[drabauer]

As some of you know I view life and culture through a Lacanian lens. (Take this as a warning or an invitation to read further!) There are so many rich psychoanalytical angles to Lost that it took me awhile to decide where to start. There are important facets to Lacanian theory often glossed over in applications to film or popular culture, and I didn't want to add yet another glib appropriation to that indistinguished legacy. So I decided to detail the situation of individual characters, so that I can touch on whatever aspects of the legacy that I deem relevant to the character's particular narrative. In the course of each sketch, I'll try to give a crude outline of those concepts that I feel bear on the issues at hand. The connecting thread (and point de capiton) is desire, identifying what ignites desire in each castaway, and thus tracing the circuit of desire from pre-crash to post-island.

Jack and the "Law of the Father"

In the beginning we are born and we know nothing of the world. Or rather, the world knows nothing of us, for we are continuous with it. Eventually we sense that our caregiver is responsible for our happiness, and that we are not only dependent but, in some deeply traumatic sense, apart from her as well. We are driven to eat, to touch, but our need for love seems to supercede even our drive, as we by degrees attempt to manipulate mother so as to desire us always, to want to meet our needs, to want us to meet her needs. If this continues, we never separate from mother, a situation that may lead to perversion or, worse, psychosis. But for most of us the “father,” or someone serving the same structural role, intervenes. The father is, yes, our rival, but much more. He says “no” to us in several ways: no, we are not the only object in our mother’s life, no, we cannot have everything we want (our mother’s undivided attention), no, there are many things we must wait for, bargain for, fight for. The father is the lawgiver, the father introduces the idea of morality: right from wrong, good from bad, socially acceptable from gauche. We admire and hate our father simultaneously.

But our dual competition/apprentice with the father introduces us to the Symbolic realm, the life of society, governed by codes, signs and procedures. Where once we were undifferentiated from the universe, the ecstasy of the Real, we learned to see ourselves as some imaginary whole in the mirror, or reflected in the Gaze of another. We identified with Her, or with It, that person who, full-blown (like Athena from Zeus’s head) emerged in our mother’s eyes. Little did we know that we were anything but “complete” and unified, but were instead but a palimpset on which the directives of faceless others wrote, constructing us in absentia, as it were.

For the Symbolic is the realm of language, of the Law, of society. In order to interact with others we enter the sea of language and we suffer immediate alienation. We can never fully express who “we” are, what we “feel,” or “think”: something always slips between the cracks. But that “something” that remains unsaid, unexpressed in words, propels us forward, into the next discursive situation, the next attempt to express the inexpressible. Father is our guide, father lays down the boundaries. You can have your mother just “so”: as a son, not as a husband. You can go into the world and find a wife, and become a father yourself. You can control the world through language and action, but you will never control me, I am forever outside of language.

The mother’s desire for the father creates a rift in the mother-child unity that allows the child to breathe freely, as it were. Through language the child can mediate the desire of the other (mother), thus language is identified with the role of the father, who, in siphoning off some of the mother’s desire, allows the child to emerge as a fully-formed subject.

Very well then; I have described normal human development in the Western world. But what happens when the proper, the authoritative, law-giving father gives way to the obscene father, the father who flouts the law, through polygamy, criminal behavior, excessive jouissance: taking pleasure beyond the lawful and the socially sanctioned? Rather than inspiring the son to take whatever he desires, the “obscene” father ofteh has a chiling effect: he engenders hesitation, fear, impotence in the son, namely shame. What was once “thou shall not!” has become “thou shall, or else!,” and the only means the child has to differentiate himself–to emerge as a subject–from the father’s hegemonic gaze is through refusal to submit to lawlessness. This, then, is the child’s desire, the desire to say “no, I will not disobey!”

