Thomas Wendt

Purging and Being Purged: Cline through Lacan

the rose and the crap it grows in (Cline, 85)

One cannot, and must not, deny the ubiquity of shit. The taboo subjects of feces and the act of defecation enter into literary studies through the criticism, both favorable and unfavorable, of modernist and postmodernist literature, as well as studies of the early pornographic writings of authors such as the Marquis de Sade. The present analysis will not attempt to critique the earlier contributions made to the study of transgressive literature, nor will it necessarily be a study of scatology; rather, through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis, it will attempt to remark on the role of purging in Louis-Ferdinand Clines Death on the Installment Plan, with emphasis on how its role is problematic and contradictory. In this text, excrement acts as a paradoxical homology to one of the fundamental ontological influences in Lacanian theory, the objet petit a: Ferdinand struggles between activity and passivity in the midst of his own bodily expulsion, and the object of this action, excrement, functions in the text as the object-lack that returns in an inherently sexual nature. From the very beginning of Death on the Installment Plan, the reader is presented with death: Here we are, alone again. Its all so slow, so heavy, so sadIll be old soon. Then at last it will be over. So many people have come into my room. Theyve talked. They havent said much. Theyve gone away. Theyve grown old, wretched, sluggish, each in some corner of the world. (Cline, 15)

In a sense, the text begins at the end, with the narrator, Ferdinand, as a man remembering his life as he approaches old age. All is quite clear: the man is near the end of his life, he has encountered other people who spoke of things he could not understand, they left him, and now he is alone waiting to die. From these opening lines, the text establishes itself as something that moves forward by constant reference to looking back. This textand, one might argue, any textis essentially an economic one. Within the space it creates, narration, no matter what its form, is contingent on the purging of one aspect before adding something else. The Lacanian concept of the objet petit a is a necessary theoretical underpinning for literary studies insofar as it functions as the link between the subjectin this case, perhaps, the readerand the text as ostensibly disparate, lacking entities. It is an ambiguous and problematic concept that, much like the majority of Lacanian concepts, changes and is reformulated throughout Lacans work. Thus, anything resembling a working definition of the objet a is inherentlylacking. At its most basic level, objet a is the little other object, the identifiable other against which the subject defines itself, the piece of the self that the Other takes. The subject within Lacanian discourse is a split subject, represented by [barred subject], which forms the basis for the ontological status of the individual. The constitutive splitting of the subject determines its development as an individual. Objet a is what the world takes from the subject during the act of fragmentation, determining the relationship between subject and world as one of constant attempt to re-find the lost object. In this way, repetition is a fundamental phenomenon relating to the drive and transference1: [I]t is necessary to ground this repetition first of all in the very split that occurs in the subject in relation to the encounter. This split constitutes the characteristic dimension of analytic discovery and experience; it enables us to apprehend the

In this context, transference refers broadly to interactions between individuals, in and out of analysis. Drive manifests itself both towards life and death; repetition is important in both cases.
1

real, in its dialectical effects, as originally unwelcome. It is precisely through this that the real finds itself, in the subject, to a very great degree the accomplice of the drive [] only by following this way will we be able to conceive from what it returns. (Lacan, 69) The objet a, then, is the means by which the analyst traces repetitions back to their source, the real, which constitutes the objet a as extimate: a piece of the real that is radically other or external to the subject, while at the same time an intimate part of the subject that was removed but always returns. This is precisely what Lacan means when he refers to the encounter: it is the return of the real, in the form of objet a, that allows the analyst to interpret repetitions as the originally unwelcome and traumatic return of the lost object in its unveiled form. There are two main ways the subject is split: weaning and the introduction of the signifier. Before the weaning process, the child is pre-subjective; s/he is substance, or in a state of wholeness with self, world, and (m)other.2 The source of nourishment and comfort, the breast, is seen as part of the childs body. During the weaning process, the breast is taken away from the child as a source of food, resulting in a realization that self and world are separate; the child is alienated from the external world that once provided everything. The breast is the first lost object and forms the basis for all future not me objects. Along with this alienation is splitting in the symbolic system. Insofar as the world transmits information within the bounds of the symbolic system, it demands that the child speak. The introduction of the signifier, the word, forces the child into the logical conclusion that if the symbolic system demands speechthat is, demands that the child incorporates him/herself into that systemthen that system must need the child. In other words, the system must be lacking if it need the child to speak. The symbolic,

