The Subject of Semiotics by Silverman; Silverman Kaja;

Author:Silverman; Silverman, Kaja;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA - OSO
Published: 1983-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

I have quoted this passage at length because it contains a surprisingly large number of critical Lacanian assumptions. One of these assumptions is that the human subject derives from an original whole which was divided in half, and that its existence is dominated by the desire to recover its missing complement. Another of these assumptions is that the division suffered by the subject was sexual in nature—that when it was “sliced” in half, it lost the sexual androgyny it once had and was reduced to the biological dimension either of a man or a woman. This biological dimension is seen by Lacan, if not by Plato, as absolutely determining the subject’s social identity. Finally, Lacan shares with Aristophanes the belief that the only resolution to the loss suffered by the subject as the consequence of sexual division is heterosexual union and procreation. We will examine each of these points in greater detail.

Lacan situates the first loss in the history of the subject at the moment of birth. To be more precise, he dates it from the moment of sexual differentiation within the womb, but it is not realized until the separation of the child from the mother at birth. This lack is sexual in definition; it has to do with the impossibility of being physiologically both male and female. Lacan refers to this lack as “real,” by which he indicates that it occurs outside of signification. He tells us that it anticipates further divisions experienced by the subject within signification:

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