Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Jacques Lacan (1901-1981): A Comparative Analysis

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Sheikh Saifullah Ahmed
Student Id-141410
English Discipline
Khulna University
Literary Theory-3203
02 April, 2017
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Jacques Lacan (1901-1981):
A Comparative Analysis
The theory is used as an interpretative tool for interpreting a literary text critically. It
is like a toolbox from where we can take tools to interpret a literary text. Psychoanalysis is
one of the interpretative tools which plays an important role in the realm of psychology and
literature is developed by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Sigmund Freud is considered the
father of psychoanalysis. After Freud, Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) has given his own theory
regarding psychoanalysis. In “Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis”, Julie Rivkin and
Michael Ryan have shown different angles of psychoanalysis and have drawn an analogy
between Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The title itself is very significant. People
should not be unknown to themselves. Sometimes they do something but cannot explain their
deeds. In psychoanalysis, the mind or psyche is analyzed according to the terms of
psychoanalytic theories given by renowned psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud (1856-
1939) and Jacques Lacan (1901-1981).
In this paper (assignment) I have tried to show a comparative analysis of Sigmund
Freud (1856-1939) and Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) and their concerning theories about
psychoanalysis basing on “Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis” written by Julie Rivkin
and Michael Ryan and different books and materials.
Keywords: Dream; Desire; Unconscious; Libido; Mirror stage; Lack; Imaginary stage.
Sigmund Freud is considered as the father of psychoanalysis for his outstanding
analysis of human psyche or mind. He analyses the three aspects of the human mind such as
the id, ego, and superego for understanding the human personality. According to Freud the

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three aspects of human mind control human animality, personality, morality, self-awareness,
dream and repressed desire. Freud believes that consciousness is the tip of the iceberg which
is only ten per cent visible. According to Freud,
The id is considered unconscious part of the mind that is the storehouse of our
unconscious desires, wishes, and fears. The id gives shelter the libido which is the source of
psychosexual energy.
Ego is the partly conscious part of the mind which is in between the id and the
superego. According to Freud, the ego is the preconscious part of the mind.
The superego operates like an internal censor of moral judgments in light of social
pressures and religious beliefs for which the repressed desires cannot be fulfilled. The
suspension of superego may cause the harms for the society which is noticeable in the
characters of William Golding's Lord of The Flies.
In Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) we can see how Crusoe’s dream and
desire are interrelated analyzing the three aspects of the human mind such as the id, ego, and
superego basing on Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) The Interpretation of Dream (1931).
Crusoe is the representative of every human being. As the three aspects of the human
mind such as the id, ego, and superego control human animality, personality, morality, self-
awareness, dream and repressed desire, the two literal dreams which are experienced by
Crusoe are the consequences of thinking about the past memory. Perhaps at that time, his
preconscious mind (ego) works and he laments over his past deeds or thinks about moral and
religious things which force him to experience the dreams and raise his superego and
transform him to a true religious practitioner.
His desire to escape from the remote island and to get back to the civilized human
society has played an important role in his two literal dreams. Unfulfilled desires are fulfilled
in a dream. Crusoe has regret for disobedience to his father. Perhaps that is why his
unconscious desire is to beg pardon from his father. Thus, his desire relates his dream and he
dreams an angle perhaps his father’s spirit with a spear who comes to kill him for not
repenting yet to make him recall the disobedience.

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Another dream is experienced by another unconscious desire to have human company
on the remote island perhaps he recalls Xury and his company. This causes the second dream
in which he saves Friday from the cannibals.
The first dream which he experiences while he gets high fever having a severe
headache. He feels that he is about to die. He dreams a horrible dream because of being
subconscious by illness. It seems that his thinking about past memories force him to
experience that dream. It can be perceived that during that time there is some sort of fear in
his mind, perhaps fear of death so he thinks about God.
And he dreams a terrible dream in which a man, descending from a cloud, comes
forward, with a long spear in his hand, to kill Crusoe. On waking up from this nightmare,
Crusoe thinks of the advice which has been given by his father to him and which he has
disobeyed.
It seems that Crusoe is a puritan man and religion is deeply rooted in his mind, before
he sleeps he thinks much about the God which converts into the dream. For supporting this
idea Freud says, “Nothing, you do, occurs by chance, every action, and every thought is
motivated by our unconscious at some level.” (The Interpretation of Dream, 1931).
In William Golding's Lord of The Flies (1954) we can see the sexuality, violence and
animality of the young boys because of being a complete absence of superego.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) believes that Hamlet suffers
from an Oedipal complex and cannot kill Claudius because he himself wishes to be in
Claudius' place. Hamlet delays in killing Claudius not only because he is suffering from an
Oedipal complex but also because he is too practical to commit an act of murder.
Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) is a French thinker. He believes in the linguistic
mechanism of reading human psyche. He argues that human unconscious is not full of dark
impulses rather it is full of the discourse of others. For example, a table is a table because
there is a chair such as a cat is a cat because there is a rat. Lacan says, “I think that you think
there is me therefore I am.”
The four stages of life according to Lacan are Mirror stage, Imaginary stage,
Symbolic stage and the Real. According to Lacan,

