90 CHAPTER – 2 Rereading Lacan: Towards an Alternative Semiotics The five works of fiction selected for the study redefine Lacanian concepts in a new realm of signification by posing a strong challenge to Lacanian Symbolic, the order of the Paternal realm of language in patriarchy. The select women’s fiction include Terry McMillan’s Mama, Emma Donoghue’s Room, Kristin Hannah’s The Things We Do for Love, Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin and Lee Maracle’s First Wives Club: Coast Salish Style. These women writers, despite their cultural differences, are equivocal in their feminist theoretical move to challenge patriarchy by evolving the Maternal as the source of an equally or even more powerful alternative politics or alternative discursive space. This is made possible by an effective rereading/rewriting of Lacanian concepts like the three stages in the development of the human psyche (Imaginary, Mirror-stage and Symbolic), Phallocentrism, Phallus and so on. These women writers unite in their literary and theoretical move to use “maternity,” woman’s “maternal power,” as a weapon or force to crumble down the strong pillars of patriarchy by reviving the focus on woman’s experience of “mothering,” on the endless “desire-to-mother” in every woman irrespective of differences at various levels like that of culture, context or age. This feminist political move also focuses on
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90
CHAPTER – 2
Rereading Lacan: Towards an Alternative Semiotics
The five works of fiction selected for the study redefine Lacanian
concepts in a new realm of signification by posing a strong challenge to
Lacanian Symbolic, the order of the Paternal realm of language in
patriarchy. The select women’s fiction include Terry McMillan’s Mama,
Emma Donoghue’s Room, Kristin Hannah’s The Things We Do for Love,
Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin and Lee Maracle’s First
Wives Club: Coast Salish Style. These women writers, despite their
cultural differences, are equivocal in their feminist theoretical move to
challenge patriarchy by evolving the Maternal as the source of an
equally or even more powerful alternative politics or alternative
discursive space. This is made possible by an effective
rereading/rewriting of Lacanian concepts like the three stages in the
development of the human psyche (Imaginary, Mirror-stage and
Symbolic), Phallocentrism, Phallus and so on.
These women writers unite in their literary and theoretical move
to use “maternity,” woman’s “maternal power,” as a weapon or force to
crumble down the strong pillars of patriarchy by reviving the focus on
woman’s experience of “mothering,” on the endless “desire-to-mother”
in every woman irrespective of differences at various levels like that of
culture, context or age. This feminist political move also focuses on
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every individual’s (man/woman) eternal desire to return to his/her
woman-mother, to reunite with her, to re-experience the womb-like
moment of togetherness; for the woman-mother, her son/daughter,
irrespective of his/her age, always remains her “little one” – the Child.
The uncovering of this feminist political act also involves a parallel
deconstruction of patriarchal constructs like “motherhood” as a mere
social institution, the primal existence of the “familial Triad” (Father,
mother and children) and so on. In the “familial Triad,” the patriarchal
model of an ideal family, the Woman-Mother slowly disappears from the
linguistic scene leaving the familial space for Father and children. Thus,
the Woman-Mother becomes a sheer “nonentity” or “absence” in the
familial realm of language in patriarchy.
The five fictional works, by deconstructing “patriarchal family”
and decentring “patriarchal parentage,” reconstruct and redefine
“family” as a reincarnation of the Maternal Womb (the exclusive
maternal space of the Woman/Mother-Child dyad). In this new concept
of “family,” man/father remains a mere peripheral presence. These
fictional narratives run against the laws of patriarchy as they portray the
Maternal/Woman-Mother as active and articulate even in the Symbolic,
the paternal order of language in patriarchy. In these fictional works,
man/father remains either absent or passive and inarticulate.
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In the select women’s fiction, the Maternal re-emerges as an
active and powerfully vocal alternative discourse against the passive,
silent or absent paternal discourse, and challenges the Law-of-the-
Father/Name-of-the-Father that holds patriarchy intact. In other words,
the Name-of-the-M(Other) replaces the Name-of-the-Father/Law-of-
the-Father. This revival of the Woman-Mother in the Lacanian
Symbolic, in turn, can be psychologically seen as an extension of
Mother-oriented or female-oriented psychic stages namely Imaginary
and Mirror stages (the space where the Woman-Mother rules or She is
the World and Word for the child whether boy or girl) into the Symbolic.
This resurgence of the Woman-Mother against the social order of
patriarchy (Phallocentrism) consequentially disrupts the harmony,
coherence and autonomy of the Symbolic (paternal order).
These works of fiction challenge the Lacanian Symbolic or
Phallocentrism represented by patriarchy, suggesting a strong surge
towards an alternative semiotics or alternative discourse called
“maternity” or “maternal power” which forms the Woman-Mother’s real
identity and strength. They reveal the unimaginable and unchallengeable
power of the Maternal in woman by exploring the hidden depths of
woman/mother-child relationship and redefine the Lacanian concepts.
Lacanian thoughts now pervade the disciplines of literary studies
and women’s studies. From the perspective of literary studies,
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the re-discovery of Lacan in the mid-1970s, initially by feminists,
revitalized the practice of psychoanalytic criticism and reinstated
psychoanalysis at the cutting edge of critical theory. Lacanian
psychoanalysis aims at analysing the ways in which unconscious desires
manifest themselves in the literary text through language.
Lacan’s important innovation in the field of psychoanalysis
constitutes his identification of three stages in the development of the
human psyche as an ever-developing human entity. Before the sense of
self emerges, the young child exists in a realm which Lacan calls the
Imaginary, in which there is no distinction between the Self and the
Other and there is a kind of idealized identification with the mother. This
stage lasts upto six months of age. Between six months and eighteen
months comes what he calls the Mirror-stage when the child sees its own
reflection in the “mirror” that does not mean a literal mirror but any
reflective surface including the mother’s face and begins to conceive of
itself as a unified being, separate from the rest of the world. At this
stage, the child begins to recognize its image in the mirror and this is
usually accompanied by pleasure. The child, in the Mirror-stage,
constructs a sense of the Self using its “mirror-image” (the Other, the
Woman-Mother). This stage, when the child becomes aware of its
resemblance with the mother, roughly lasts for a year. Following this
stage, the child enters the language system. This stage also marks the
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beginning of socialization, with its prohibitions and restraints associated
with the figure of the father. The new order which the child now enters is
called the Symbolic by Lacan. For Lacan, the Symbolic is the register of
language and of linguistically mediated cognitions. Thus, the Imaginary
and Mirror-stage are the psychic stages where the woman-mother
remains as the Power, the Subject. The Symbolic is the psychic stage
where the man/father replaces the woman-mother as the Subject, the
Power, perpetuating the laws of patriarchy.