All Jack ever wanted was his father’s approval, but all Jack ever received was a “yes you are my son, but . . .” Yet Christian Shepherd was an obscence father. He may not have bedded many women, but he flouted the laws of society in a way that mocked all a “father” should be. How could Jack admire and follow the obscene father, much less love him? Jack confuses his desire with the “greater good” of the law, the law of saving lives and earning parental approval. He has long since lost touch with what Jack wants, thus with who Jack IS. Even in death the obscene father haunts Jack as the “dead” law that paradoxically never dies. As Jack tries desperately to save one life after another, to find food, shelter and water for the lostaways, to mediate differences and establish the voice of law on the island, he is but a mouthpiece for the “other,” for the voice beyond the grave (What Would Christian Do?). How will Jack find his desire? Is Kate, the women he can never know, the antidote to the desire he doesn’t know? Or is she just another mirror for his confusion? No, Kate is the obscene other who enjoys in place of Jack, as a substitute who realizes the desire that Jack cannot admit. “There is no woman” because the woman of man’s desire is trapped by that desire. But Kate, as the woman of Jack’s desire can represent it for him, while he is off “saving the world” (or at least the island). As long as Kate remains outside the law (that is, as long as she remains a cipher, unknowable, unable to be defined by words) Jack’s desire will “live” outside of him. If Kate were to wrest her own subjectivity from Jack’s fantasy; that is, if she were to assert herself as a fully-consicous, moral subject, Jack would have to face and take responsibility for his own desire. Jack would finally emerge as his own man.

[boonian androphile]

This is great. I loved reading this.

Comments:

I am not familiar with Lacan. I had to google the name even to acquire a point of reference. Once I did I let the process go because an attempt to sleep was imperative (but ended in total failure) and I wanted to comment more from my point of view first to see if I could muster any connection between what you have proposed and what I personally know or have learned.

Your initial presentation of who the child is and who the child will become reminds me of existentialist perception of self. If I remember that correctly, we are not identifiable except through the eyes of others: Being-for-Others (Etre pour autrui). Whereas we struggle to identify ourselves on our own terms and try to push away what you call the world of symbolism: Being for itself (Etre pour soi). And you are right that alienation ensues. Also in terms of the developing child, you state that he is dependent on the mother but also separate. And you state that there is a continuousness between the child and the world and that the world is conscious of the child. Reminds me of one of my favorite existentialist ideas: When you die the world leaves you. So perhaps when you are born the world comes to you. Always willing to digress, I ask is this what is happening to the new baby on LOST? And as for Boone and the other casualties are they somewhere void of definition?

Before progressing to the Jack scenario more directly, I also see (but dont automatically like) some Freudian undertones. As I stated I dont know Lacan at all. Maybe Freud influenced him (assuming gender), maybe not. But as you put it, the mother and father are presented in an archetypal descriptions (so maybe that's Jung?---I tend to mix up the early players) which invariably repeat themselves in every familial setting. And as you are leading to, if the parents, and particularly the father, are sound and fulfilling of their roles, then relative harmony follows in the child's development. However, if there is toxicity (just from the father?) then developmental and emotional derailment occurs.

As for Jack:

People love him or hate him. I like and respect him. I wrote somewhere else that Boone was a younger Jack. Well, could it be that Jack is an older Boone? Didnt Jack make early mistakes and rally (better than Boone did with his own) to correct them. What if Jack did not have the father that he did? Would he have developed a hyper-resiliency and an ability to function well in certain crises? But there was a price to pay? Jack excels in medical crisis but how about the human sphere? For awhile I thought his interactions with Kate were sound---if she did something he didnt like he blew her off. But even earlier than reading this post, I was rethinking that. I wrote somewhere that I dont see Kate being the object of anybody's point of view. Is that what Jack wants from her? For her to be the object of his point of view? If so, good luck. Eventhough they are clearly fond of each other, Kate, at least wants a different definition and is willing to shell out the emotional dollars to do so. Jack, I perceive, is not at that point. If he couldnt save Boone, at least he will avenge his death by confronting Locke. And he will provide medical attention to the baby, claire, everybody. Now in terms of this society, Jack is needed in this way, but where is his release from total responsibility? Locke, in White Rabbit, helped Jack on his journey so that Jack could emerge as the leader. Perhaps it is Sun he should listen to where she says: Enough... Get some air ... You cant save him ... ---and then that hard cold stare where the route of amputation was being planned out. Is Sun standing in for Jack's mother? Certainly it is not Jack's father, who in his drunken megalomania would have slammed the lid on Boone's leg without two seconds of honest thought. Or is Sun representing the fullness of humanity? Strive to save the life but be humble and know when it is time to give someone back to the earth.

