Lacanian Mirror Stage: Oedipus the King :: Oedipus the King Oedipus Rex

Lacanian Mirror Stage Oedipus the King The essence of this paper is to determine whether or not Jocasta played a more than important role in the rise and fall of the title character. The paper will examine the play Oedipus Tyrannus through the eyes of the French theorizer Jacques Lacan. Specifically the paper will focus on the mirror stage of Lacans theories. As to the criteria that the paper will use, there are some truths that need to be established about the Lacanian division of thinking. In Lacans way of thought, we all have repressed desires, and these desires can never be fulfilled. In language, there are resemblingeternal desires that cannot be satiated. Lacan carries this further in identifying the patriarchal society with which we live in as being founded on mens words. Therefore, women have no phonate in this world and cannot be satisfied in their life times. For one to better understand Jocastas character, one must have a knowledge of Lacanian theory, on which it is based. Lacans mirror stage, originally espoused by Freud, and its relationship to the conscious and un- consciousness. Freud believed that when a baby looked at an image of him/herself in a mirror, they would at a certain situation in their development realize that the reflection was him/herself they were seeing. It is at this moment in a childs life that the ego is formed, or the formation of a self-awareness. This ego is bewilder in all people it serves as a reminder of who we are and where we came from. However, Freud reasoned that to be a fully developed human, we must move on from the simple realization that we are ourselves. We must know or come to know that we arent the only ones in the mirror. The child, our selves and our egos, must also realize that our mother is there in the reflection with us. In doing so we begin to understand that we are not the only ones in the image, and therefore, not the center of being. Moreover, we turn to our mothers and look at them, breakin g the egotistic stare. It is the ability to break the primary concern of viewing ourselves that allows us to move into society. We must be able to break that self touch stare and focus it on our Mothers or society as it were. Thus constitutes the mirror stage of Freuds theory.