Lacanian Symbolic is the order of patriarchy, the psychic stage
where man/father is more vocal, eloquent and forceful in the exercise of
language causing the disappearance or ineffectiveness of the woman-
mother. The child realizes man/father’s articulating power as a source of
authority and takes language as an instrument of power. Therefore, the
child’s innate urge to acquire language in patriarchy is in turn the child’s
attempt to rival the man/father. Hence, as Lacan suggests, the primary
acquisition of language is Oedipal. That is, it is the Oedipal crisis which
marks the entry of the child into the realm of signification or Lacanian
Symbolic in patriarchy. This entry, this Oedipal conflict between the
child and the father, as feminists point out, simultaneously marks the
disappearance of the woman-mother from the child’s realm of
signification, from the frame of the core-narrative. Lacan calls this realm
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of the Symbolic the “phallocentric” universe in which men/fathers are in
control of the word marking the disappearance of the woman-mother.
Lacan conceives of the Imaginary and the Mirror-stage as
pre-Oedipal stages in which the child has not yet completely separated or
differentiated itself from the woman-mother and, as a consequence, has
not learned language which is the Symbolic order to be taught by the
man/father. The feminists have redefined the Imaginary and the
Mirror-stage as stages that constitute the vital source of language
governed by the woman-mother which is later tamed by the Law-of-the-
Father, by the Symbolic order, as part of patriarchal politics. In their
view, the psychic processes of the Imaginary and the Mirror-stage form
the ego and they are repeated and reinforced by the Subject in his/her
relationship with the external world. The Imaginary and the
Mirror-stage are, therefore, not mere developmental phases, but they
remain at the core of human experience forever.
The fictional works selected for the study challenge the Lacanian
Symbolic that propagates the disappearance of the Woman-Mother from
the world of signification, and thereby cause her revival or rebirth. This
is done in the literary frame either by using the Oedipal conflict as the
factor that facilitates the feminist literary act of reducing the patriarchal
man/father into a passive, silent discursive existence/an absence, a rival
in love (which is forceful at the conscious level and not displaced) and
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power (acquisition of language) for the child, or by completely rejecting
the scope for any such Oedipal space.
The select fictional works illustrate the different ways in which
the Maternal in woman emerges as a force that simultaneously turns out
to be an effective alternative remedy to cure what is described as
penis-envy. The notion of penis-envy need not be taken as simply
concerning the male sex organ, but as concerning the social power
and advantages represented by it. Hence, penis-envy no longer bears
sexual/physical attributes but psycho-social. The term penis-envy, thus,
signifies women’s lack of “penis” as women’s lack of “social power”
(a male attribute to be envied by women in patriarchy), and hence
feminists see concepts like penis-envy as constituting the power-house
of an age-old (and still active) oppressive system called patriarchy.
Feminists regard “Wholeness” or “Oneness” (the woman/mother-child
union, a reincarnation of the Maternal Womb) rather than “Otherness”
(woman-mother as the Other of man/father in patriarchy) as a means of
woman’s real identity and suggests the former as a cure for penis-envy.
They exhort women to propagate the impossibilities of such patriarchal
fabrications like penis-envy. This feminist dismissal of the possibilities
of patriarchal constructs like penis-envy is made possible with a
rereading of Lacanian concepts like “phallus.”
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Lacan replaces the term “penis” with “phallus” in his stream of
psychoanalysis. The phallus in Lacanian psychoanalysis should not be
confused with the male genital organ, although it clearly carries these
sexual/physical connotations. In the phallocentric universe of creativity
man performs with phallus and controls the space of language or
signification. By the extension of this Lacanian notion of “phallus,” we
realize it as a central signifier, a “privileged signifier” that controls the
entire signifying system. The phallus, therefore, operates in all of
Lacan’s registers – Imaginary, Mirror-stage and Symbolic – and, thus, in
his system “phallus” becomes the one single indivisible signifier that
anchors the chain of signification. Indeed, phallus is a particularly
privileged signifier that inaugurates the process of signification itself.
Thus, phallus no longer signifies the sexual/physical but the
psychological, and this in turn suggests both man’s and woman’s
proximity to phallus as privileged signifiers. In a patriarchy, man is
physically and symbolically nearer the phallus than woman. Therefore, it
is easier for a man to attain subjecthood in a patriarchy. This interesting
rereading of the Lacanian concept of “phallus” as the “privileged
signifier” substantiates the feminist theoretical stand that the Maternal in
Woman re-emerges as the Cure, the alternative remedy for patriarchal
constructs like penis-envy. This theoretical stand also argues for the
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Woman-Mother’s proximity to “phallus” as the new Subject, the Power,
the Privileged Signifier.
The Woman/Mother-Child Dyad is a familial space that
emerges as an alternative to the familial space propagated by the
patriarchal “familial Triad” that of Father, mother and children. In
such an alternative “familial Dyad” (a familial space occupied by the
Woman-Mother and her child exclusively), the patriarchal man/father is
either rendered passive, inarticulate or even remains absent or silent. In
this new familial space of Woman-Mother and her child, Imaginary and
Mirror phases extend into the Symbolic in the context of the absence
of an active, articulate paternal discourse. As a result, in this new
maternal-oriented “familial Dyad,” Oedipal space is either absent totally
or is re-appropriated to challenge and threaten the Symbolic order
causing the degeneration of the patriarchal man/father to a mere passive,
inarticulate, paradigmatic entity. In this new alternative familial space of
Woman-Mother and her child, the Woman-Mother enables the child to
construct the sense of the Self by transforming herself as the Other. In
such a familial space, in this “familial Dyad,” the Woman-Mother is,
thus, termed as the M(Other). In other words, the Woman-Mother is the
Other of the child in the new alternative “familial Dyad.” In this new
“familial Dyad,” in this alternative familial space, the Symbolic order of
“phallus” is challenged. Therefore, this new maternal-oriented “familial
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Dyad” of Woman-Mother and her child challenges the entire
phallocentric semiotic system. In this context, the Woman-Mother (the
maternal entity) herself replaces the phallus as the symbolic order. This
leads to the emergence of the Woman-Mother as the new symbolic order
which in turn initiates the possibility of an alternative maternal/female-
oriented semiotic system. Here, the Maternal need not be biological, but
even emotional or psychological. This contributes to the new alternative
semiotic system governed by the Woman-Mother that poses a strong
challenge to the phallocentric realm of signification which perpetuates
the oppressive system called patriarchy. Therefore, the new alternative
semiotic system, in opposition to the Lacanian Symbolic, constitutes a
realm of signification in which the Woman-Mother re-emerges as the
Phallus, the Privileged Signifier.
The analysis of the women’s fiction selected for study involves
two main feminist theoretical acts: first, an act of redefining and
reinterpreting Lacanian concepts to evolve a new alternative discourse of
the Woman-Mother as an oppositional practice to patriarchal discourses;
second, an act of giving expression to the voice of the Maternal in
Woman that remains as an immeasurable source of creativity. By
redefining Lacanian concepts, the fictional works selected for the study
emerge as effective literary manifestations of the wonderful moment in
which the powerful Maternal in woman obliterates the Symbolic order of
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patriarchy and ruptures its man/father-oriented canons by foregrounding
the unchallengeable Maternal force in woman, the unbreakable
woman/mother-child bond and its strength. In these fictional narratives,
the Woman-Mother emerges as the source of an all-powerful alternative
semiotics or discourse, particularly, in the absence of an active paternal
discourse. In each of these fictional works, the man/father either remains
passive, silent like an incapable coward or a mere shadowy presence, or
is absent. Thus, the selected works of fiction written by women writers,
using woman’s maternal power as an effective source of alternative
politics, pose a strong challenge to the Lacanian Symbolic that
constitutes the sexual politics of patriarchy.
