes an inauthentic one with a fall from its
initial "for-itself" position to something like "for-others," through a shame-
inducing encounter. In Sartre the centrality of one's freedom remains intact till it is
altered by the strong presence or the look of the Other.
In the first stage of the possible encounter with the Other, Sartre presents the
example of a scene in a public park. Suppose, while sitting in a public park one
identifies a figure that passes by the benches at a certain distance. At its sight from a
distance, it is apprehended as an object among other objects. Conceiving it as an
object does not bother one at all since an object cannot bring in a new interpretation
to one's surrounding. But as soon as it is apprehended as a man it appears as the
alienating Other. If the Other exists in the same way as other objects, the difference
is still there from intersubjective standpoint. Being a man he is capable of giving a
new sense to the surrounding of the lawn from his standpoint which essentially flees
from the individual originally sitting there. At the presence of the other man it no
more remains possible to give his sole interpretation to the surrounding universe. It
automatically gets interpreted from the Other's angle too. Unlike other objects the
man before him will "look-at" him and thereby, objectify him. This way, the
appearance of the Other causes a fixed sliding of one's universe towards him.
When I see the figure as an object it is vision which is working. But when the
figure appears as a man then vision acts as visibility as an alienating force. This can
also be compared to the window view experience of Hilbert in Erostratus. Hilbert,
looking down through the window from the seventh floor feels the satisfaction of
being the ultimate spectator, able to give others down in the street, a static objective
status. His downward perspective seems to offer him a solution against the gaze of

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68 P. Sharma, A. Bama
the Other. But gradually he realises that seeing without being seen is a mere illusion
in Sartrean intersubjective world. In the concrete intersubjective field every
subjective position is vulnerable any time.
Though, for some moments it is possible to see the other man as an object still
standing at a particular distance, the reorientation, the sliding of one's universe
ascertains the permanent possibility of being seen by the Other turning him as an
object. The discovery of oneself as an object ascertains the identity of the Other as a
subject. Hence, Sartre holds that "my apprehension of the Other in the world as
probably being a man refers to my permanent possibility of being-seen-by-him" . In
this way, the object seen may be substituted for the subject who sees. Hence,
Kenaan notes, "[t]he Sartrean visual field determines an either-or situation, in which
gaze s can neither meet nor reciprocate" (2000: 202). The position of the subject and
the object keeps on changing in the exercise of the look.
Similar 'strong other' perspective of the look is encountered in the park when the
Other in the park steals one's world toward him. The world that is enjoyed by the
self in his solitary presence in the park now flows toward the strong other
perspective of the one who looks at him. In such experience, the Other's body
appears as the centre of his own field of perception and of action and the space he
occupies is hodological, the tree in the park is in front of him, not of the bench. The
look of the man in the park, thus, disintegrates one's world to an extent that the
Other, or the look , disrobes him from his world! Through such concrete examples
Sartre argues that the Other is on principle the one who looks at me (1992 [1943]:
346).

Shame: The Experience Caused by the Other

In order to emphasise on the immediate apprehension of the Other where the Other
is apprehended from his intervention in one's affairs as look-looking , and to show
the transformation of one's subjective status to the level of an object, Sartre takes
the example of 'shame'. More appropriately shame can be considered as the main
pillar of Sartre's arguments on the problem of the Other. Morris presents Sartre's
concept of shame in the following way:

Here we are dealing with a mode of consciousness which has a structure

identical with all those which we have previously described. It is a non-
positional self-consciousness, conscious (of) itself as shame.... In addition its
structure is intentional; it is a shameful apprehension of something and this
something is me. I am ashamed of what I am. Yet... it is in its primary
structure shame before somebody. . .. I am ashamed of myself as I appear to the
Other. (2008: 124)

According to Sartre, shame is not a mere emotion among others. Rather, for him
shame is the fundamental mood of intersubjectivity, both ontological and
phenomenological. Sartre analyses shame through the illustrative key-hole example.
While peeping inside the key-hole with a motive to position myself as a pure
spectator I am merged in the activity of seeing without being seen. But this pre-