Well, that went on awhile ...

Jack is trapped in his perceived role and identity. From a practical point of view, he needs to train others in medicine so that he can take a walk occasionally and explore the beauty of nature. Also, but according to your text he cant, he just needs to tell Kate that he likes her. Meanwhile, she will hang out with a strange fellow who has some quirky habits but who will at least drink with her as perhaps not a equal in the masculine frame of reference but as someone to respect. Jack still wants a marriage partner, not a human being. He also needs to find that dead father of his, bury him with ethan, and place tons of cave rock over the collective grave. And then respect him for who he was, hate him for who he was, and go talk to Sawyer if Jack wants to hear his father's last words said, perhaps, in a moment of inspired lucidity.

[Gambit980]

I agree with you Dr. I as long as some fans might loses interest in Kate once we find out she is a normal person with reasonable motives for the things that she does. This is the first time I have been introduced to the idea that a mans desire for a woman is a place holder for his free self. I will patiently wait for the other character analysis.

Whenever I get into a complex thought I ask myself Is the human condition this complex? I don't know, deep down inside I have always felt like Einstein, there must be a simple universal equation, philosophy, that keeps our world glued together. I have my own personal view on why it is this way, but I like the secular nature of this board, and I won't disturb that aspect.

[drabauer]

Thanks guys, for reading all of that. Some comments:

BA: yes, Lacan viewed his work as "rehabilitating" Freud from those who simplified and didn't quite get where Freud was coming from, because he didn't have time to get there. I kind of reading Freud against himself, against the grain, to develop what was only implied. In a very simplified sense, to see certain emotional states as structural relations conditioned by language, with a much more refined notion of what the phallis and the Oedipal relation actually mean. Quite opposed, though, to Jung, if I understand correctly, who's better known notions would err on the side of the Imaginary I think.

Gambit. You are exactly right, that's a great way to put it "a mans desire for a woman is a place holder for his free self." (I love how you have a way of concisely summing up points other people make, including me!) Of course that is but one instance of desire in general, and I don't know if I'd say 'free self,' but that's only because I'd have to define the word 'free.' And I know what you mean about the complexity of it, but it makes sense if you also think of psychoanalysis as approaching some of the questions broached by modern philosophy (Kant's Critique of Reason, et al). And I find Lacan explains a lot of the apparently irrational behavior we witness on the larger political and social canvas. But enough of this; back to Lost. In the above, I was just trying to probe beneath the surface of what I think most would agree are Jack's main issues: his relation to his father, to women, and to his own role on the island and, by extension, the world.

[boonian androphile]

As one of the guys who responded, you're welcome.

Thanks for the clarification on Freud & Jung.

Also I reread Gambit's phrase, the one you quoted. It really does have a lovely flow.

And now that you have introduced Lacan to me, I will have to do a little reading.

[sawyerhasbestlines]

All Jack ever wanted was his father’s approval, but all Jack ever received was a “yes you are my son, but . . .” Yet Christian Shepherd was an obscence father.

When Jack is seen not as his own person but as an extension of the father "yes you are my son", I think can explain why Jack seems to operate in the world like a pinball. It's like he goes through his head, this is what my father would do, therefore I will do the opposite or something else. So he makes his decisions always in reaction. First he has to rebel and bounce away from the POV of his father. Now his father is dead, but the mechanisms and patterns are still in place.

Kate is the obscene other who enjoys in place of Jack, as a substitute who realizes the desire that Jack cannot admit.

Perhaps Kate functions as a female version of Jack's shadow. If Jack spends his life reacting against his father, it's nature's paradox he will become exactly that he is reacting against so strongly.

I don't think Kate is anything like Jack's father, but I think her vagueness allows Jack to project onto her. Her mystery is the appeal, just like his own self is a mystery to him. She also has a mercurial aspect to her. You think you have her figured out but she's like mercury - mirrors inner emotions, slips away into dark crevices of the island.

If Kate were to wrest her own subjectivity from Jack’s fantasy; that is, if she were to assert herself as a fully-consicous, moral subject, Jack would have to face and take responsibility for his own desire. Jack would finally emerge as his own man.

