Illustrating the Freudian and Lacanian Object of Drive with Zola's Therese Raquin

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the differences between the Freudian and Lacanian conceptualisations of the object of drive. Emile Zola's nov­el Therese Raquin will operate as the site for this discussion. The reader will be introduced to Freud's understanding of the object of drive as con­tained in his "Three Essays on the Theory Sexuality." This understand­ing of the relation of the subject to the object of loss will undergo a radi­cal reconfiguration during Freud's work on narcissism. Next the reader will be introduced to Jacques Lacan's reworking of drive theory and the radical formalisation of the object of drive that is object a. Throughout the essay Zola's numerous attempts to construct the fiction of Laurent's ori­entation towards Therese will delimit and provide certain conditions of possibility for the accompanying theoretical discussion