In the pre-split state of wholeness, the childs relationship to the mother is one of unlimited connectedness: the child is one with the world and one with the mother. Freud explains this feeling in Civilization and its Discontents as an oceanic feeling. The individual is connected to the vast expanse of the world in much the same way as waves in the ocean; despite the constant, fluid motion of waves, the body of water is one. In the state of substance, the childs body, the mothers body, and the world are all the same. It is only after weaning and the injunction to speak that the mother becomes other.
2

then, takes somethingboth in the sense that it attempts to make itself a whole, closed system, and in the sense that the very act of signification causes a disjunction between the signifier and signified, between the real and the signifier of the real. Objet a has a double function in the sense that the encounter with it removes the ambiguity of beingi.e., it is death, a piece of potential non-being, as opposed to the signifier of this void.3 In the encounter with objet a, the subject obtains full perspicacity in the sense that s/he is in the face of death. All vacillation is brought to stasis: Through the function of the objet a, the subject separates himself off, ceases to be linked to the vacillation of being, in the sense that it forms the essence of alienation. (Lacan, 258) It is important to note that Lacan is referencing Heidegger in the previous section, and thus the vacillation of being no doubt points to the vacillation of Dasein, the being that is always in question, always vacillating between being and the potential for not being. Objet a puts an end to this vacillation in that the encounter with it is direct and unveiled; it is not subject to conscious defenses, and therefore is a direct encounter the non-potentiality for alternate meaning. In a certain sense, such vacillation is necessary, as the constant movement of vacillation, the infinite indecision and lack of stasis, is what ensures the future of being. In other words, desire guarantees that the end is somewhere in the indiscernible future as opposed to right now. As such, the objet a provides a fleeting moment of certainty and active mastery, but it is not the type of mastery that necessarily results in conscious pleasure: I would now warn you against confusing the function of the [barred subject] with the image of the objet a, in so far as it is thus that the subject sees himself duplicatedsees himself constituted by the reflected, momentary, precarious image of mastery, imagines himself to be a man merely by virtue of the fact that he imagines himself. (Lacan, 141-142)

The signifier for this lack is termed the Phallus, the signifier of lack in the Other, whose signified is ultimately the potentiality for linguistic wholeness.
3

Lacan is essentially warning against what he sees as the major problem of the Cartesian cogito: that the subject can assert complete positivity in his/her existence as an agent in the world by merely recognizing ones image and enunciating it in the symbolic system. Instead, Lacan posits a need for the recognition of image as representation, of the image as at least one representational step away from the real object. The subject cannot be apprehended in its entirety because it is barred, both in the sense that it is literally split in the acts of weaning and linguistic development, and in the sense the removed part of the self leaves a trace4 in the subject that constantly projects its own image out into the world. In this way, [t]he subject is strictly speaking determined by the very separation that determines the break of the a, that is to say, the fascinatory element introduced by the gaze. (Lacan, 118) Subjectivity, then, is not fragmented by the objet a itself but by the impetus for the existence of objet a as such: the necessity of weaning and the symbolic system. As the objet a is cut from the individual and its trace projects itself into the imaginary system, it always looks back. The delusional mastery involved is a result of seeing oneself as an imagei.e., as an object that one can apprehend in its entirety because its existence is not in question. The encounter that Lacan speaks of so elusively is one of multiple meanings and consequences. He borrows the Aristotelian term tuch to designate the return of the real, which shatters the subjects defenses and essentially ceases desire. In other words, tuch is a stopping point, an interruption in the narrative of being as well as of the text that demands attention. In

