Lacan in Literature and Film

Lacan builds all his theories on the central assumption that language is inherently bound up with the privilege of access to the discourse and has its own processes that any speaking being needs to undergo in order to position himself/herself as a member of the Symbolic Order. These processes are not easy as they have lots of multiple dimensions that have to be lived in accordance with the rules of the Orders that Lacan puts forward. As language exists even before the subject is born, the subject has no choice but to be subjugated to its rules. The speaking being of the Symbolic Order, therefore, first has to be equipped with the rules of language that dominates him/her the time s/he is born.

The authors give a Lacanian hearing to Pinter’s characters in “The Homecoming” as these characters could not go through the processes of language properly, subverted the Lacanian developmental orders, and thus are victimised by language. Now they are denied any access to the Symbolic Order, they live in and can “be” only in the margins of it. The study problematises and lays out the elusive and complex nature of these characters; and the ontological correlation between their identity formation processes and their failure to integrate into the Symbolic Order.