"I Am Obstinate...I Disappear": Toward a Communism of Reading A Lacanian Thesis

Author

Izaak Hecht

Date of Award

2015

First Advisor

Bernard Rodgers

Second Advisor

Joan DelPlato

Abstract

This thesis utilizes a Lacanian framework to analyze several works, by Lawrence Durrell, Gertrude Stein, André Breton, and André Gide, among others. My central goal is to look at the desire and structure of narrative, and how these things have been theorized or rejected by various authors and schools of literary criticism. I strive to point toward a literary theory which maintains a respect for the text, a willingness to read the text on its own terms and in its own ontology, while at the same time joining up these specific structures to more universal questions of subjectivity and desire: to read a literary work as a literary work, not merely as an illustration of some pre-conceived idea, while at the same time not shying away from the big existential/ontological questions.

Recommended Citation

Hecht, Izaak, ""I Am Obstinate...I Disappear": Toward a Communism of Reading A Lacanian Thesis" (2015). Senior Theses. 947.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/sr-theses/947