Trace is used here deliberately to evoke the concept as found in Derridas ideas of synchronic linguistics. Similarly to Derrridas use of the linguistic tracethe idea that when looking at language synchronically, one can assume potential for all other phonemes in the place of any phoneme in questionthe trace of objet a is the omnipresent element of stoppage in the vacillation of being and non-being, wholeness and fragmentation, object and image. Even where the objet a is not present, it is always there in the phenomenological potential for the encounter.
4

fact, it is one of the few phenomena that, at the time of its action, the subject cannot possibly deny or defer attention from by means of defense: The function of the tuch, or the real as encounterthe encounter in so far as it may be missed, in so far as it is essentially the missed encounterfirst presented itself in the history of psycho-analysis in a form that was in itself already enough to arouse our attention, that of trauma. [] The trauma reappears, in effect, frequently unveiled. [] Let us conclude that the reality system, however fat it is developed, leaves an essential part of what belongs to the real a prisoner in the toils of the pleasure principle. (Lacan, 55) The effects of tuch on the subject are an essential enigma of Lacanian theory. At the same time, the encounter with the real causes trauma, while it is the end of the drive. Hence, tuch, is beyond the pleasure principle only insofar as the subject experiences it as an empirical realitythat is, insofar as it results in la petit mort, with all its sexual connotations.5 It does not produce the same effect when presented under the guise of conscious defenses; thus, it is essentially an experience that is never experienced. Given its ambiguous relationship with the subject, the encounter with the real is enigmatic in that the individuals psyche expends a considerable amount of energy in avoiding it, but at the same time it is always already established as the end point of existence. Life becomes nothing more than the egos struggle against that which it can never defeat. The significance of this (non)encounter points to the individuals passive position relative to the external world. Every attempt at maintaining the singularity of the subject is met with obscene opposition. Such a conception of the individuals futile defenses against submission to that which is disconnected from the self is a recurring theme in Clines text. From the first pages, the text introduces the idea of passive subjectivity:

C.f. chapter 4 of Freuds Beyond the Pleasure Principle on the inherent sexuality of the traumatic experience.
5

Let them cough. Let them spit. Let their bones fall apartLet them bugger each other. Let them fly away with forty different gasses in their gutsTo hell with themBut this sniveling bitch holds me tight, falls on my neck, and blows her despair in my face. Her despair reeks of red wineI havent the strength to resist. Anyway, nothing would have made her let go. I thought maybe when we got to the rue des Casses, which is a long street without a single lamp, Id give her a good kick in the assSo for the hundredth time I weaken (Cline, 17) This passage establishes an important theme in the text concerning the external invading the internal. Ferdinand is constantly struggling with how to manage his attempt to close himself off from external forces that he perceives as threatening. In this scene, the woman patient breathes a breath of despair into him. In a certain sense, one can think of this action as similar to that of invoking the muse in epic poetry to inspire the poet, literally asking the gods to breathe into the poet; Ferdinands inspiration, however, is not the impetus for the production of poetry in the epic sense but rather a fragmented narrative, constantly broken by its own limitations, as indicated by the ellipses. In this way, one can interpret the excessive use of ellipses, which indicate that something has been left out, as the effect of a threatening external agency. It is not only that Ferdinand feels the injustice of an outside force, but also his lack of active defense that causes anxiety. It is the fact the he must wait until he gets to a long street without a single lamp to give her a good kick in the assi.e., to defend himself against her threatthat causes him the most distress. The ambiguity here is significant: will escape to a dark street result in Ferdinands defeat over the woman, or is this retreat a defense against his own eventual defeat? One thing that is certain, however, is that Ferdinand is rendered passive for the hundredth time. Such an external threat and invasion indicates the primary role of objet a in individual existence. Insofar as the objet a is a piece of the real that is split off from the subject but always returns in either subtle or traumatic ways, one can read this novel as one that viscerally represents the role of the lost object that returns and is purged. The form of objet a is contingent

