Lacan: The Mirror Stage and The Phallus Vs. Cixous and The Laughter of Medusa

The Mirror Stage

Lacan’s mirror stage begins by talking about the human child and how it is capable of recognizing its own image in a mirror. This is displayed by the Aha-Erlebnis (German for an idea that comes to someone suddenly, an epiphany of sorts), which Kohler considers to be one of the most significant moments in learning and development. The child becomes fascinated by the image, unlike the comparison ( a monkey) which can also recognize its image but does not actually care/ understands its image as useless. The child is basically fascinated by the interaction between this seemingly virtual image and the reality that coexists with it. Children usually begin noticing their reflections around the age of 6 months and this remains significant until about 18 months. To Lacan, this interaction with the reflection reveals a libidinal dynamism. Libidinal being an adjective meaning “psychic and emotional association with instinctual biological drives” and dynamism basically meaning active and interactive movement. In other words, libidinal dynamism is the interaction of the psychic and emotional, instinctual biological drives that occur in the young child’s mind. Basically, the child has learned to form an identification. It recognizes itself for what it looks like. Lacan then says that this is the moment in the infans stage that the “I” is created in a form that does not consist of language. This is when the ego is formed, and the individual begins to move asymptotically (meaning it never actually touches the point but gets closer and closer) toward the understanding of “I” and its disagreement with reality. For the first time, the child sees its body as a gestalt, which is to say the child now knows that its body is the result of the sum of its physical, biological, and psychological aspects that are so unified it is in fact one object. This shows that “I” possesses a mental permanence (people always see themselves as “I”) but at the same time it alienates in the sense that it causes people to see themselves as one large thing; not a bunch of different parts. At the same time, the child also begins to see everything differently after understanding its own image exists. For instance, the child begins to dream its own features or projections. Psychical realities begin to exist in the world as well as the mind. Similarly, Lacan compares this experience to that of a pigeon. The pigeon cannot see another member os its species until it has developed its gonad. By recognizing oneself, humans develop a sense of paranoia which is what allows them to function not completely based on desire. Instead, people operate understanding that other humans are similar to them, based off of the initial idea that they appear to look similar to each other. During the mirror stage, the child is able to develop a kind of understanding of what is the organism and its thoughts and what is reality. However the mirror stage is only temporary, and once a spatial awareness takes over, and the child will realize it is alone. This sort of alienating thought gives rise to the ego. The “I” formation is considered to be the id, which is to say the desires experienced by the child. The mirror stage essentially ends when the “I” becomes a social “I”. At this point, human knowledge changes completely. The human begins to experience the interference of culture as the sexual object choice depends completely upon the Oedipus complex. Once people enter the world able to weigh both nature and culture into themselves, the journey begins.

The Signification of the Phallus

The unconscious castration complex, meaning people unconsciously fear losing their penis , ties two major things together. The first is the dynamic structuring of the symptoms such as neuroses, perversion, and psychoses. The second being the regulation of the development, meaning without it, he would not be able to identify with the ideal type of his sex or meet the needs of his sexual partner. Lastly, he would not be able to be a father to a child. But the paradox within this belief exists begging the question of why man must act the role of man purely through threat. Also, why is castration the punishment for incest?

Knowing that this theory also applies to women, four large questions are raised: Why do girls think they can be castrated? Why do boys and girls believe their mother has a phallus? Why does castration create the symptoms that it does? Lastly, why is there a phallic phase and what exactly does it mean to people?

Lacan says that he wants to show the signifier as something that is necessary to portraying the analytic phenomenon. The signifier creates the effects that the signifiable will experience which will cause it to become the signifier. He makes it clear that his position is not one of a cultural relationship between man and the signifier. The effects are the result of parts of language, created through the interplay of combination and substitution of the signifier. The point of all of this being that the phallus is a signifier. It is not a concrete thing or organ. The phallus is a signifier for power and therefore people naturally have a desire for it, though not a need. There is a demand for either the presence or absence of the phallus. He then comes to the conclusion that desire neither a need for satisfaction or a demand for love. Instead, it is the result of taking away love from a need for satisfaction and splitting them. This is what defines a sexual relationship according to Lacan.

The subject creates a being by repressing everything the phallus signifies, and he says he wants to be loved. When the child realizes that his mother has no phallus, the development of either symptoms or structural consequences can then occur.

The female relationship to the phallus is one of paradox. Women are desired and loved for the fact that they do not have a phallus, unlike men who are loved and desired by women for their phallus. This is because women symbolize his phallus due to the fact that men also desire phallus by nature. Male homosexuality is believed to be the consequence of desire while female homosexuality is believe to be a disappointment that requires love to heal. Lastly, Lacan says that there is only one libido, the phallus.

Cixous differs greatly from Lacan. First of all, Cixous believes that all people undergo a lifelong struggle to achieve an image of themselves (opposes the mirror theory which states that people naturally have one almost immediately). Unlike Lacan, Cixous believes that women have their own unique sense of self and are not at all defined by the fact that they do not have a phallus. Women are not simply the counterpart of man. Cixous believes that women can achieve a sense of liberty and escape their oppression by writing. Instead of denouncing language, Cixous believes that language is the avenue to liberty for women. Women are oppressed because they have always been oppressed and need to escape this oppression by not needing men. Furthermore, female bisexuality is considered by Cixous to be in no way a bad thing. By having sexual relationships with women as well as men, women are able to benefit from both.