I don't think she'll do this. Because if Jack is his own man, she will be demystified and the attraction will be over, and any power she has over him. But it would be great though. I wish he could break away from all his shackles, and be a better leader that's not driven by his baggage.

[Hodgepodge]

This is very interesting Drabauer!

I'd never heard of Jacques Lacan, so I felt it imperative to learn something about the man before commenting on your post. What I came away with was this quote. "It is up to you to be Lacanians. As far as I am concerned, I am a Freudian."

Thinking about this quote and your truism, that a male child competes with the father for the mother's love and attention. You can imagine the leaps my mind took. But, like you, I wanted to comment on things we know and can speculate with some certainty, rather than conjecture.

And this is where I have the problem. Being a male child who has never had a "session" (which maybe the problem), I remember this life you so visualized. And accept the premise that we develop this love/hate relationship with our father's because they are the ones who say no. The ones who take time and love away from the mother's. I can definitely raise my hand in agreement, looking back on this time with 40-year old eyes.

But I went back over some of the dialog between Jack and his father, and found Christian Shepherd "Symbolically", a pretty good father. In White Rabbit, he tells Jack the story of loosing a boy on the operating table. "I was able to wash my hands and come home to dinner. You know, watch a little Carol Burnett, laugh till my sides hurt. And how can I do that, hmm? And even when I fail, how do I do that, Jack? Because I have what it takes. Don't choose, Jack, don't decide. You don't want to be a hero, you don't try and save everyone because when you fail, you just don't have what it takes." Now, he's telling this story with a glass of ice, and what looks like Bourbon. Is he telling Jack the only way he surveys is by numbing his senses? Is this what he means by, "I have what it takes." Looking back at this scene now, I think that's exactly what he's saying. He's trying to keep his son from going down the same path.

Further along in White Rabbit, we run across the scene after Locke drags Jack off the cliff. Locke tells him the other survivors, "...need someone to tell them what to do." Jack says, "I can't. I'm not a leader. I don't know how to help them. I'll fail. There's been some speculation that Jack has a drinking problem like his father. Is Jack saying he doesn't have his crutch (alcohol), to make decisions for the other survivors?

In Do No Harm, Jack's father was right there with him. There was a thread speculating the location of Jack's mother at the wedding. But, we definitely see his father.

The conversation between them by the pool was very touching. I had this same conversation with my father on that day of day's. Again, he wasn't making the decision for Jack, but pointed out what that decision should be. Don't marry Sara for the wrong reasons.

Now, if you bring up Christian Shepherd's morals, that's where I feel he stepped out of line. Asking Jack to be an accomplice to that operating-room cover up, was wrong. More wrong, if you'll allow me, because he was corrupting his son. That's something a father should never do.

[drabauer]

SHBL, I think you captured exactly what I intended in different terms. That is, Jack is not like Jack's father, but through her mystery–founded on the impresseion that she has gone where moral men fear to tread–retains a power over him. And no, I don't think it will change for dramatic reasons. Unless something or someone takes his place. Because the nature of desire is that it is continually, metynomically-displaced from one object to the next when that distance object becomes known, "worn out," as it were.

Hidge, you bring up some great points regarding Christian Shepherd's intent. I'm still not sure if he is an "obscene father," but I went with that structural relation because he seems to imply that "exceptional" men like himself are above the law, emotionally (he wasn't a "good" father to Jack to make him "tougher") and morally (the drinking, accident). So on reflection, I can't really find any redeeming qualities. Because there is something obscene in the common sense about a man who will not ease his son's suffering by "picking up the phone" because he's a "bad man."

[spooky]

Thanks drabauer for sharing this. I can't wait to hear more.

Even in death the obscene father haunts Jack as the “dead” law that paradoxically never dies. As Jack tries desperately to save one life after another, to find food, shelter and water for the lostaways, to mediate differences and establish the voice of law on the island, he is but a mouthpiece for the “other,” for the voice beyond the grave (What Would Christian Do?).

I don’t really know much about Lacan, so I have a question or two. Jack “disobeys” his father when he turns him in. Does this help him to “emerge as his own man” (or is that only possible through interaction with a woman? or by locating his own desire?)? I mean, obviously Jack is still dealing with the specter of his father, but it seems to me that that moment of truth redefined Jack’s self-perception in a more positive way – created a more solid sense of self.

