Metonymic Desire

According to Lacan, in his The Agency of the letter in the unconscious or reason since Freud, the unconscious contains the whole structure of language and is not merely the primordial instincts (or the id) that many people confuse it to be. He talks about how language is structured by the signified and the signifier, the big Other and the little other, and he also demystifies Descarte's, "I think, therefore I am," but what most strikes me, and is most comprehensible to me in this difficult text, is his conclusion about psychological symptoms and desire. Lacan's thesis is that the symptom of existence is metaphor and desire is metonymy. We don't actually know what we really want and the objects that we think we want create the desire in the first place. Our subconscious is always produced by a metonymic chain of desire but we can never truly be satisfied because we will continuously look for the next desire, what we actually desire, and the next after that and the next after that.  The metaphor is how all these metonymies get condensed into objects of desire. We believe that we will be more complete if we fulfill the longing of X object, but the X itself creates wanting (desire or lack of having) in a person and leaves the person more incomplete than anything.

Human kind never seems to be 100% content, whatever they aren't or whatever they don't have creates a continuous chain of additional longings. This is very similar to Freud's concept of displacement in dreams and how Kate Chopin shows the metonymy of desire in her Silk Stockings.  The pair of silk stockings that this poor woman desires metaphorically represent wealth, comfort, stability, etc. . .(a lot of what Freud terms as Condensation). When she goes on her crazy spending spree, that she really can't afford, all the other objects she buys are not symbols of wealth, comfort, etc...only the silk stockings are. Each other thing is a metonymy for the silk stockings and represent an insatiable, metonymic chain of desire similar to Lacan's theory and, as I already mentioned, Freud's theory of how dream works are a type of constant displacement.

As I read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, it seems that Lacan's conclusion about the metaphor symptom and metonymic chain of desire is evident in Hawthorne's analysis of Puritan society, or rather our analysis of what we think is Hawthorne's analysis. The scarlet A takes on several meanings throughout the text (adulterer, admirable, etc...) but the people of the story don't notice the metonymic chain of desire that this signifier implies. The townspeople desire to punish Hester for her sin of passion yet by putting themselves contrary to her, by positioning what they are by what they are not (like Hester), they also desire the same indulgent passion that is foreign to them. This can be seen in their desire to purchase Hester's rather extravagant embroidery symbolic of rich, sultry, "sinful" indulgence. Although they see the same signifier of embroidery on Hester's A, they do not see their unconscious, metonymy of desire for indulgence and sexual freedom in their desire for her embroidery. Also, we know that the Puritan society does deem her embroidery as some sort of sinful taboo because they won't use her embroidery for the white veils of brides.

Lacan says on page 171, "The intolerable scandal in the time before Freudian sexuality was sanctified was that is was so 'intellectual'. It was precisely in that that is showed itself to be the worthy ally of all those terrorists whose plottings were going to ruin society." Such "terrorists" (and I think Lacan is being funny here) as Hester Prynne who challenge the boundaries of society. This is exactly how the puritans intend to use the A to punish and restrict Hester, yet metonymic desires pop out throughout the text and this leads me to think that Hawthorne is making a critique of this Puritan mindset and persecution of otherness. 

Take Roger Chillingworth for example, his revenge against Dimmesdale, who wronged his marital bond with Hester, becomes a wrath that seems almost hyper-sexual and sinful. I think that, on the surface, Chillingworth wants to punish their crime done against him, but his metonymic, unconscious desire is actually driving him. It is possible that he is so wrathful because of his own sexual impotency, which is why he actually seeks to punish Dimmesdale phsycially (his health), as well as mentally and emotionally, because Dimmesdale shamed him with his "manhood"; satisfying and impregnating the wife that Chillingworth could not. Further, it is what Chillingworth desires to declare as other (Dimmesdale and adultery) that he really desires because it is what and where he is not. Addtional evidence for his sexual incompetence is his old age, his blindness and impassiveness at leaving Hester for two years, and his stated physical impairment. The story never talks about any sexual relationship between the two, we know he was a devout scholar and that was his only real passion, and we also know, obviously, that Hester was never impregnated by him. So, Chillingworth's desire to ruin Dimmesdale does not come from his superficial desire to avenge his marriage, but from his jealousy and metonymic desire to avenge his sexual impotency.

This video is a an interpretation of what is going on with Chillingworth throughout the story. I consider this song by Hoobastank in this sense to be addressing Chillingworth's unconscious desire. Notice how the song says, "what should I do...I don't understand what you want from me...I may never know the answer to this mystery." I think this reflects the continuous metonymic chain of desires that the wanting person can never realize or know and the demands and consequences felt by this person.