It is appropriate to begin the analysis with McMillan’s novel
Mama, a fictional narrative that is all about the power of the Maternal in
woman to transform the world around, and also about the unimaginable
strength of the intense bonding between the woman-mother and
her child that eternally stands immune to patriarchy’s oppressive
tactics, indifference and cruelty. The wonderful maternal bond, that
never-ending connection, shared by Mildred (Mama) and her daughter
Freda, that extended “umbilical-cord” experience of the unbreakable
Mother-Child dyad, an experience that patriarchy can never cut off,
runs throughout the novel. McMillan’s Mama explores the life of an
African-American family that shifts from being a patriarchal “familial
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Triad” (Crook, Mildred and their five children) to a newly reconstructed
family of woman-mother and her children (Mama and her five children).
The reunion of the mother and her daughter, in the end of the
novel, can be seen as a testimony to the eternal friendship that resides in
the womb-like maternal space exclusively occupied by woman-mother
and her child. The return of a thirty-years-old single woman (Freda) to
her Mama, in the end of the novel, manifests the extended “umbilical-
cord” experience of woman-mother (Mildred) and her child (Freda) as
“eternal friends,” which further serves as a reflection of the wonderful
psychological phenomenon in the child (Freda) – the overlapping of the
extended Imaginary and Mirror-stage in the Symbolic. This reunion of
Freda and her Mama, thus, challenges the Lacanian Symbolic and
completes the novel’s deconstruction of patriarchal constructs like the
Law-of-the-Father, the “familial Triad,” the patriarchal concept of
marriage and so on.
Crook (Mildred’s husband) represents the typical patriarchal
man/father in the novel Mama. As the novel begins, Crook seems to be
the overpowering Paternal in the family. Crook, a chronic drunkard,
doubts his wife’s loyalty and often whopped Mildred cruelly with his
belt, blaming her of flirting with other men when he himself had an
extra-marital relationship with a woman named Ernestine. Moreover, for
Crook, Mildred remained only an object to be beaten up and drawn to
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bedroom every night to satisfy his sexual hunger. But very soon, we find
Mildred incredibly gathering amazing courage and strength that she
decides to challenge the man/father and throw him out of the house to
reconstruct a new “family” of woman-mother and her children. At an
instance, lost in reflection, Mildred finally declares, in her mind, her
regained power over the family, over her children, to her husband,
Crook, while he has gone out:
Her eyes claimed everything she saw. This is my house,
she thought. I’ve worked too damn hard for you to be
hurting me all these years. And me, like a damn fool,
taking it. Like I’m your property. Like you own me or
something. I pay all the bills around here, even this house
note. I’m the one who scrubbed white folks’ floors in St.
Clemens and Huronville and way up there on Strawberry
Lane to buy it . . . And who was the one got corns and
bunions from carrying plates of ribs and fried chicken
back and forth at the Shingle when I was five months
pregnant, while you hung off the back of a city garbage
truck half drunk, waving at people like you were the
president or the head of some parade . . . Never even
made up a decent excuse about what you did with your
money. I know about Ernestine. I ain’t no fool. Just
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been waiting for the right time . . . And you got the
nerve to brag about how pretty, how healthy and
how smart your kids are. Don’t they have your color.
Your high cheekbones. Your smile. These ain’t your
damn kids. They mine. Maybe they got your blood, but
they mine. (McMillan 13-15)
Thus, the innate Maternal (Mama) emerges in Mildred that actually
marks her identity as a woman, equipping her with immense strength to
challenge her husband Crook (patriarchy) and deny him (man/father) the
right to her body and the right to her children.
This re-emergence of Mildred as a strong, independent
Mama (woman-mother) is followed by a reference to Mildred’s
realization and understanding of the real power of the Maternal in her as
a woman, something that man/father lacks:
Motherhood meant everything to Mildred. When she was
first carrying Freda, she didn’t believe her stomach would
actually grow, but when she felt it stretch like the skin of
a drum and it swelled up like a small brown moon, she’d
never been so happy. She felt there was more than just a
cord connecting her to this boy or girl that was moving
inside her belly. There was some special juice and only
she could supply it. (McMillan 15)
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This is an instance that clearly demonstrates how the woman-mother, in
McMillan’s Mama, evolves her “maternity,” her unique and unequalled
power, as the source of a strong alternative discourse that challenges the
Law-of-the-Father in patriarchy. Such a new revived discursive identity
that Mildred gains as a woman-mother, her celebration of her unique
power – her “maternity,” is further explained in the novel:
It made her feel like she had actually done something
meaningful with her life, having these babies . . . And
when she pulled the brush back and up through their thick
clods of nappy hair, she smiled because it was her own
hair she was brushing. These kids were her future. They
made her feel important and gave her a feeling of place,
of movement, a sense of having come from somewhere.
Having babies was routine to a lot of women, but for
Mildred it was unique every time; she didn’t have a single
regret about having had five kids – except one, and that
was who had fathered them. (McMillan 16)
Thus, it is not her “maternity” which Mildred regrets but her
husband (man/father), and this goes against the laws of patriarchy that
strategically or politically portrays man/father as woman-mother’s
strength. Hence, it is her “maternity,” and not Crook, that helps Mildred
to reaffirm life over death.
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As the initial chapters of the novel progress, Mildred throws
her husband, Crook, out of the house and divorces him. Crook is, then,
forced to live with Ernestine. From this instance onwards, Crook
(man/father) remains a passive shadowy presence in the novel. Apart
from being a chronic alcoholic, Crook also suffers from tuberculosis and
diabetes, and he dies in the course of the novel. And, it is interesting to
note that Crook’s death, the Daddy’s death, is juxtaposed and occurs
simultaneously with the family dog’s death. This is, in turn, an
illustration of the murder and degeneration of the patriarchal man/father,
by reducing Crook’s death to as trivial an incident as an animal’s death.
The central discursive force that pervades the novel Mama is that
of the Maternal in Woman, which springs from the deep and intense
maternal bonding between the woman-mother (Mildred) and her child
(Freda), particularly, in the absence of an active paternal discourse, an
articulate father figure. For Mildred, her child, Freda, is magic. This is
clearly stated in the reference to Mildred’s experience of giving birth to
Freda:
When she was first carrying Freda . . . She felt there
was more than just a cord connecting her to this boy
or girl that was moving inside her belly . . . And
sometimes when she turned over at night she could
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feel the baby turn inside her too, and she knew this
was magic.
The morning Freda came . . . From that point on,
Mildred watched her first baby grow like a long
sunrise. She was so proud of Freda that she let her
body blow up and flatten for the next fifty-five
months. (McMillan 15-16)
Thus, for Mildred, Freda always remains her little baby, “ . . . a gift
she had always wanted and had finally gotten” (McMillan 307). In
other words, Freda (the Child) revitalizes Mildred, her Mama, as a
Woman-Mother.