on the potential for mastery; the ego works to ensure that the return, for it not to result in trauma, must be in the form of an image of mastery. The individual must have the illusion that the objet a is not beyond control: Madness has been hot on my trailno exaggerationfor twenty-two years. Thats quite a package. Shes tried a million different noises, a tremendous hullabaloo, but I raved faster than she could, I screwed her, I beat her to the tape. Thats how I do it. I shoot the shit. I charm her, I force her to forget me. My great rival is music, it sticks in the bottom of my ear and rotsit never stops scoldingit dazes me with blasts of the trombone, it keeps on day and night. Ive got every noise in nature, from the flute to Niagara FallsWherever I go, Ive got drums with me and an avalanche of trombonesfor weeks on end I play the triangleOn the bugle I cant be beat. I still have my own private birdhouse complete with three thousand five hundred and twenty seven birds that will never calm downI am the organs of the UniverseI provide everything, the ham, the spirit, and the breathOften I seem to be worn out. My thoughts stagger and sprawlIm not very good to them. Im working up the opera of the deluge. As the curtain falls, the midnight train pulls into the stationThe glass dome shatters and collapsesThe steam escapes through two dozen valvesThe couplings bounce sky-highIn wide open carriages three hundred musicians soused to the gills rend the air, playing forty-five bars at once For twenty-two years shes been trying to carry me offat exactly midnightBut I can fight back (Cline, 39-40) As one can see in this scene, one of the images or forms that objet a assumes in this text is that of music. Music is established as one of the invading forces that Ferdinand identifies as a great rival. Significantly, the role of breath returns in the form of instruments, specifically wind instrumentsflute, bugle, trombone. The subject has a certain amount of control over instruments; they are external tools that do not create noise on their own but always require the human, the breath. The natural sources of music, however, are entirely different; birds and Niagara Falls create noise that is completely separate from human intervention. For Ferdinand, these noises are not merely background sound, but rather they are hostile forces that are

constantly present6they represent madness threatening to carry him off on the midnight train. The image of mastery manifests itself in the proclamation, but I can fight back. Of course, Ferdinand cannot fight back. The students music is coupled with his mothers voice telling Vitruve of his terrible nature; the music that he hates emanating from the student who Ferdinand perceives to be a direct, physical threat (41) gains power with the simultaneous abuse form his first lost object, his mother. Ferdinands defenses take the form of ridicule: DFG-sharpEShit! Isnt he ever going to stop? That must be his pupil starting inWhen fever spreads through you, life gets as flabby as a barkeepers bellyYou sink into a muddle of entrails. I hear my mother rubbing it inShes telling Madame Vitruve the story of her lifeOver and over again, to make it clear what a time shes had with me. Extravagantirresponsiblelazynothing like his fatherhe so conscientiousso hardworkingso deservingso unluckywho passed on the last winterSureshe doesnt tell her about the dishes he broke on her beanOh no! DCED-flat! Thats his pupil, in trouble againskipping sixteenthshes tangled up in the teachers fingersHes skiddinghe cant straighten outhis nails are full of sharps...Watch the beat! I roar. (Cline, 43) Ferdinands exclamation, watch the beat, although comical, functions as more than a mere humorous statement. Specifically, it is a defense against the anxiety he feels in the situation the anxiety of music once again invading him, and not only as an inconvenience but more of a purposeful jab when coupled with his mothers reproaching statements. Watch the beat is a purposeful reaction to an external reality over which he has no control and in which he feels completely passive. It is his attempt to formalize the situation, or in a sense, to experience the displeasure on his own terms; given that one cannot exert control over a threatening stimulus, the logic of the psyche maintains that one, in a sense, own the displeasure of the experience. One

The example of Niagara Falls is particularly apt, as waterfalls are one of the only natural sources of white noise. Having lived in Niagara Falls, NY for eighteen years, I can attest to the fact that, when in the vicinity of the falls, the roar of the water and the white noise it creates drowns out other sounds. Since white noise contains all frequencies in the spectrum, it overpowers any other noise. Most observers find the sound quite pleasant, but due to his sheer perceptual constancy, Ferdinands case is a different story.
6

method for attaining this ownership is to manipulate the displeasure in such a way that it provides the illusion of activity.7 Ferdinands reaction to music is neither the only example nor the primary example of Ferdinands defensive activity and its inherent ambivalence. Examples that call for further interpretation of his ambivalence and anxious relationships are found throughout the text. Perhaps the one that is paradoxically the most striking and insidious is that of excrement and vomit. At first glance, the ubiquitous instances of bodily purging appear as mere shock value; but in another sense, given their very ubiquity, these aspects of the narrative demand attention. They repeat constantly, especially in the first half of the novel; and insofar as repetition always signifies importance and anxiety, one must treat these scenes as integral to textual interpretation. Ferdinand has a very complicated relationship with his own feces. At once, he is constantly purging himself, but not in the way that all animals purge themselves of waste products: the scenes in question are expulsive, suggesting not only a case of going to the bathroom but specifically a pathological and perhaps hysterical reaction to external forces. The text does not describe Ferdinand shitting when he feels the need to go; rather, the scenes take place as a result of distress, as an anxious, hysterical reaction to his inability to sustain the illusion of active agency. One instance of such a reaction includes Ferdinands relationship to his parents: Foreseeing that Id be a thief, my father blared like a trombone. One afternoon Tom and I had emptied the sugar bowl. It was never forgotten. But that wasnt my only fault. In addition my behind was always dirty, I didnt wipe myself, I didnt have time, that was my justification, we were always in too much of a hurryI never wiped myself properly, I always had a sock coming to

