Lacanian Afreets

Today, a thesis and a paper. New Brontë research:

Non una storia d'amore: Heathcliff come "afreet" in "Wuthering Heights" di Emily Brontë

Elena Biscontini

Università degli Studi di Padova, Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari

2021

Heathcliff, "afreet", "Gothic Villain": studio del protagonista maschile di "Cime tempestose", delle caratteristiche che lo inseriscono nelle tradizioni precedenti alla stesura del romanzo e degli aspetti per cui da queste si differenzia, rendendo la storia d'amore di Emily Brontë una delle più complesse e travagliate dell'Ottocento.

Objet a, the Unheimlich: The Secret of Creation Mechanism with Jane Eyre

Myongja Yu

Studies in English language & Literature 48.2 (2022): 87-112

This paper first of all concerns an adjustment of my unheimlich-mechanism concept and fairly correlates to the series works of that mechanism in four steps: The Settling of the Father-unheimlich Figure – Ambivalence and Repetition of Doubles – Fatal Event or Death – Sublimation and Creation. This time, with more help by Lacan and Žižek, the report aims to further reveal that the unheimlich figure of its first stage then indicates more precisely the very Lacanian objet a whose utmost instance is the Phallus, the castration-father: In Seminar X, Lacan declares the Phallus (objet a), unheimlich. Thus supplementing the first stage of that creation Mechanism, I attempt to explore this veiled objet a, the Phallus, as the secret creative force of artistic works as in, for example, Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë, demonstrating the universal application of the mechanism. Moreover, the Phallus, objet a, will be treated regarding the location issue in-between the Real and the Symbolic of the Lacanian Borromean Knot. The present paper first sets itself apart by reinforcing the unheimlich mechanism theory connecting the unheimlich to the Phallus/objet a. Secondly, it expands and suggests almost for the first time a new horizon in reading Jane Eyre with the Lacanian unheimlich mechanism among other studies bearing on the psychoanalytic aspects of the novel. Moreover, this Lacanian reading of Jane Eyre will further explain Jane’s rebellious action. (Kyungpook National University)