Freda desires for a world or a family without her father, Crook.
And, this is explicitly referred to, in the novel, at an instance following
the night when Crook had brutally beaten up her Mama:
She didn’t like seeing her mama all patched up like this.
As a matter of fact, Freda hoped that by her thirteenth
birthday her daddy would be dead or divorced. She . . .
hate him . . . . (McMillan 12-13)
This, in turn, can be seen as an illustration of Freda’s desire to return to
the pre-Oedipal moment of unity with the woman-mother (that is
characteristic of the psychic stages – Imaginary and Mirror-stage –
before the intrusion of the patriarchal father).
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In the course of the novel, Freda leaves Mama and moves to
California and then to New York to pursue her career as a writer. But, all
the time, as she gradually realizes later, Freda missed her Mama. Freda’s
constant desire to return to her Mama, throughout the novel, is a
manifestation of the traces of the extended pre-Oedipal psychic stages in
her. Moreover, Crook’s gradual disappearance from being a passive
shadowy presence (as his wife divorced him) into total absence (his
death) in the novel marks the unquestioned defeat of the patriarchal
man/father. Finally, as the novel ends, the thirty-years-old Freda realizes
that the source of her real strength is her Mama, and thus returns home to
Point Haven for the long-awaited reunion with her mama, Mildred. This,
in turn, allows and completes the reconstruction of a new “family”
comprising of the woman-mother (Mildred) and her daughter (Freda),
rejecting the scope of any Oedipal space.
The overlapping of the extended Imaginary and Mirror-stage in
the Symbolic in the thirty-years-old Freda’s psyche is illustrated at an
instance when she decides to return to her Mama:
. . . she had no idea how she was now standing in front
of the bathroom mirror, staring . . . Her hands trembled.
Her teeth chattered. She hugged herself and stared
at her reflection. It was Mildred’s face looking out
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from the mirror . . . She looked into the mirror and
smiled. (McMillan 300-01)
This is an extraordinary moment of joy following one’s identification
and reunion with the woman-mother, something that happens in the
Imaginary and Mirror-stage.
For Freda, her Mama (Mildred) is the Word, the Phallus, the
Privileged Signifier. It is in the course of her lonely life in California and
New York, that Freda finally realizes that, for her, her Mama’s views
regarding everything in the world constitute the Ultimate Truth. We get
a glimpse of this realization made by Freda in a reference to her views
on church weddings and love:
The truth was, Freda felt the same as Mildred did about
big church weddings. They reminded her of funerals . . .
What she learned was that white men made love the same
way black men did. (McMillan 248-49)
Freda’s view on love is, in turn, a reflection of Mildred’s words: “Color
don’t make no difference. That’s what’s wrong with this world
now” (McMillan 192). The colour-conscious world that Mildred refers
to here is the bipolar patriarchal world which is very often questioned
and challenged by her world of Oneness or Wholeness, the unique world
of the Woman-Mother, in the novel. Such an instance of Mildred’s,
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Mama’s, questioning of patriarchy is revealed in the midst of her
conversation with her sis-in-law, Curly:
You know, y’all . . . kill me. As soon as something
terrible happen, the first thang you do is go running to
church like God is gon’ hop down out the sky and save
y’all ass. Well, I don’t buy it. Ain’t never bought it. It
ain’t that I don’t believe in God, I just don’t trust his
judgment. (McMillan 290)
Mildred’s words, here, constitute the woman-mother’s effective
questioning of the autonomy of God (the Man/the Father) in patriarchy.
For Freda, her Mama’s world represents life over death. For
instance, once when Mildred took Freda to the white folks’ house where
she served as a domestic worker, Freda recognizes that the house lacked
the real life which characterized her own house, the world comprising of
herself and her Mama:
Freda didn’t feel comfortable about touching anything.
Something was missing: it lacked a wholesome smell.
She’d noticed it was missing in the rest of the house, too.
That smell that meant somebody really lived here, tracked
up the floors, burnt something on the stove every now
and then . . . Her own house smelled rich from . . . the
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little coned incense Mildred burned after she’d finished
giving the house a good cleaning. (McMillan 30)
Thus, the novel portrays the woman-mother (Mildred) as one who
reaffirms life over death; in contrast, it associates coldness, stillness and
death with the patriarchal man/father (Crook). In this way, McMillan’s
Mama effectively revives the extended Imaginary and Mirror-stage
(the pre-Oedipal psychic stages where the woman-mother remains an
active, living entity) in the Symbolic, consequentially challenging and
disrupting the coherence of the Lacanian Symbolic. This literary attempt
to redefine Lacanian psychic stages becomes complete with the thirty-
years-old daughter’s return to her Mama, the reunion of Mildred and
Freda, in the end of the novel:
. . . Mildred reached for her daughter as if she were a
gift she had always wanted and had finally gotten.
Freda pressed her head into Mildred’s bare shoulder . . .
Mildred’s breasts felt full against her own, and Freda
couldn’t tell whose were whose. They held each other up.
They patted each other’s back as if each had fallen and
scraped a knee and had no one else to turn to for comfort.
It seemed as if they hugged each other for the past and for
the future. (McMillan 307)
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This reunion of Mildred and her daughter Freda marks the re-emergence
of the woman-mother as the new Subject, one who is alive and active as
the Phallus, the Privileged Signifier; this initiates the possibility of a new
semiotic system alternative to the Lacanian Symbolic. In other words, it
marks the wonderful moment in which the thirty-years-old Freda
experiences a sense of Oneness or Wholeness with the woman-mother
Mildred. Thus, this moment of Freda’s identification with her mother
Mildred, in turn, illustrates the extension of the Imaginary and Mirror
phases into the Symbolic in Freda’s psychic development, challenging
the Law-of-the-Father. Thus, by rereading Lacan, McMillan’s Mama
establishes the Maternal in Woman as an active, volcanic source of
alternative politics against patriarchy.
Another novel that sets the pace for the evolution of an effective
maternity discourse, challenging the Lacanian Symbolic and
simultaneously giving expression to the voice of the Woman-Mother, is
Donoghue’s Room. By narrating the entire piece of work from the point-
of-view of the five-year-old child, Donoghue, with amazing critical
intelligence, demonstrates, more clearly how the mother, Ma, has been
of greater importance, influencing the development of the child’s
psyche. Hence, it is the child’s psyche, Jack’s psyche, that defines and
reveals the mother, Ma. In other words, the five-year-old Jack’s mind is
a passage-way to the novel’s core, the “woman-mother,” Ma. The novel
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Room thus celebrates the status of a child being an everlasting extension
of its woman-mother. As life moves on, in the novel, we find that despite
all their suffering, struggle, trauma of solitary confinement and the
trauma following their rescue which Ma calls as their heroic “Great
Escape,” Ma (the Woman-Mother) re-emerges as the heroic Survivor
and Jack as an epitome of happiness (Donoghue 133). As the novel nears
its end, both the mother and her son have regained their physical liberty
and they are also on the verge of gaining back their mental liberty too.