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Analysing Gaze in Terms of Subjective and Objective... 69

reflective consciousness gets interrupted when I suddenly hear footsteps behind me

and I realise myself exposed to the gaze of another, I find myself seen. I get
ashamed of myself before the Other. It disturbs the rhythm of my living as an
embodied consciousness and introduces the irrevocable experience of being
exposed as a body before the Other, the fundamental experience of the immediate
presence of the Other. Hence it denies the necessity of any argument proving the
existence of the Other. Further, shame introduces a new dimension to my existence,
as it challenges my subjective position at the centre of my universe and throws me
out of myself. It drags me towards a dimension which is very new to me, which
suddenly escapes my own grasp. The specific characteristics or properties which
gets developed in such transformation does not exist in the "for-itself" beforehand.
Neither are they assigned by the Other to the for-itself, they rather subsists in the
gulf that separates the 'in-itself and the 'for-itself. As Sartre argues, this new being
which appears for the Other neither reside in me potentially nor in the Other
(1992 [1943]). Explaining this experience Guenther says, "The gaze of the Other
does not offer me anything in particular to know ; rather, it alters my being ,
triangulating the structure of my existence into a relation between me, myself and
the Other" (2011: 26). Sartre presents shame as such a strong emotion at the
existence of the Other as in shame the Other appears within me causing a split
within myself. In shame I am distanced from myself as I judge myself to be
shameful and hence the Other appears within me. Thus, through the example of
shame Sartre establishes the distance less presence of the Other.

Shame and Alienation

Such distance less presence of the Other causes an essential sense of alienation in
the self. According to Sartre, in shame I experience a different self conferred by the
gaze of the Other. The gaze of the Other transforms my free, self-transcending
subjective status to the status of an object. In this degraded identity I get a new
alienated status not chosen by me. The transcendence of another free subject
transcends my transcendence; for which I acquire a transformed status, a new
'nature,' a being that is what it is. This transformed identity confined to the gaze of
the Other is what defined as the "being-for-others" by Sartre. In shame, the subject
experiences an original fall (Sartre 1992 [1943]: 352). The Other introduces a new
world and a new being to me which was not potentially present in me. In shame, I
am given a new lesson by the Other that I have an outside that is vulnerable and
exposed, a body that exceeds my own conscious experience.

Shame and Bodily Alienation

Sartre presents his concept of vision particularly in connection to the body. One
asserted problem of vision is emphasised to be that the observer cannot observe
himself, or the lived-body. Sartre's characters in Nausea (1938) and Age of Reason
(1945) tries to do so in different ways and fails. Unlike Ponty, Sartre considers the

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70 P. Sharma, A. Barua
body to be a point of view on which no point of view is possible (Sartre
1992 [1943]: 461). It is never possible to know one's body from outside as someone
else does. This is identified as the problem of self apprehension expressed through
the examples like Roquentin, in Nausea trying to apprehend his face in the mirror,
his hand on the table in which he fails to apprehend them as others do apprehend
(Brosman 1987). This suggests that unlike own body, the body of the Other can be
immediately apprehended. But that also becomes a problem as the Other takes a
point of view on my body making me an instrument. "Being-for-others" become a
significant point here in connection with the bodily existence.
"Being-for-others" is explained particularly in terms of one's bodily existence;
the embodied me, caught in the look of the Other. Shame, which is more particularly
the bodily shame, makes me feel like a different self all together. In revealing me as
an entity in the world, shame arouses in me the consciousness of being bodily; that I
am my body. It is not that before experiencing the Other through the experience of
shame I am not aware of my body. I am, but within myself I experience my relation
with my body only from inside. Contrarily, what shame adds on it is that "I have an
outside," which is identified by the Other. I am purely bodily before the Other
(Webber 201 1). At the existence of the Other I realise myself to be bodily and feel
that my body turns to be an 'in-itself,' an instrument to be utilized by the Other. It is
not my body as I exist, but my body that exists for the Other. In this bodily
encounter, I become alienated from my own command over my body and
experience it to be shameful of. I sweat, blush, or feel shy of as I appear as a body
seen by the Other. I prefer to become invisible in such a situation, but it fails as I
cannot apprehend it. We consider the "body-for-the-Other" and the "body-for-us"
to be of same reality because the "body-for-the-Other" is nothing but the "body-
for-us", inapprehensible and alienated (Sartre 1992 [1943]: 462f.). Shame makes it
understood to me that being bodily, I am liable to some external perspective. In
Sartre's consideration of gaze the bodily factor overpowers. It is not that the Other
only apprehends what my body is doing, rather I am apprehended as what I am
doing being embodied. Referring to Sacks, Webber (2011) notes that, "when I am
caught spying through the keyhole, what they have caught at it is not my body, but
me, my self... Thus my body's posture is my posture, what the Other sees in me"
(as cited in Webber 2011: 190). The experience of shame itself distinctively gives
rise to two concepts of the body, the "body-for-itself" and the "body-for-others".
Here we find a totally different interpretation of the body from Lacanian point of
view. Emphasising on the mirror stage identity formation of the child Lacan states
that the child becomes aware of his body by seeing the body of the Other or his own
body in the mirror reflection. While in Nausea , Sartre shows Roquentin' s failure to
apprehend his face and body in the mirror reflection, Lacan claims that the self-
image seen by the infant in the mirror provides a visual icon of an ideal ego and I
this process of recognition the child can identify himself with the Other through the
bodily identity (Wollen 2007: 100). Hence, in Lacan, the Other is not a source to
make one vulnerable in the bodily sphere. The child learns language through the
Other in a social environment in social conversation. However, though it is said to
be a social input in relation to the Other, it reinforces the sense of self in the child
using personal pronouns like T,' 'me,' and 'myself,' etc. which are actually learnt