I am making reference to Freuds description of the fort-da game in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. In short, the child reverts to play in order to quell the anxiety caused by his mother leaving. Freud posits that the game functions to transfer the childs passivity onto the perception, although illusory, of active mastery in the game.
7

10

meand hurried to avoid itI left the can door open so as to hear them comingI shat like a bird between two storms I bounded upstairs and they couldnt find meId go around for weeks with shit on my ass. I was conscious of the smell, Id be careful not to get too close to people. Hes as filthy as thirty-six pigs! He has no self-respect! Hell never make a living. Every boss in the world will fire him!... He saw a shitty future in store for me. He stinks!...Well always have him on our hands My father looked far ahead and all he saw was gloom. He put it in Latin for emphasis: Sanacorpora sano. My mother didnt know what to say. (Cline, 69) The theme of music comes back again through the father who blared like a trombone. Ferdinand defies his fathers prohibition to eat the sugara prohibition that is not spoken but rather implied by its consequenceswhich then results in his fathers outburst. What is a minor defiance with which every child and parent is familiar becomes cause for drastic repercussions. Given the fathers tyrannical prohibitions and the theme of music, it is plausible to conclude that the two become associated with one anotheri.e., in a process akin to classical conditioning, Ferdinand comes to associate music with his fathers recriminations. As a result, the father is incorporated into Ferdinands reality as a potential threat to his agency, constantly threatening castration and the imposition of passivity long after Oedipal resolution.8 Of particular interest in this passage is Ferdinands admission that he does not wipe himself properly. He blames time and the fathers threat for his neglect; the threat of physical violence keeps him constantly on guard against potential violence, thus forcing him to be vigilant to the point that he must run from the bathroom without finishing proper hygiene practices. There is, however, another way to interpret Ferdinands inability to wipe himself. The text indicates time as his justification for failing to properly clean himself, specifically stating that

Although it is certainly important and interesting, an analysis of Oedipal influences in this text would be beyond the scope of the present essay. I attempt to comment on this matter only in places of particular importance.
8

11

he is always in a hurry to avoid his fathers punishment. One can also see how the word justification implies a sense of choicespecifically, choosing not to wipe. In other words, Ferdinand would not necessarily need to justify his bad hygiene if it were simply due to the avoidance of abuse; certainly, the avoidance of physical pain is strong enough to overpower cleanliness. In this way, the justification is quite telling in that it implies a defensive stance resulting from the rift between who Ferdinand is and who he believes he is supposed to be. Justification points to something else; it indicates a certain amount of ambivalence toward his own excrement. He shows a feeling of dissonance concerning the social aspects of cleanliness he avoids people because he knows that he smells unpleasantand something about his own character that prevents him from engaging in socially acceptable hygienic behavior. He both purges the feces form his body and at the same time keeps it close to him, as if the object of feces carries more meaning than bodily waste. In a structural sense, excrement functions similarly to the objet a: it is a piece of the subject that has been removed, the subject has an ambivalent relationship to it, and it returns back to the subject both as an object of desire and an object of avoidance. The establishment of objet a as an object to which the subject can relate only in ambivalence implies that all object relations, insofar as they are representations of objet a, are laden with contradictory feelings of love and hate. Objet a is a taboo; it is loved to the point of hatred, sought to the point of avoidance, and revered to the point of denigration. The desire to purge the object from the body but also keep it within close proximity to the self is inherently linked to anxiety over the conflict between passivity and activity. Just as in the subjective fragmentation that results from weaning and the introduction of the signifier, the individual, Ferdinand, passively submits to the objects removal. His defensive, anxious behavior concerning cleaning himself is nothing more than a

