Seeing Is Believing

First of all I would like to thank Ashley Sheldon for her post and helping us further understand Lacan and his works. There were a couple notable points from this post that I really took into thought, and I will take this opportunity to share these particular ideas with you.

Sheldon goes in to speaking of the mirror stage, emphasizing that symbolism and imagery are really the back bone to stability and understanding. The simple phrase “seeing is believing” sums up how one is to identify with the self and the world around him. This does not reach complete stability, but more the illusion of stability. People are constantly changing thus we are never really that stable. When Miles Green wakes up in Mantissa, he eventually is able to reach the idea of himself as stable. The muse serves as a distraction to him, tempting him and not really letting him keep his stability.

After imagery and symbolism comes language to help our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Lacan believes that we are all constructed through language where meaning lies within the language itself. Without language there would really be know stability and meaning for people in the world to share. Language also corresponds with metonymy and desire, where stability is never reached. People are always wishing or dreaming of things they can’t have. Once the object is reached, it is natural to want more and create more desires. It never ends. If desire is never fulfilled, how are we able to reach complete stability?

The Mirror Stage In Mantissa

It is evident that John Fowles draws a parallel to Lacan’s mirrors stage early on in Mantissa. Waking up from a coma in the very beginning, Miles Green refers to himself as “it.” Not remembering what happened, the mirror stage takes place again for him at square one. “It was conscious of a luminous and infinite haze, as if it were floating, godlike, alpha and omega, over a sea of vapor and looking down; then less happily, after an interval of obscure duration, off murmured sounds and peripheral shadows, which reduced the impression of boundless space and empire to something much more contracted and unaccommodating” (3).

In this awakening he finds himself conscious, but is very unsure of what is happening. He then notices labels and images around him, formulating a setting. Soon after he sees a woman standing by his side reciting his name. She helps him realize that his name is Miles, and she is his wife, Claire. He then proceeds to answer a list of questions she asks him, including his eye color, hair, complexion, and age. He knew all of the answers even though he could not put together how.

This section directly relates to Lacan’s ideas of the mirror stage. When newborns enter the world, they only are able to identify themselves. From this everything around them revolves around their needs. Once they grow older it is realized that they are around others with needs. They are no longer the center. Fowles makes a great connection to this theory in the opening of Mantissa. Miles goes through the mirror stage for the second time around when he wakes and starts to identify the world around him.