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Analysing Gaze in Terms of Subjective and Objective... 71

from the Other (Fox 2003: 26). "Selfhood is thus, seen not as a natural outgrowth or
ontological alatum , but as a me conmaissance , imposed and extraneous, always
preceded by the unconscious discourse of the Other" (Fox 2003: 26).

Recovered Sense of Freedom in Sartre's writings

Unlike Lacan, Sartre insists on the conflicting intersubjective relation between the
self and the Other. Since the self and the Other confronts over the alienating look at
the cost of individual freedom, there always remains a constant struggle between the
self and the Other to restore one's freedom against the alienating look of the Other.
Hence, in Sartre, alienation and its recovery against the Other is like an exchange
game between two subjects which do not allow one another to remain subject. It is
found that caught in the look of the Other, one loses freedom as the Other stands as a
freedom in between, separating the spontaneous active consciousness from the
body. But being nothingness in its essence, consciousness cannot remain in its
conflicting separated identity. To recover its selfhood or freedom "consciousness
must freely disengage itself from the Other and wrench itself away by choosing
itself as a nothingness which is simply other than the Other and thereby must be
reunited in itself" (Sartre 1992 [1943]: 387).
According to Sartre, my relation with the Other is such that at first moment I
apprehend the Other as a subject revealed through my object-ness in my experience
of shame, fear, and pride and by the next moment I utilise the motivation supplied
by the Other's presence beyond my unrevealed limit and stand as a subject against
the Other making an object out of him. As a reaction to the experience of shame my
effort is concentrated at apprehending it as an object who, at the first stage of
negation apprehended me as an object. The moment I exercise my freedom in order
to transcend its transcendence, the Other's subjectivity becomes a simple property
of the object of my look. My confrontation with the Other thus reveals two stages of
negations taking place in two different moments, the first is that for which I am not
responsible, as it is controlled by the subject-ness of the Other and at the second
stage, confronting the Other my self-consciousness gets reinforced and I negate the
transcendence of the Other by making it an object in my world exercising my own
possibility and responsibility. This is what Sartre calls the second negation, "that
which proceeds from me to the Other" (1992 [1943]: 382). Sartre claims that "in
this way I recover myself, for I cannot be an object for an object " (1992 [1943]:
384).

Concrete Relation with Others: Conflicting Intersubjectivity

Hence my concrete relation with the Other is never a stable relation. Since I keep on
trying to recover my freedom from the transcendence of the Other, it always
remains conflicting. "I am in constant conflict with the Other, since my relation with
him is always governed by my efforts to overcome the threat he possesses to my
freedom" (Rosato 2010: 91). "... while I attempt to free myself from the Other, the

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72 P. Sharma, A. Barua
Other is trying to free himself from mine; while I seek to enslave the Other, the
Other seeks to enslave me... Conflict is the original meaning of "being-for-others"
(Sartre 1992 [1943]: 475).
It is never possible to realise the ideal of assimilation without compromising with
the inbuilt internal negation by which the Other and I are recognized to be separate,
i.e., the negation by which the Other is made other than I and I am made other than
the Other. Hence the Utopian idea of assimilation is difficult to realize in this sense.
Assimilation necessarily implies the marginalization of the otherness of the Other
and thereby making meaningless the entire problem. The essential relation between
the Other and me, as discussed earlier is a relation of internal negation where I
persists on denying that I am the Other. Hence by definition, rather than a relation of
assimilation, it is essentially a relation of conflict (Sartre 1992 [1943]: 477).
The conflicting attitude according to Sartre is always reciprocal in nature. It is
reciprocal in the sense that both I and the Other respond to the threat posed by each
other. This reciprocity towards each other is actually backed by our non-reciprocity
of the subjective status of each other. One's motive is always to objectify the Other
in his/her position and this is found active in both sides. I am objectified by the
"Other-as-subject," which in turn is made an "Other-as-object" in the second
moment when I give back the same look in order to defend my subjective status
(Rosato 2010: 92). Thus, the relation between the self and the Other reflects
inevitable conflict.