With its scenario of a terrified mother and her five-year-old son
imprisoned in a tiny secret space, with its celebration of woman/mother-
child love, Donoghue’s novel Room aims at to initiate an alternative
maternity discourse that rereads Lacanian concepts.
Donoghue’s novel Room redefines the Lacanian concepts by
proposing a utopian place, a primeval female space free of Symbolic
order, sex roles, Otherness and the Law-of-the-Father, through the
extended stages of psychic development in the five-year-old Jack. As far
as the character of Jack is concerned, we interestingly come across an
overlapping of the different stages of psychic structures where we
witness a moment in which the Imaginary obliterates the Symbolic.
Here, we find that in Jack, the Self, even at the age of five, is still linked
to the voice of the mother, the source of all feminine expression; to gain
access to this place is to find an immeasurable source of creativity.
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Jack seems happily ensconced in a routine that is deeply secure,
in a setting (Room) where he can see his mother all day, at any moment.
Ma has created a structured, lively regimen for her son, including
exercise, singing, reading, watching TV and so on. The objects in the
room are given capital letters – Rug, Bed, Wall, Plant – a wonderful
choice, because to Jack, they are named beings, they are his friends.
In a world where the only other companion is his Ma, Bed, for instance,
is his friend as much as anything else. Jack, in this way, is a heightened
version of a regular kid, bringing boundless wonder and meaning to his
every pursuit completely blind to the pretensions and falsity of the
adult world (outside). This, in turn, illustrates the power of the
Creator (the Woman-Mother), and this power is intended further in the
fact that Ma has managed to keep Jack almost oblivious to the sexual
side of things. For instance, the creaking bed in the night after the arrival
of Old Nick in the Room makes him edgy, but lots of other things, green
beans, for instance, make him edgier still.
The novel opens on Jack’s birthday when he has turned five.
Even at five, the Imaginary and the Mirror-stage still function explicitly
in Jack as he thinks of himself at once as different and as an apex of his
mother, an inseparable part of Ma. Jack sees himself as an extension of
Ma’s personality, Ma’s Self, Ma’s body and this is illustrated when Jack,
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at an instance, expresses his feelings of hiding from his Ma the presence
of a cob-web in Room:
I still don’t tell her about the web. It’s weird to have
something that’s mine-not-Ma’s. Everything else is both
of ours. I guess my body is mine and the ideas that
happen in my head. But my cells are made out of her cells
so I’m kind of hers. Also when I tell her what I’m
thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each
ideas jump into our other’s head, like coloring blue
crayon on top of yellow that makes green. (Donoghue 12)
Thus, for Jack, it is impossible to hide or have anything of his own
which does not belong to his Ma. The sense of his self is so deeply
merged with that of the woman-mother that Jack, at an instance, even
dreams of becoming bigger and bigger till he turns into “a woman, with
a w” (Donoghue 16). For him, being “human” means growing up into a
“woman” like his Ma. Jack, at an instance, says: “May be I’m a human
but I’m a me-and-Ma as well” (342). Thus, the Imaginary and the
Mirror-stage, which constitute the realm of the ego, a pre-Oedipal
signifying realm characterized by the child’s deep and intense bond with
the woman-mother, still remain active in the five-year-old Jack.
The woman-mother in the novel, Ma, threatens the Lacanian
Symbolic by playing a crucial role in causing the extension of Lacanian
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psychic stages – Imaginary and Mirror-stage – in Jack’s psychic
development. This is evident at an instance when Jack plays with his
mirror-reflection along with Ma:
I stick out my tongue in Mirror. Ma’s behind me, I can
see my face stuck over hers like a mask we made when
Halloween happened . . .
“What am I like?”
She taps Mirror where’s my forehead, her finger leaves a
circle. “The dead spit of me.”
“Why I’m your dead spit?” The circle’s disappearing.
“It just means you look like me. I guess because you’re
made of me, like my spit is. Same brown eyes, same big
mouth, same pointy chin . . .”
I’m staring at us at the same time and the us in Mirror are
staring back. “Not same nose.”
“Well, you’ve got a kid nose right now.”
I hold it. “Will it fall off and an adult nose grow?”
“No, no, it’ll just get bigger. Same brown hair---”
“But mine goes all the way down to my middle and yours
just goes on your shoulders.”
“That’s true,” says Ma, reaching for Toothpaste. “All
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your cells are twice as alive as mine.”
. . . I look again in Mirror. (Donoghue 8)
In this moment, Jack is fascinated by his image as well as his Ma’s
reflection in the mirror, and he tries to control and play with it.
Moreover, Jack develops a sense of the self with the help of his Ma,
which finally ends up in the child’s identification and unity with the
woman-mother. While Jack still feels his body to be in parts, as
fragmented and not yet unified, it is the image (his mirror image as well
as his image reflected in his Ma) that provides him with a sense of
unification and wholeness. This mirror image is called the Other and for
Jack this Other is his Ma which is, in fact, used to conceive his sense of
the Self. This image, this Other (his Ma), therefore, anticipates the
mastery of his own body; the woman-mother in the novel is, therefore,
the source of Oneness or Wholeness that terminates the feelings of
fragmentation the child is supposed to experience in the Lacanian
Symbolic.
The most important point to be noted here is that, in this novel,
the overlapping stages – Imaginary and Mirror-stage – have extended
themselves to the realm of the Symbolic in Jack’s psyche. Even though
he is a five-year-old child, Imaginary and Mirror-stage have been
retained in his psychic development thereby shaking the fixity of the
Lacanian Symbolic. However, in this novel, we find that the Symbolic in
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the five-year-old Jack is not strong enough to effect a change in the
world of the mother and her child, the extended Maternal Womb. This is
because of the overlapping Imaginary and Mirror phases being extended
further into the Symbolic in Jack.
Jack, of course, has two biological parents – but he barely
glimpses the patriarchal man/father (whom he calls “Old Nick”) who
fathered him. Nameless and storyless, in the novel, Old Nick has a
fairytale, bogeyman quality. Jack, at an instance, says:
Nothing makes Ma scared. Except Old Nick may be.
Mostly she calls him just him, I didn’t even know the
name for him till I saw a cartoon about a guy that comes
in the night called Old Nick. I call the real one that
because he comes in the night, but he doesn’t look like
the TV guy with a beard and horns and stuff. I asked Ma
once is he old, and she said he’s nearly double her which
is pretty old. (Donoghue 14)
Thus, for Jack, Old Nick is a shadowy presence of whom he is unsure of
whether he is even real or not. Once, in Room, while watching images of
people in TV, Jack comments:
Men aren’t real except Old Nick, and I’m not actually
sure if he’s real for real. Maybe half? He brings groceries
and Sundaytreat and disappears the trash, but he’s not
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human like us. He only happens in the night, like bats.
Maybe Door makes him up with a beep beep and the air
changes. I think Ma doesn’t like to talk about him in case
he gets realer. (Donoghue 22)
Old Nick, for Jack, is thus an illusory figure. Old Nick’s access to his
son Jack is deliberately denied and restricted by Ma, the woman-mother.
