School of English Language and Literature - A.U.Th.
Doi
Abstract
Theories of sublimation and symbolization, concepts which lie at the meeting point of psychoanalysis and culture, have traditionally followed Freud then Lacan in focusing on language as the vehicle of representation. This essay examines what could be called the Kleinian foundation of Lacan's theory of sublimation, arguing that both before language and throughout life, material objects may function in more primitive ways as mediators of loss. In its emphasis on the "vitality" of objects (psychic and material), much post-Kleinian theory has demonstrated the way material objects may offer a third space, between subject and object, allowing us to negotiate the dialectic between reality and hallucination, the confrontation with the Lacanian Real. Texts examined include Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Angela Carter's Wise Children, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Melanie Klein's essay on the creative impulse, and Lacan's seventh seminar
