Next, Marian attempts not to attain jouissance when she makes love with Peter in order to dodge experiencing the utmost pleasure, which she regards as a danger and in her thought, which might make her whole being vanish or collapse. By making her subject absent from the reality, she keeps herself “safe” in her fantastic imagination.
During the process of making love with Peter, Marian does not totally engage herself in it; instead, she pays her attention to the surrounding furniture and decoration of the bathroom, where she makes love with him. At first, she observes the style of Peter’s shower-curtain, which is not his taste at all since Marian claims in her mind that he bought it in a hurry without taking time to look at it properly because the water kept running over the floor every time when he takes a shower (59). And then, she
imagines a scene where there is a woman who is drowned in the bathtub, chaste as ice only because she is dead (60). Marian continues, “The bathtub as a coffin” (60). Here, we find that Marian does not enjoy the pleasure of making love; on the contrary, she relates the bathtub, where they make love, to a coffin. During the moment of
love-making, she would rather identify with the fantasy woman who is drowned in the bathtub but who would be “chaste” than identify with a real woman who experiences jouissance, the transient death of suffering from excessive sexual satisfaction.
Thinking of that, Marian catches a fleeting vision that she and Peter are killed accidentally in the bathtub (60). Shifting from the scene of fantasizing that they are killed accidentally, Marian recollects the past when she and Peter first meet at a garden party following her graduation, and how her “sexual mood” has been shattered by smashed glass (62).
The sexual intercourse ends up in her fantasy and memory of succession of unfortunate scenes. When Peter asks Marian how she feels, she replies “Marvelous”
instead of “Rotten,” for she knows that even she gives him the latter answer, Peter wouldn’t believe her (62). According to Nasio, the hysteric lives the psychical life of fear and the persistent refusal to experience the utmost pleasure, a pleasure which he deems that once he reaches it, the wholeness of his being will be placed under the threat of full collapse and disappearance. Thus, without knowing that experiencing limitless pleasure will not menace the integrity of the entire being, and that there will be and must be only a loss of partial being in everyone because there is no object which can completely fill and match the lack made by castration, the hysteric would rather choose to remain in the state of dissatisfaction, that is, the unfulfilled pleasure.
According to Nasio’s elucidation, the hysteric, who unconsciously renders herself as a phallus for a lack, the absence of the genitals, fears that the sexual penetration will tear and burst “her uterus, her vagina, and ultimately, her entire being” (46). To put it more simply, in the hysteric’s fantasy, a man’s penis is unconsciously equal to the
“Mother-phallus,” which will arouse her anxiety, anxiety that the “Mother-phallus”
can fill the lack of her phallus, lead her to the utmost pleasure, jouissance, and then threaten her “uterus-phallus” and lastly, the wholeness of her being.
In addition, Marian’s subjective position flees to other places in her fantasy to keep her desire unsatisfied so that she can ensure that she is not the cause of the Other’s jouissance. Marian imagines scene after scene without disposing her subject at the right place and time during the process of lovemaking, for she does not want to satisfy both herself and the desire of the Other. Perhaps we can say that it is Marian’s
“being” which is making love with Peter, but her “subject” is somewhere in her fantasy playing the role she invents. According to Nasio, the hysteric “is intent on the unconscious desire for the non-realization of the act and hence on the desire to remain
unsatisfied” (8). In other words, Marian thinks of other things when making love with Peter because she can only get the unsatisfied desire by her non-realization of the sexual act. She is absent; the hysterical subject is not present (Soler 270). What Colette Soler means is that the hysteric makes herself indulge in her own thought. Via the process of keeping thinking, she is disposed into her own fantastic world, filling up “the lack with signifiers, with thoughts” (Soler 270). Here, we observe that Marian does not want to be an “object” of the Other’s desire, but the “signifier” of the Other’s lack. In other words, although Peter is penetrating her, he is not really “occupying”
her. What he penetrates is just her physical body, whereas what he gets is simply an object but not the phallus, that is, no joissance but only orgasm. Besides, Marian does not utter any erotic words or perform any obscene behaviors as a way to divulge her enjoyment in the process of lovemaking since she does this on purpose to remain
“absent” with her thought and make Peter dissatisfied, too. According to Nasio, the hysteric attaches himself to the state of being forever unsatisfied in order to keep away from the danger in front of him, the danger of attaining “the satisfaction of utmost pleasure” which will make him crazy or disappear (5). In other words, the hysteric is not chasing the happiness; rather, he persistently runs after the loss of pleasure. To sum up, even though being unsatisfied is a great pain for Marian, she would rather live in the vicious cycle of endless suffering than in the danger of being torn up via reaching the utmost pleasure from making love with Peter.
