Neill, Calum. \u201cAn Idiotic Act: On the Non-Example of Antigone.\u201d The Letter , 34, 2005, 1-28.<\/p>\n
For Lacan, the significance of Antigone lies precisely in its ability to convey the limit point which would mark the intersection of the realms of the Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real.<\/p>\n
It is crucial to acknowledge here that this limit point does entail but cannot be reduced to the limit of the Symbolic. To so reduce the limit point to the gap where the Symbolic opens onto the Real, to, that is, occlude the Imaginary, results in those notions of the play as a contest or opposition between different approaches to the law or convention, whether this be in the sense of two
\ncompeting conceptions of justice (Hegel) or between two competing approaches to the law, that is to say, between fidelity to and transgression of the law (\u017di\u017eek).<\/p>\n
While such approaches are not without significant insights, it is only in reinstating the imaginary dimension that we can really begin to appreciate the ethical, as opposed to moral-juridical, significance of the play.<\/p>\n
Those readings which would emphasise exclusively the rent in the Symbolic cannot but render the play a discourse on law to the exclusion of the ethical. As such, the so-called ethical example of Antigone cannot but falter. Where there is no ethics, where
\nethics is foreclosed, there can be no example of the ethical. It is only in reintroducing the imaginary dimension that the ethical import of the play can be brought to light.<\/p>\n
It will, however, be brought to light in a manner which directly occludes the possibility of commandeering it as an\u00a0 example. That is to say, through Lacan\u2019s reading of Antigone we can begin to appreciate that the ethical avails itself of no examples.<\/p>\n
For Lacan the figure of the other necessarily entails the correlation of the Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real. The encounter with the other, that is, can be reduced to neither the dimension of the Symbolic nor the Imaginary but rather, insofar as it entails both, it indicates the limit point <\/strong>where they would open onto the Real.<\/p>\n That is to say, there is imaginary identification and there is symbolic comprehension, there is an overlap wherein imaginary identification would partake of a minimum of symbolic ordering and, beyond this, something insists which would refuse any such recuperation. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This would be the limit point of das Ding<\/strong> and, for Lacan, \u2018[i]t is around this image of the limit that the whole play turns\u2019. The image of the limit is dispersed so thoroughly through the play that it, quite literally, cannot be contained. It cannot, that is, be recuperated to a straightforward symbolisation. The play, in this sense, demonstrates the insistence of the limit without itself becoming a self-contained discourse on the limit.<\/p>\n One example of the functioning of the limit in the play would be the sentence passed on Antigone, that she is to be entombed alive. Not only is the sentence itself to place Antigone in the realm between life and death – she is to be placed in a chamber reserved for the dead while still alive, she is to be made to experience that whichwould be the reserve of the already dead before she is dead – but, in addition, the passing of the sentence itself already situates her in a living relation to death such that her anticipation of certain death must be borne while she still lives. Hers is a \u2018situation or fate of a life that is about to turn into What makes the character of Antigone exceptional within the play is that she is presented as that which would be situated, impossibly, on the other side of the limit, in the realm of the Real.<\/span> It is in this sense that Antigone comes to figure as or is raised to the status of<\/strong> das Ding<\/span>. This is to say, in Lacan\u2019s terms, that Antigone is presented as \u2018inhuman\u2019. This is not, however, to situate her as something monstrous or abhorrent.<\/p>\n It is precisely insofar as Antigone cannot be situated, cannot be recuperated to a fixed idea that she functions for Lacan as the beautiful. It is important here to grasp that the notion of \u2018beauty\u2019 is not meant to refer to any convention, any delimited conception of (what would count as) physical or idealised beauty. Beauty cannot be captured in an image as such.<\/p>\n Beauty, for Lacan, is rather a function and to speak, then, of Antigone\u2019s beauty is to relate something of her function. That is to say, what is important in the character of Antigone is how she functions in relation to desire<\/span>. Not, that is, how Antigone functions in relation to her desire<\/span> but rather how Antigone, as beauty, functions in relation to the\u00a0desire<\/span> of the one who watches her. In relation, that is, to the desire<\/span> of the spectator.<\/p>\n In its status as limit point, the beautiful is that which would split desire, or in the terminology of later Lacan, that which would render the separation and, at the point of separation, the conjunction of desire and the drive.<\/p>\n Desire is that which defines the subject in relation to lack. Desire, as such, cannot attain satisfaction.<\/p>\n The drive<\/span>, on the contrary, is that which maintains satisfaction through continuously circulating its object<\/strong>. The beautiful is that which would encompass both such points, thus, simultaneously reflecting the drive<\/span> and allowing it to continue on its route and maintaining desire as unsatisfied. There is thus in the object of beauty both a moment of transfixion and a moment of satisfaction<\/strong>.<\/p>\n If the object of beauty were capable of entirely satisfying desire it would be destructive of the subject but if it were incapable of providing satisfaction, it would lose its attraction.<\/p>\n It is this conjunction of seemingly incommensurate characteristics which sets the beautiful apart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Neill, Calum. \u201cAn Idiotic Act: On the Non-Example of Antigone.\u201d The Letter , 34, 2005, 1-28. For Lacan, the significance of Antigone lies precisely in its ability to convey the limit point which would mark the intersection of the realms of the Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real. It is crucial to acknowledge here that … Continue reading “calum Lacan\u2019s Antigone part 6”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,24,15,106,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agency","category-lacan","category-subjectivity","category-the-act","category-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7631"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7645,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7631\/revisions\/7645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ncertain death, a death lived by anticipation, a death that crosses over into the sphere of life, a life that moves into the realm of death<\/em>\u2019.<\/p>\n