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In Mirror stage the baby having a sense of self (ego) identifies an external image of
the body in the mirror or through the mother and separates itself as an individual being from
the mother. So, self-presence or self-realization takes place. It represents a moment or a
condition, to which the baby wants to return.
Imaginary is a preverbal or verbal stage in which a child around 6-18 months of age
begins to develop a sense of separation from her mother as well as other people and objects.
However, the child's development of sense is still incomplete. In Imaginary stage father’s
prohibition takes place. Father disrupts the psychic life of the imaginary stage. It is disrupted
by castration anxiety. The child leaves the Imaginary for the Symbolic stage.
Symbolic is the stage of a child's entering into language and the ability to understand
and generate symbols. In contrast to the imaginary stage which is mainly focused on the
mother, the symbolic stage shifts attention to the father who represents cultural norms, laws,
language, and power. Here the symbol of power is the phallus which is a confused "gender-
neutral" term in Lacanian theory.
Real is an unachievable stage representing all that a person is not and does not have.
Both Lacan and his critics argue whether the real stage represents the period before the
imaginary stage when a child is completely fulfilled without any need or lack, or if the real
stage follows the symbolic stage and represents our "perennial lack" because we cannot
return to the state of wholeness that is existed before language. we can never represent the
Real. We can only represent a signification of it.
Jacques Lacan has created the idea of “lack” and that it causes desires to arise. He
distinguishes among three kinds of lack which are need, demand, and desire. According to
the nature of the object which is lacking.
The first one is Symbolic Castration and its object related is the Imaginary Phallus.
The second one is Imaginary Frustration and its object related is the real breast of the mother.
And the third kind of lack is Real Privation and its object related to the symbolic Phallus. A
child develops from the need to demand and desire. It moves from the Real to the Imaginary
and Symbolic.
Freud believes that sex comes first and attachment afterwards but Lacan argues that
affection comes first and sex afterwards. Freud argues that sexual relationships are major
components of human health and happiness but Lacan believes that it needs but not

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necessarily. Freud says, “Unconscious is full of dark impulses” but Lacan says, “Unconscious
is full of the discourse of others or let’s say full of condensations.” So, according to Lacan,
there is no room for unconsciousness.
When we connect these views with literature, our main aim is to know the psyche of
the author as well as the characters of the text. It is believed that in the literary text dreams
express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author and a literary work is a
display of the author's own neuroses.
The author's own childhood traumas, family life, sexual conflicts, fixations, Oedipal
or Electra complex, narcissism, neurosis, psychosis, paranoia will be noticeable within the
behaviour of the characters in the literary work. All characters are projections of the author's
own psyche.

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Works Cited
Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. “Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis.” Literary Theory:
An Anthology. Eds. Rivkin and Ryan. Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998. Print.
Jerome, Neu (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Freud: Cambridge Companion series,
Cambridge University Press, 1991. PDF File.
Jean-Michel, Rabate (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Lacan: Cambridge Companion
series, Cambridge University Press, 2003. PDF File.
Thurschwell, Pamela. Routledge Critical Thinkers: Sigmund Freud, Oxon, UK: Routledge,
2005. PDF File.
Homer, Sean. Routledge Critical Thinkers: Jacques Lacan, Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2005.
PDF File.
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretations of Dreams. Trans. and ed. by James Strachey.
New York: Avon, 1965. PDF File.
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Ed. Michael Shinagel. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1994.
Print.
Hymer, Stephen. Robinson Crusoe’s Economic Man: A Construction and Deconstruction.
Ed. Ulla Grapard and Gillian Hewitson. New York: Routledge, 2011. PDF File.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 2nd ed.
Manchester: Manchester UP, 2002. Print.
Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 5th ed. Oxford:
Oxford UP, 2007. Print.
Gay, Peter, ed., The Freud Reader. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. PDF File.