Ma strongly restricts Old Nick’s access to Jack by not allowing him to
touch, talk or get a sight of his son. She stands as a strong, unbreakable
barrier between the patriarchal man/father and his son which at times
tempts Old Nick, who may be taken as a representative of patriarchy,
into momentary outbursts and criticism. Once, during one of his visits to
the locked room in the night, Old Nick makes an attempt to talk to his
son, Jack, which is ultimately warded off by the strong intervention of
Ma as follows:
Old Nick’s looking right at me, he takes a step and
another . . . I see his hand shadow. “Hey in there.” He’s
talking to me. My chest’s going clang clang. I hug my
knees and press my teeth together. I want to get under
Blanket but I can’t, I can’t do anything.
“He’s asleep.” That’s Ma.
“She keep you in the closet all day as well as all
night? . . . Doesn’t seem natural . . . I figure there must be
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something wrong,” he’s saying to Ma, “you’ve never let
me get a good look since the day he was born. Poor little
freak’s got two heads or something?” . . . “Bought him
that fancy jeep, didn’t I? I know boys, I was one once.
C’mon, Jack---”
He said my name.
“C’mon out and get your lollipop.” (Donoghue 90-91)
It is during the very same night that Jack gets a complete sight of
Old Nick for the first time:
I’m looking at Bed, there he is, Old Nick, his face is made
of rock I think. I put my finger out, not to touch it, just
nearly. His eyes flash all white. I jump back . . . I think he
might shout but he’s grinning with big shiny teeth, he
says, “Hey, sonny.”
I don’t know what that---
Then Ma is louder than I ever heard her even doing
Scream. “Get away, get away from him!” . . . she keeps
screeching, “Get away from him.”
“Shut up,” Old Nick is saying, “shut up” . . .
“I can be quiet,” she says, she’s nearly whispering, I
hear her breath all scratchy. “You know how quiet I can
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be, so long as you leave him alone. It’s all I’ve ever
asked.” (Donoghue 92)
Therefore, the woman-mother (Ma), in this novel, initiates the
transgression of the Law-of-the-Father (the Symbolic) in Jack by
denying Old Nick (the patriarchal man/father) his right to “her” child. In
this way, Ma (the woman-mother) rejects or dismisses the scope of any
Oedipal space in Jack’s psychic development.
Thus, in Room (the tiny cell where Old Nick has locked-up Ma
and Jack), Old Nick remains a mere passive or silent inarticulate father,
as far as the character of Jack is concerned. In other words, there is a
total absence of an articulate father-figure (an active paternal discourse)
in the case of the five-year-old Jack as Ma deliberately keeps her son
unaware of Old Nick being his father. Once Old Nick is arrested and
jailed-up towards the last sections of the novel, after the Great Escape of
Jack and his Ma from the tiny room, Old Nick disappears from the plot,
and this poses a strong challenge to the phallocentric universe, the Law-
of-the-Father.
For Ma, Jack is “magic” like “Baby Jesus,” and he solely belongs
to her (Donoghue 22-23). It is the status of being “Jack’s Ma,” it is her
role as the Woman-Mother, that truly defines Ma’s identity and gives
meaning to her life as a woman. There is an instance in the novel
when Ma eloquently claims and declares her sole right to her child
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Jack, sweeping away all patriarchal airs of intrusion. She
says: “He’s the world to me . . . I’m back, with Jack. That’s two
miracles” (Donoghue 282). Though the trauma behind her experience of
mothering a child under hostile circumstances is unimaginable, for Ma
“giving birth to Jack” was “the best thing” that she had ever done during
the seven long years of her incarceration in Room (Donoghue 291). For
her, Jack is everything and it is Jack who made her alive again and it is
he who made her realize that she really “mattered,” at last.
In Donoghue’s novel, we find that Ma is the sole source of
language for Jack; she is the Privileged Signifier, the Phallus, the Word,
who anchors the chain of signification in Jack, especially in the absence
of an active paternal force (the effective Symbolic function). Thus, the
novel initiates and celebrates a new semiotic system governed by the
Woman-Mother, alternative to the Lacanian Symbolic. For Jack, “Ma
knows about everything” (Donoghue 364). For him, her Word is the
final. It is the overlapping of extended Lacanian stages in Jack’s psychic
development that facilitates Ma’s proximity to phallus as a new subject.
Hence, in this novel, Jack constantly wishes to become the object of his
Ma’s desire and also to return to the initial state of their blissful union.
After the escape of Jack and his Ma from Room, from Old Nick, from
captivity, Jack often expresses his desire to return to Room. The novel,
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for instance, ends with Jack’s and Ma’s final visit to Room along with
the police:
I tell Ma . . . “It’s not Room now.”
“You don’t think so? She sniffs. “It used to smell even
staler. The door’s open now, of course.”
Maybe that’s it. “Maybe it’s not Room if Door’s open.”
Ma does a tiny smile . . . She clears her throat. “Would
you like the door closed for a minute?”
“No” . . . “Can we say good night when it’s not night?”
“I think it would be good-bye” . . .
“Good-bye, Room.” I wave up at Skylight. “Say good-
bye,” I tell Ma. “Good-bye, Room.”
Ma says it but on mute.
I look back one more time. It’s like a crater, a hole
where something happened. Then we go out the
door. (Donoghue 400-01)
At this instance, when Ma asks Jack to bid “good-bye” to his Room, to
all his friends out there – Floor, Bed, Wardrobe, Eggsnake, Roof – Jack
wholeheartedly does it because we find that he has ultimately realized
that his “Room” is not confined within that tiny hole-like dwelling
(he says: “It’s not Room now”). Rather his real “Room” is
“everywhere” where there occurs the union of himself with his Ma.
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Room is, thus, the new family of woman-mother and her child, a
reincarnation of the Maternal Womb. In other words, Room, for Jack, is
a replica of his mother’s womb; hence, his constant wish for “Room”
can be interpreted as the child’s unconscious desire to return to his
mother’s womb. Moreover, for Jack, Room is rather a feeling of
“Oneness” or “togetherness.” Thus, the reconstructed “family” of Ma
and Jack, in the end of the novel, is one where there is no Symbolic, no
voice of the patriarchal man/father to establish the Law. Ma’s and Jack’s
reunion in the end, therefore, crumbles down patriarchal constructs like
the “familial Triad.”
In Donoghue’s novel, we also find that before the true
evolution of Jack’s Ma as a new subjectivity, a new consciousness,
before her re-emergence as an emotionally strong, independent single
woman-mother sufficiently determined to earn a living for herself
and her son, before claiming her social, political and economic
independence, there occurs a mental-breakdown in Ma as she is struck
down by neurosis, leading her to attempt suicide, though she later
succeeds in recovering from her neurotic trauma. Ma, at the age of
nineteen, was kidnapped and locked-up by Old Nick in a tiny room. In
the following days, Ma was sexually abused repeatedly and all her
efforts to break apart the tiny room, and her attempts to attack and hurt
Old Nick finally failed. And finally she gave birth to a baby girl, but she
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was born dead as the umbilical cord was all knotted around her neck.
