UVM Theses and Dissertations
Format:
Print
Author:
Meyer, Melissa M.
Dept./Program:
English
Year:
2007
Degree:
MA
Abstract:
Through the fiction of Don DeLillo, I explore the ways in which fantasy not only has priority over our everyday encounter with the neighbor, but also that it informs our very reality. Since living in the Real is utterly traumatic, as it would constitute the true act of being there in the raw sense without any protection, and experiencing in its most true form. We, therefore, see the world through a lens of fantasy. Fantasy is not an enjoyable daydream, but a protective cover that teaches us how to desire qua the big Other, or the gaze that we always view as present. We learn from fantasy the way to desire in the act of drive, and its results. We desire what we believe the big Other desires of us. Fantasy enables us to avoid this shocking encounter with the horror of the Real. That is, the traumatic kernel of the subject. Therefore, as a protective shield, we use the veil of fantasy to interact with others.
Since dissatisfaction is inherent in the social, subjects are drawn to experience the Other in its pure, unveiled form. In realizing our own face to be the mirror image of the ugly neighbor, we thus produce an ethical act. In doing so we are susceptible to the traumatic Real, and the possibility of experiencing jouissance. The neighbor figure once experienced in its unveiled self, is perceived as das Ding (the Thing; Freud's term) - a radical departure from one's self. The underlying radical Otherness we so ethically desired to break through and that which we wanted to encounter in the Real is a monstrous Evil Other, unbearable in its intensity. Thus, the consumerist subject returns to the protection of the veil, avoids the Real, and identifies in the safety in objects. In doing so they are avoiding this ethical drive, seeking satisfaction in cyberspace, ambivalence, objects, and an even stronger relationship with the big Other. Drive towards these are inevitably empty, leading to an endless dissatisfaction. For it is the subject who uses capitalism to produce an ethical act by limiting consumption who succeeds.
Through this, we can then state that this veil of fantasy informs our daily social interactions. The subject never truly communicates with the neighbor; our choices informing our possible intersubjectivity, however, deeply affect our interaction with others and the objects around us.
Since dissatisfaction is inherent in the social, subjects are drawn to experience the Other in its pure, unveiled form. In realizing our own face to be the mirror image of the ugly neighbor, we thus produce an ethical act. In doing so we are susceptible to the traumatic Real, and the possibility of experiencing jouissance. The neighbor figure once experienced in its unveiled self, is perceived as das Ding (the Thing; Freud's term) - a radical departure from one's self. The underlying radical Otherness we so ethically desired to break through and that which we wanted to encounter in the Real is a monstrous Evil Other, unbearable in its intensity. Thus, the consumerist subject returns to the protection of the veil, avoids the Real, and identifies in the safety in objects. In doing so they are avoiding this ethical drive, seeking satisfaction in cyberspace, ambivalence, objects, and an even stronger relationship with the big Other. Drive towards these are inevitably empty, leading to an endless dissatisfaction. For it is the subject who uses capitalism to produce an ethical act by limiting consumption who succeeds.
Through this, we can then state that this veil of fantasy informs our daily social interactions. The subject never truly communicates with the neighbor; our choices informing our possible intersubjectivity, however, deeply affect our interaction with others and the objects around us.