12

striving toward activity. He knows that his excrement should be an object of disgust, but he still feels the need to maintain a close relationship with it, hence his ambivalence and need for justification. The conscious ego can only manage the objet a for so long before it is overwhelmed; it returns and repeats via unconscious pulsation until it pierces through the conscious screen. As with any ambivalent and narcissistic relationship to a lost objectnarcissistic because the object is both external and inherently part of the selfits return is in the form of trauma. One can think of a traumatic return as a paroxysm of tension; venting mechanisms that operate to release tension gradually cease to operate as such. The result is an overflow of sorts: The discussions were interminableThey started griping about everything under the sun before Grandma even opened her mouthThe shithouse was stuffed upThey were very dissatisfiedthey shouted their complaints from every window in the placethey wanted it fixedand right away!...They were afraid wed put one over on themThey hollered to prevent us from mentioning the rentThey wouldnt even look at the billsTheir shithouse was really stopped up, it was overflowing into the streetIn winter it froze and the bowl cracked under the slightest pressureEvery time it cost eighty francsThe bastards wrecked everything in sightThat was the tenants way of getting evenAnd making childrenEvery time we came back there were new oneswith less and less clothes onSome of them were stark nakedLying in the bottom of a cupboard. [] She worked her pole back and forth and dislodged the muck. The pole alone wouldnt do it. She plunged in with both arms, the tenants all came out with their brats to watch us cleaning out their shitand the papersand the ragsTheyd was them up on purposeCaroline was undauntedwhat a woman! Nothing could get her down (Cline, 96-97) The focus here is on the phenomenon of the clogged shithouse and the narrators admiration for Carolines ability to fix the clog. Similar to the shit in the shithouse, the objet a is only contained outside the field of consciousness until the tension between reality and the real9 comes

In its most basic form, the distinction between reality and the real in Lacanian psychoanalysis is a question of consciousness and unconsciousness: the real is the radically Other that is always on the threshold of the subject, always on the outside threatening to penetrate, whereas reality is individual consciousness that attempts to situate the real in a way that does not threaten conscious defenses. Reality is both a construction that
9

13

to a point at which release is necessary. This point of release is the objet a returning back to the subject, making it a paradoxical action of both purge and return. For Lacan, the unconscious is closed off in the construction of individual reality, which one can think of in terms of an effect of something that plays the role of obturatorthe objet a, sucked, breathed, into the orifice of the net. (Lacan 144-145) Once the objet a shifts itself, the orifice opens and there is an overflow. This scene from the novel works as an analogy to the traumatic return of objet a in its unveiled, real form. There is a sense of immediacy in the scene; the tenants are only concerned with the shithouse clog that is forcing their shit into the streets, not with paying their rent that secures their home. This analogy, however, only operates under a sort of reverse logic: whereas the tenants demand the unclogging of the shithouse so as to allow movement, the subject experiencing trauma strives toward repairing broken defenses in order to re-clog the orifice, to cease the movement of the real into reality. Given the objet as extimacyits externality and intimacyits return is always imminent. One result of subjective splitting is a defense against its traumatic return, a defense that works to defer the objet as effects, or to manipulate them into something less obscene and more insidious. In Lacanian discourse, this defensive mechanism is a function of the gaze: In our relation to things, in so far as this relation is constituted by the way of vision, and ordered in the figures of representation, something slips, passes, is transmitted, from stage to stage, and is always to some degree eluded in itthis is what we call the gaze. (Lacan, 73) Essentially, the gaze is the looking back from the world of objects; and this act of looking back, the existence of things in the world that are not-me, is precisely what is missed in the act of looking. It is also the basis for narcissistic attachments, much like Ferdinands attachment to his own

attempts to block out the real and a means of altering the real into something that will not cause trauma upon return.