In Being and Nothingness , Sartre states that man is a pure effort to become God,
to become a complete consciousness being which one could create the ultimate
image of himself and exercise control over Other's image of him. But this is said to
be an useless passion since the idea of God is self-contradictory.1 Hence it is never
possible to control the image that the Other has of me. Sartre aptly expresses such
situation through some of the central characters of his plays. In The Flies Orestes
realises the paradox of freedom when he finds his crime in Electra' s eyes which he
could neither know nor control. This signifies that the Other is the original fall. A
similar frame is presented in No Exit where the three characters see themselves
through the Other's image of them which they find to be beyond control. In such
situation no freedom remains and man feels like a fallen subject without any free
possibility. Realising the fact Garcin finally says, "Hell is other people".
Here it is interesting to explore that Lacan presents a different orientation to the
Sartrean image of the Other. While Sartre shows man to be trapped in the image
made by the Other with a constant effort to overcome it, Lacan, as a reply to Sartre's
"No Exit" scene writes that it is a kind of logical game or puzzle in which three
prisoners are condemned to death with some possibility of escaping. Unlike Sartre's
interpretation they are not death and condemned but condemned to death presented
with the option to solve some puzzle which they try with the help of the Other. For
better understanding the following is quoted:

1 Sartrean use of the term God as "being-in-itself-for-itself" shows that it refers to a being that is
conscious and self aware but at the same time, of a fixed nature and beyond change. This is self-
contradictory and hence not possible.

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Analysing Gaze in Terms of Subjective and Objective... 73

Lacan replied in a very specific way to Sartre's play in an article published in

1945 entitled "Logical Time and the Assertion of Anticipated Certainty"
( Newsletter of the Freudian Field 2, 1988). It is not a play; it is a logical
construction, a logical game or puzzle, in which three people are in a room. It
is a prison and they are condemned to death.... The way out is explained by
the prison warden. He tells them the following: each one of them has a disk on
his back which may be either black or white. There are three white disks and
two black disks in all, from which the warden has chosen three one for each
prisoner. They cannot see their own disk, but they can see the disk of the two
other prisoners in the room with them. They must attempt to figure out the
color of their disk without talking among themselves, and the first to walk out
the door and logically explain his conclusion shall beset free. (Feldstein et al.
1995: 22)

Since there are two black and three white disks altogether, the prisoners try to guess
his disk with the help of the disk of the Other. If one can find two black disks behind
the other prisoners then he becomes sure of having a white one behind him. Thus
Lacan emphasises the fact that truth has a collective structure, it can only be attained
through others. Lacan tries to show that the negativity escribed to the Other may
also be interpreted in some positive way through proper logical explanations and
this helps in understanding the original intersubjective relation which he emphasises
to be positive in nature. Lacan claims the Hegelian master-slave dialectic and
Sartrean self-Other interpretation to be limit examples. Such relations can only
dissolve the very being of the subject (Lacan 1991: 222). Criticising Sartre's
analysis as imaginary, Lacan talks about radical intersubjectivity, where the Other is
welcomed with his whole subjectivity without any attempt at domination, with the
subjects total acceptance by the Other. This is what Lacan calls original
intersubjectivity, commonly explained through the mother-child relation. Lacan
says, "in so far as we remain within the register of analysis, we will be obliged to
admit an original intersubjectivity" (1991: 217). Such intersubjectivity between two
subjects is claimed to be established through language. Hence, in Lacan' s
psychoanalysis communication through language remains the dominating factor.
With the illustration of the languages of the child regarding his relation with his
mother or grannies, Lacan shows that beyond the negative intersubjectivity over the
issues of recognition, there is originally positive intersubjectivity rooted in human
nature expressed through the language of the child. The child can recognise the
Other without considering the Other's selfishness (Lacan 1991: 218).