Old Nick took her dead body away and buried her under a bush in the
backyard. Soon, after all the trauma of being subjected to terrible
imprisonment, multiple counts of rape and the experience of abortion at
an early age, on a cold March day, Ma finally gave birth, all alone under
medieval conditions, to a healthy baby-boy, Jack, all on herself. Hence,
after Jack’s birth, Ma pretended to be polite towards Old Nick in order to
keep her son safe in Room. She deliberately wore the disguise of playing
wife to Old Nick. Ma continued with her disguise until she thought time
really became favourable for her Great Escape from Room with her son.
After all her struggles and trauma, when she finally enters the outside
world, she is initially struck by the sense of being denied the real
freedom and independence that she craved for. Under the guidance of
the police who assisted the escape of Ma and Jack from the locked room,
both of them are admitted to the Cumberland Clinic where the
psychiatrist, Dr. Clay takes in charge of them. It is during this interim
before the final re-emergence of Ma and Jack as a single “whole” totally
immune to the forces of patriarchy that Ma is struck by neurosis which
leads her to attempt suicide. Following this, Jack is separated from Ma
for a short while. But, finally, Ma (the woman-mother) incredibly
reaffirms life over death using her maternal power and returns to her son.
She, thus, takes hold of her life, her lost youth, her dreams, as she returns
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to her son from the Clinic with the hope of reconstructing a world of
their own, an Independent Living of their own. It is the reunion of Ma
and Jack, which occurs after Ma’s return from the hospital that
actually cures Ma of neurosis. With Ma’s reaffirmation of life over
death (Old Nick/Patriarchy), in the end, the novel marks the celebrated
return of the Ultimate Artist, the Creator.
The final restoration of Jack and his Ma, in Room, into an
independent life of order, glory and bliss is ultimately the result of
Ma’s strength as a woman, as a mother. In the novel, the ultimate
reaffirmation of life over death (this is evident in the very fact that
Donoghue has named the last three sections of her novel as “Dying,”
“After,” and “Living”) should be all owed to Ma, the woman-mother.
After they begin to get control of their life, as the novel ends, Ma and
Jack feel that they have once again returned to the maternal space where
they are reunited into a single “One.” In brief, Donoghue’s Room works
as a literary attempt, which is rather a study of a child’s psychic
development, showing the power of language or signification in the
hands of the woman-mother and her politically-active intrusion into the
Symbolic (the order of patriarchy) in the absence of an articulate
man/father as a discursive figure. This novel, thus, emerges as an
effective rereading of Lacan, giving expression to the uniquely powerful
voice of the Woman-Mother.
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The next novel that epitomizes and illustrates the evolution of
woman’s maternity as an alternative discursive force, by rereading
Lacan and challenging the superiority and authority of the paternal law
which oppresses women-mothers, is Hannah’s The Things We Do
for Love. The novel The Things We Do for Love centres on the
deep emotional and revelatory bond of maternal love between
Angie (the woman-mother) and her daughter Lauren. For the major part
of the novel, Lauren lacks a father-figure in her life. Her biological
father had left her mom long time back, even before her birth; it is much
later, as the novel nears its end, that finally Conlan enters as a father-
figure for her, but he remains as a mere passive and inarticulate paternal
presence submissive to Angie (the Woman-Mother).
Lauren, initially, lives with her mom, and later with Angie (her
desirable woman-mother) when her mom leaves her. So, in short,
“family” for the seventeen-years-old girl Lauren is a reincarnation of the
Maternal Womb – a familial space exclusively occupied by the mother
and her daughter. In this new familial space, where a father-figure is
either absent or remains passive and inarticulate, the Woman-Mother
re-emerges as the Word, the Phallus, the Privileged Signifier, for the girl
– thus initiating the possibility of an alternative semiotic system
challenging the Lacanian Symbolic. Lauren’s mom, though she leaves
her pregnant daughter all alone, should never be taken for a bad woman-
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mother; instead she is one who, being a single woman-mother, is
emotionally broken down and scarred by the patriarchal heartlessness,
left with irrecoverable losses. This is clearly evident in her response to
her daughter’s decision not to have an abortion: “Mom stared . . .
through eyes that were glazed with tears. ‘You break my heart’ . . . Mom
almost started to cry again. ‘I’m sorry’ ” (Hannah 252-53). Lauren’s
mom, thus, represents those poor women-mothers who are unaware of
the real strength of their maternal power and, therefore, lack the strength
to restore themselves from the state of being mere victims to patriarchy.
Thus, rather than emerging as the victorious Survivor, Lauren’s mom
constantly runs away from her life. The voice of the victimized woman-
mother echoes in the note that Lauren’s mom has left for her daughter
before leaving the girl. The note read “Sorry” and as Lauren reads it
the song “Baby, we were born to run . . . ” plays in the
background (Hannah 254). However, though Lauren’s mom is portrayed
as a weak character, there are certain instances in the initial part of the
novel where she re-emerges as the Word, the Phallus, the Privileged
Signifier for the seventeen-years-old girl. One such instance comes when
Lauren and her mom converse:
“ . . . Mom, I know how I ruined your life.”
“Ruined is harsh,” Mom said with a tired sigh. “I never
said ruined.”
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“I wonder if he had other children,” Lauren said.
“How would I know? He ran from me like I had the
plague.”
“I just . . . wish I had relatives, that’s all.”
Mom exhaled smoke. “Believe me, family is overrated.
Oh, they’re fine till you screw up, but then . . . they break
your heart. Don’t you count on people, Lauren.”
Lauren had heard all this before. “I just wish---”
“Don’t. It’ll only hurt you.”
Lauren looked at her mother. “Yeah,” she said . . .
“I know.” (Hannah 41-42)
At this instance, when Lauren asks whether her father had other children
and expresses her wish to have relatives, Lauren’s mom describes the
girl’s father as a patriarchal coward who ran away from her. Thus, here,
Lauren’s mom indirectly deconstructs the patriarchal model of
family (the “familial Triad”) that propagates the paternal lineage, and
dismisses this “patriarchal family” as “overrated.” In doing so, she
implicitly suggests the reconstruction of a new family – one of
woman-mother and her daughter – challenging the “familial
Triad” (Father, mother and child). This is further substantiated when
Lauren’s mom reassures Lauren that the girl never “ruined” her mother’s
life.