Do you think Locke counts as a father figure for Jack? I was struck by the similarity between the ending of Do No Harm where Jack is going to find Locke, and the scene where Jack runs off to find his father in White Rabbit (both when he’s talking to Kate). Maybe Jack calling Locke a murderer has something to do with Jack’s relationship with Christian. I sort of see Locke as a father that Jack can rebel against, and one who is interested in helping Jack to fulfill his potential. But I don’t know, Locke doesn’t exactly seem like the poster boy for morality at the moment so I don’t know how, or if, he fits in with your Lacanian analysis.

I have to think more about Jack’s relationship with Kate. I tend to think that Kate was forced or coerced into her criminal acts. What you said about language, though, makes me think about the theme of translation, or lack of translation, (things slipping through the cracks). I think Jack needs to de-cipher Kate… I doubt she’s going to do it for him. But he may be able to help her “assert herself as fully-conscious, moral subject.”

SHBL wrote:

She also has a mercurial aspect to her.

Heh, the Gemini is mercurial. Nice.

[drabauer]

Jack “disobeys” his father when he turns him in. Does this help him to “emerge as his own man” (or is that only possible through interaction with a woman? or by locating his own desire?)? I mean, obviously Jack is still dealing with the specter of his father, but it seems to me that that moment of truth redefined Jack’s self-perception in a more positive way – created a more solid sense of self.

You know it's one thing to read Lacan and another to actually practice as an analyst, so I'm really not sure! But I would think so. The only problem is that we suspect there may be more to Jack's reaction than ethics (he may have suffered his own loss of a child). Still, re: our earlier discussion of what constitutes an "act" seems to apply here. Jack defied his father because it was the right thing to do, severing his ties with the father who had defined him his whole life (forget that it is highly unlikely a father and son would ever practice at the same hospital!). This was a necessary step; we need to know a little more backstory before knowing what the next step might be.

Do you think Locke counts as a father figure for Jack? I was struck by the similarity between the ending of Do No Harm where Jack is going to find Locke, and the scene where Jack runs off to find his father in White Rabbit (both when he’s talking to Kate).

That's a great catch. I don't think of Locke as a father figure for Jack but I think Jack sees a parallel between his situation with Christian and Locke's with Boone. Except in White Rabbit he was seeking forgiveness, some kind of sign, whereas DNH was more of a flashback to his operating room experience. Locke is "drunk" on the lure of the island, and–as in the earlier scene–he drew Jack into the sacrifice and made him complicit in it. Although White Rabbit does carry that theme further: Christian drank himself to death, "sacrificed" himself to his desire to be ever the victim of his professional responsibilities, and forced Jack in a sense to be complicit in his death. The father's desire reaches out beyond the grave, as it were. So yes, Locke becomes another "obscene father" who sacrificed not only his "son" to his own desire but Jack's need for success in the "operating room," and for closure regarding his own demons. That scenario really raises the stakes for our Jack-Locke confrontation.

I have to think more about Jack’s relationship with Kate. I tend to think that Kate was forced or coerced into her criminal acts. What you said about language, though, makes me think about the theme of translation, or lack of translation, (things slipping through the cracks). I think Jack needs to de-cipher Kate… I doubt she’s going to do it for him. But he may be able to help her “assert herself as fully-conscious, moral subject.”

Yes, I agree. After Kate is "read," she may disappear as a femme fatale but take on a new role as a partner. One of the fascinating things about Lacan is even as he maintains that desire is the desire of the Other (to be read in all its ambiguity, as a desire "for" the Other and a desire to be desired "by" the Other, as well as a desire to desire "like" the Other), there is a space for love. When we truly love someone we love that thing that is more in them than themselves, that thing that is more than a sum of parts, that thing that cannot be merely a projection of desire or a reflection of our imaginary ego. So we have to move beyond desire into that place where the Other has been stripped of mystery and emerges as subject. Kate hasn't "emerged" yet; her character represents a clever balancing act by the writers to keep her mystery intact while maintaining our interest in all the possibilities she represents.