Conclusion

The above discussion makes it clear that in his earlier writings Sartre puts more
emphasis on "being-for-others" as the fundamental mode of intersubjectivity and
thereby presents a thoroughly negative picture of human relations without
considering any probable overcome. This is particularly based on his emphasis on
individual freedom and the issue of recognition developed from Hegel. Focusing on

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74 P. Sharma, A. Barua
these issues polished by his existential themes of emotion and imagination Sartre
builds up his argument presenting the Other through the vulnerability of the self
expressed via the metaphor of the look.
While comparing Sartre with Lacan we see that though Lacan also insists on the
impact of gaze and look , it is notas alienating as that of Sartre. Sartre refers to the
ontological rootedness of alienation through the emotion of shame experienced
against the gaze of the Other. Such strength of the gaze is not experienced in
Lacan' s interpretation. In Sartre, the gaze presents the Other in its forceful
subjectivity which can limit the subjectivity of the self to the level of utmost
dehumanisation or self-alienation where the self experiences a split within judging
itself to be derogatory before the Other. Lacan presents gaze as the object when
faced with which the subject becomes object.
Lacan, in his earlier phase, shows total inclination towards Sartre's philosophy
without introducing any new concept of the Other in his writings. It is only in the
60s that he develops his separate concept of the gaze insisting on the concept of
desire adopted from Hegel. Sartre has never concentrated on the notion of desire
while discussing intersubjectivity and dominating gaze. Rather, it is individual
freedom that acts as the dominating factor in his discussion. While Sartre equates
gaze with the act of looking in terms of visibility, Lacan draws a line between the
two separating gaze from the act of looking. Hence, unlike Sartre, the gaze in Lacan
does not refer to the subject, but to the side of the object. While defining the Other
as the look-looking exercising his transcendence over the transcendence of the self,
fixing it as looked at, Sartre conceives of an essential reciprocity between seeing of
the Other and being-seen, Lacan stands on a non-reciprocal relation between seeing
and seen by making a difference between the eyes of the subject that looks at and
the gaze which is on the side of the object without having any capacity to become a
subject unlike Sartre's interpretation.2 Hence, the forceful interpretation of
conflicting intersubjectivity is not present in the writings of Lacan though he
articulates over the similar themes like gaze and look in his literary analyses.
Finally, analysing the basic points of similarity and differences between Sartre
and Lacan' s positions on look or gaze, we see that the structuralist underpinnings of
Lacanian understanding of Sartrean 'early philosophy of gaze ' share some
commonalities as the 'ego' for both is an object and a construction. Further, in
both, gaze can at times be attributed to a non human agent like footstep, rustling
branches etc. and the asymmetry characterises the object of gaze and the one that is
gazing. Even if the latter often refers to non- human agents, the effect is similar in
the object side as it remains vulnerable.
But unlike in Sartre, the phenomenological quest for freedom and the
experienced dimension of possible reciprocity between the two is what ruled out
in Lacan. In Sartre there is a dominant phenomenological-existential existential
position that keeps room for freedom and subjectivity of the self in its relation with
the Other as the two face one another still as intersubjectively real. Though the
master-slave relation disrobes subjectivity from the object pole, that is the visible
field from the source from which gaze originates, there remains a continuous

(nosubject.com/index. php?title=gaze, accessed on 13/4/15).

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Analysing Gaze in Terms of Subjective and Objective... 75

struggle against the objectifying tendency over the exchange of gaze and that may
change the positions by changing the power relations between the two. The
significant turn here is from look as optical centric reflective domain to the forceful
encounter between the gazing-gaze d. It is still a free encounter that acts as a force
and freezes one to the level of an inert object.
Further, while Sartre equates gaze with the act of looking in terms of visibility,
Lacan draws a line between the two separating gaze from the act of looking. For
Lacan, gaze is not of free subject but it is the object, as the gaze is the objective
'other'. Unlike a reciprocal one in Sartre, Lacan, thus, conceives of an antinomic
relation between the gaze and the ordinary look of the eye. The eye which looks is
that of the subject no doubt, but not so is gaze , nor is 'the act of gazing, 'as gaze
remains on the side of the object.3 In Lacan, it is the look of the agent that comes
back as a gaze causing anxiety on the part of the agent (Felluga, n.d). There is no
connection between the gaze and the subjectivity of the Other. Rather, the gaze is
conferred on the object other than the self. Though Hegelian in their basic
terminologies and concepts Sartre and Lacan, thus, presents two varied interpre-
tation of the concept of look or gaze through their subject and object oriented views
respectively.

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