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But, in the novel, it is Angie who undoubtedly re-emerges as
the strong, independent Woman-Mother who, using the unlimited
strength of her maternal power, reaffirms life over death, not only for
herself but also for Lauren. As they begin their new life together, Angie
and Lauren emotionally connect as woman-mother and daughter. They
wholeheartedly accept each other as mother and daughter. From here,
begins the reconstruction of a new family, the womb-like family of
woman-mother and her child, challenging and replacing the patriarchal
“familial Triad.” Thus, after Lauren shifts to Angie’s house, as the girl’s
mom leaves her, and when they begin their new life together, Angie
(the Woman-Mother) finally emerges as the Word, the Phallus, the
Privileged Signifier for the seventeen-years-old girl Lauren. This is
evident as Lauren expresses her feelings regarding Angie’s successful
efforts to fight for her justice at the school. Angie pretends as Lauren’s
mother at her Catholic school and successfully convinces and forces the
school authority to dismiss their plans of expelling their student Lauren
for being pregnant. Here, at this instance, the seventeen-years-old
Lauren is suddenly struck by that extraordinary moment of joy that
characterizes the Lacanian psychic stages – Imaginary and Mirror-stage
– in which the woman-mother is the Word, the Phallus, the Ultimate
Truth for the child:
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Lauren smiled. She felt great. Better than great. No
one had ever fought for her like that, and the effort
strengthened her, made her feel invincible. With Angie
on her side, she could do anything. Even attend
classes when she knew people would be staring and
talking. (Hannah 293)
Here, Lauren’s intense joy at experiencing a sense of Oneness or
Wholeness with Angie (the woman-mother), in a way, manifests the
overlapping of the extended Imaginary and Mirror phases in the psyche
of the seventeen-years-old girl Lauren. This disrupts the coherence of the
Lacanian Symbolic in Lauren, particularly because there is a total
absence of a father-figure in the girl’s life until Conlan’s entry, towards
the end of the novel, as a passive and inarticulate paternal presence – one
which is submissive to the Woman-Mother (Angie).
It is the limitless strength of the Maternal in Angie, which is
reawakened by the entry of the girl Lauren into her life, that helps
her to emotionally overpower her ex-husband Conlan (the patriarchal
man/father), to transform him and finally restore her life with him once
again as the novel ends. The revived Maternal in Angie is evidence to
the fact that the “maternal desire” resides in every woman and that this
desire is not only determined by the biological attributes but also
involves an emotional experience. In other words, the Maternal in
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Angie is not biological, but rather emotional or psychological.
Angie (the Woman-Mother), thus, transforms Conlan from being a
stubborn patriarchal man/father to one who becomes open to the
ever-evolving flow of pure, unrestricted love; she remarries him towards
the end of the novel. But, though Conlan enters the new familial space of
the woman-mother (Angie) and her daughter (Lauren), towards the end,
he cannot effect any patriarchal paternal intrusion into the womb-like
world of the mother and her child. Thus, by centring its focus on the
intense feelings of “togetherness” shared by the woman-mother (Angie)
and her daughter (Lauren), the novel totally rejects the scope of any
Oedipal space.
Moreover, the reunion of Angie and Lauren in the end of
the novel, that occurs following Lauren’s return to Angie (the woman-
mother), can be regarded as a reaffirmation of life over death:
Angie pulled her into a fierce hug. For a heartbeat, she
couldn’t let go. Finally, she took a deep breath and
stepped back . . .
Lauren swallowed hard. A quivering smile curved her lips
even as she started again to cry. “I love you, Angie.”
“I know that, honey . . .”
Together, hand in hand, they walked across the wet grass
and went into the house.
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. . . “She’s back,” Angie said . . . “Our girl’s come
home.” (Hannah 432-33)
This reunion of Angie and Lauren, simultaneously, marks the
joyful fulfillment of the never-ending desire-to-mother in every
woman (Angie) and also the irresistible desire in every
individual (Lauren) to return to or reunite with the woman-mother. In
addition, this reunion of woman-mother and her daughter also
re-establishes Angie (the Woman-Mother) as the Word, the Phallus, the
Privileged Signifier for the girl Lauren. It is Angie (the woman-mother)
who makes Lauren realize that she could pursue her education and have
her baby at once; it is Angie who reveals to Lauren that the girl never
had to make a choice between her education and her baby. Finally, as the
novel ends, Angie wholeheartedly accepts the girl Lauren as her
daughter; for Angie, Lauren is always “a kid,” her “little one,” her
“baby” (Hannah 427). For Angie, “motherhood,” the experience of
“mothering,” the child, is a “gift” which women are granted with – a
unique power of the Woman-Mother (Hannah 277-78). It is also
important to note that it is the revived Woman-Mother in Angie who, at
once, makes her daughter Lauren realize that for every woman-mother,
her child is “magic.” That is, it is Angie who makes Lauren understand
that the girl’s baby is actually magic, a “miracle.” For instance, Angie
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makes her daughter Lauren undergo this wonderful realization at the
hospital:
. . . Angie . . . finally said what she’d come to say. “You
need to see him.”
Lauren had looked up into Angie’s eyes and thought:
There it is. The love Lauren had looked for all of her
life . . . .
Angie had touched her then, so gently. “ . . . honey . . .
you need to do it.”
Long after Angie had left, Lauren thought about it. In her
heart, she knew Angie was right. She needed to hold her
son, to kiss his tiny cheek and tell him she loved him . . .
Lauren saw her tiny, pink-faced son for the first time . . .
And her own red hair. Here was her whole life in one
small face . . . She stared down at this baby of hers, this
miracle in her arms, and even though he was so tiny, he
seemed like the whole world . . . He was her family.
Family. (Hannah 415-16)
This instance, once again, illustrates Angie’s (the Woman-Mother’s)
re-emergence as the Word, the Phallus, the Privileged Signifier for
Lauren as the woman-mother makes the girl reach at the amazing
conception of a new family – one of woman-mother and her child – that
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in turn challenges the patriarchal “familial Triad.” This further manifests
the extension of the Imaginary and Mirror phases – the Lacanian psychic
stages in which the Woman-Mother is the Word, the Phallus, the
Privileged Signifier – in Lauren’s psyche.
In addition, there is also a crucial instance in Hannah’s novel
The Things We Do for Love which rereads the Lacanian association
of language and unconscious. This instance is the one in which
Angie’s and Lauren’s dreams intersect. Dreams are the unfulfilled
desires in the unconscious. For example, in the novel, there is reference
to Angie’s (the Woman-Mother’s) recurring “baby dream”:
Angie’s dreams that night came in black and white; faded
images from some forgotten family album of the has-been
and never-were moments. She was in Searle Park, at the
merry-go-round, waving at a small dark-haired girl who
had . . . blue eyes . . . Slowly, the girl faded to gray and
disappeared; it was as if a mist had swept in and veiled
the world . . . She woke with a gasp. For the next few
hours she lay in her bed, curled on her side, trying to put
it all back in storage . . . it hurt too much. Some things
were simply lost. (Hannah 233)
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Angie’s dream, here, expresses the woman-mother’s undying desire-to-
mother that remains unfulfilled till the girl Lauren enters her life.
Similarly, Lauren, on the other hand, has a recurring “mom dream”:
Her day-dream was always the same: She saw a little girl
with red hair, wearing a bright green dress, hurrying
along behind a beautiful blond woman. Up ahead, a
family waited for them. Come along, Lauren, her
imaginary mother always said, smiling gently as she
reached out to hold her hand. (Hannah 153)
Here, in Lauren’s dream, the “girl with red hair” is Lauren herself, and
her dream in turn voices the girl’s endless desire to return to or
reunite with the woman-mother. In her dream, Lauren felt so safe with
the strong hand of her “dream mother” wrapped around her tiny
fingers: “All she knew was that she would have followed that