14

excrement. Ferdinand retains his own feces so as to assuage the anxiety of producing an object that is part of the self and radically external to itexternal to the point of disgust, and in Ferdinands case, ambivalence. Ambivalence is the emotive reaction into which the subject is forced insofar as objet a appears as the traumatic lost objectthat is, the object that cannot be integrated into the imaginary field and therefore presents itself as traumatic, as well as the object that has potential to bring wholeness. Thus, objet a, upon its return, opens a space in which the subject can return to original wholenessi.e., the end of the drive. As the subject is driven toward this end, the presentation of objet a can only be treated with ambivalence resulting from the conflict between drive and consciousness, at once a question of how the subject is determined and to what extent an individual can consciously will. To state the question differently: How can one circumvent such strict determination and still obtain pleasure apart from the finality of death? Lacan only hints at the answer: [W]hat specifies the scopic field and engenders the satisfaction proper to it is the fact that, for structural reasons, the fall of the subject always remains unperceived, for it is reduced to zero. In so far as the gaze, qua objet a, may come to symbolize this central lack expressed in the phenomenon of castration, and in so far as it is an objet a reduced, of its nature, to a punctiform, evanescent function, it leaves the subject in ignorance as to what there is beyond the appearance. (Lacan, 76-77) Of course, Lacan is referring to the gaze as it presents itself in the field of vision, but one can certainly generalize a topic of such breadth to other areas such as the interactions between objects and individuals. Insofar as the objet a is reduced to a point in the visual system that the subject cannot perceive in its entirety but only sense its presence, excrement works in the opposite manner: it is always present and always apparent. It cannot be avoided. In another sense, however, shit and objet a are both always present, and thus the question is not one of

15

presence but one of the ability to perceive. The subject is unable to anticipate the arrival of objet a, whereas the arrival of shit is preceded by trauma. As the objet a results in trauma, the presence of feces occurs as a reaction to trauma. Probably the most striking and significant instance of bodily expulsion is Ferdinands reaction to attacking his father. This scene displays both Ferdinands violent attack against the source of his prohibitionswhich are essentially, Stop shitting in your pantsand his reaction to the confrontation, involving the violent purging of feces and vomit. Ferdinand voids himself of hostility toward his father and bodily waste: And then my stomach heavedI began to vomitI even pushed to make it come upThat made me feel a lot betterI vomited up everythingThe shivers started againThey shook me so hard I didnt know who I was anymoreI was surprised at myselfI threw up the macaroniI started in againIt did me a whole lot of good. Like I was getting rid of everythingI threw up everything I could all over the floorI pushed and strainedI bent double to make myself puke still more and then came slime and frothIt splattered, it spread under the doorI vomited up everything Id eaten for at least a week and then diarrhea tooI wanted to call them to let me leave the roomI dragged myself to the pitcher that was standing by the fireplaceI shat into itAfter that I couldnt keep my balanceMy head was spinningI collapsed again and let it all out on the floorI shat some moreA flood of marmalade (Cline, 319) The first thing to notice about this passage is that, as opposed to the previous scenes in which the purged object is retained and overflows, the products of the purge are in liquefied form and exist only for the act of purging. Ferdinands stomach and bowels empty their contents onto the floor in direct response to attacking his father, a purging that both displays his guilt for violently defying the fathers prohibitions and an unclogging of the unconscious. Such an outflow represents an inability to continue maintenance of unconscious blockage. The psyche purges itself through the body in a hysterical paroxysm, an uncontrolled outburst of everything that was held in and is no longer contained. This scene is also directly followed by Ferdinands adoption of a new paternal figure, the Courtial des Pereires, which is also the point in the text where the
16

focus on bodily functions becomes much less marked. It is as though the first half of the novel sets out to purge the shit in preparation for a re-cloggingi.e., a movement from Ferdinands openly abusive father to Courtial des Pereires, a less abusive but no more functional paternal figure. In attempt to bring closure to that which constantly vacillates between opening and closing, one must consider the ramifications of defining the indefinable. That is to say, given that the objet petit a is an object that the subject bars from consciousness, and its return is always in the form of trauma, an analysis of its essential nature is inherently bound to fail. Such a formulation is not a result of theoretical ineptitude but rather of the necessary ambiguity of the subject matter. In other words, insofar as the objet petit a is the aspect of the subject whose removal is necessary, its return in the form of an object of analysis is almost counterintuitive. Perhaps it is more advantageous to recognize and accept the ambiguity for what it isa necessary analytic problem rather than an inhibiting force, an insurmountable but nonetheless open potential for play. The problem with the objet a is not that it is removed but that it returns; and in this act of return, in the passive subject position into which one is forced by the real coming back, play enters the space of uncanny proximity, ambivalence, and the threat of the external.

17

Bibliography Cline, Louis-Ferdinand. Death on the Installment Plan. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: New Directions, 1966. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1998.

18