Actually, that Marian fantasizes herself as a phallus can also be considered as a way to identify with man, so when Marian makes love with Peter, she virtually regards him rather as a male fighter who attempts to “castrate” her than as her lover who just wants to make love with her. Now, I intend to elaborate why Marian becomes frigid during the process of making love with Peter by employing Freud’s ideas. As Freud avows, after performing the sexual intercourse, it is common for a
woman to embrace a man at the climax of satisfaction, but it is not the behavior for the woman who encounters the first occasion of intercourse. Instead, more frequently, the woman displays frigidity as a reaction to the loss of her virginity, for there is “only disappointment for the woman, who remains cold and unsatisfied, and it usually requires quite a long time and frequent repetition of the sexual act before she too begins to find satisfaction in it” (201). Therefore, Freud indicates that frigidity is women’s psychical impotence as the failure of full impotence is men’s, but what disturbs those frigid women is instead that they cannot untie “the connection between sexual activity and the prohibition” (186). Freud enumerates many explanations of the women’s frigidity established as a neurotic inhibition towards sexual intercourses as follows. One explanation is “the narcissistic injury which proceeds from the
destruction of an organ,” another is that “fulfillment cannot be in accordance with expectations,” and still another is “paradoxical reaction towards the man.” Here, I want to note Freud’s idea of “paradoxical reaction towards the man” to argue that Marian cannot completely enjoy the sexual intercourse with Peter not only because she fears that she might be torn up by the penetration of the penis since she fantasizes herself as a phallus without a lack but because she wishes to be masculine. As Freud suggests, “At first, in his [Ferenczi’s] opinion, copulation took place between two similar individuals, one of which, however, developed into the stronger and forced the weaker one to submit to sexual union. The feelings of bitterness arising from this subjection still persist in the present-day disposition of woman” (205-06). Although Marian does not divulge her real feeling of “Rotten” about the sexual intercourse to Peter, she nevertheless exposes her “masculine protest” indirectly by uttering no erotic words or voices to seduce Peter. Besides, after finishing the sexual act, Peter bit Marian’s shoulder, the signal of which is recognized by Marian for “irresponsible gaiety” since “Peter doesn’t usually bite,” and so Marian “bit his shoulder in return”
(63). Unlike the average couple who bite each other for arousing sexual interest, Marian’s behavior of biting Peter back on the shoulder is more like taking
“vengeance” for her defloration. Or perhaps we can as well regard it as a fair fight between a man and another one, for Marian does not want to “submit to sexual union”
and be the weaker one, so she bit back.
2.2. Wishing to Manipulate Others
Secondly, instead of viewing Marian as a social victim under the exploitation and persecution of the patriarchal ideology, I want to argue that Marian’s “abnormally normal” conducts reveal her unconscious wish to manipulate others and the whole situation. Critics have regarded Marian’s “unusual” behaviors as something
“abnormally normal” since they believe that her hysterical actions are rebellious counterattack against the patriarchal context, which forces so much feminine mystique and social constraint on the contemporary women. Thus, to some degree, Marian seems to be an undoubted victim as Dora is in the fourfold love relationship in various feminist perspectives since they both are treated as “objects of exchange”
either by men or by women. For instance, when Marian and Dora feel oppressed and utilized by their lovers, Peter and Dora’s father respectively, they choose to bear the unjust treatment given by their intimate parties without divulging their real feeling or opinions even though they are actually free or encouraged to offer their requests and complaints. Abandoning the opportunity to tell the Other their real feeling, they play instead the role of victims to manipulate others by degrading their status. Both Marian and Dora might never recognize this idea of wanting to control others since they have placed themselves in the position of being exploited, constantly denying the fact that they are actually the persons who direct everything behind the scenes. I would like to
borrow André Green’s idea that truth does not appear or manifest itself at the moment when everything becomes rational (85). Rather, the real truth in Green’s interpretation is not only “a state of ‘knowledge of not knowing’” (85), but a more subtle, “‘[m]y knowledge is one of knowing not that I know’” (86). What Green expresses here is that actually we do know something, but our knowledge is so limited that we do not know that we know. From the examples given by the novel, we observe that Marian is perplexed by her irrational and unusual behaviors such as her sudden weeping in the restaurant without suitable reasons, followed by her unpredictable running on the street and later by her incomprehensible hiding under Len’s bed. Like the readers, she also asks herself the same question as to why she commits all these ridiculous things.
Thus, I am going to dispel these puzzles by adopting Jonathan Lear’s viewpoint in rereading Dora’s case.
2.2.1. Marian’s Idiosyncratic Ways to Deal with Her Anxiety
Now, we are going to discuss how Marian’s anxieties are aroused and how she handles her overwhelming anxieties. At the beginning of the novel, we observe that Marian is an extremely self-repressed person who conceals her emotions cautiously and utters words with contemplation since she usually tries her best to accord with other people’s expectations and needs, no matter at work, or with her friends, or even in her love life. Let’s take one of the instances of her specific way about getting along with the landlady. Although the landlady does not plainly express her discomfort about Ainsley’s carelessness and sloppiness, Marian herself, however, conjectures that the landlady often keeps her watch in secret so that Marian sometimes glosses over Ainsley’s mistakes, fearing that the landlady might be irritated by some trivialities done by Ainsley:
Ainsley is always leaving rings, which the lady down below regards as a
violation of her shrine. She leaves deodorants and cleansers and brushes and sponges in conspicuous places, which has no effect on Ainsley but makes me feel uneasy. Sometimes I go downstairs after Ainsley has taken a bath and clean out the tub. (56)
Marian cares so much about other people’s opinions and judgment on her that she feels “uneasy” even when her roommate, Ainsley, has done something inappropriate that she believes that others might misunderstand what she was done. Besides, Marian also fears that her colleagues might detect her real thought, so she usually suffers from the overwhelming anxiety. For example, when her colleague, Lucy, asks Marian about whether going out with Peter or not, Marian replies with a short answer without offering volunteering information since her colleagues’ wistful curiosity makes her nervous (29). Another example is that attempting to exhort Ainsley to abandon the thought of rearing a child on her own without the presence of a father, Marian nonetheless is accused by Ainsley as a prude, the term which makes Marian secretly hurt since she thought that she “was being more understanding than most” (42).
However, she does not let Ainsley know that she is hurt by her words; rather, she goes to bed without saying anything, but she feels “unsettled” (43). Instead of letting others, such as the landlady, her colleagues, her roommate, and so on, know what she
considers, Marian represses her feeling and thoughts again and again. As a result, she acts “abnormally” the first time after she represses her feeling and redraws her words again in the conversation with Peter. Eating frozen peas and smoked meat for dinner, Peter blames Marian for never cooking anything (63). His words seriously hurt Marian, but she does not act out; instead, she changes the topic to cover her real emotions:
I was hurt: I considered this unfair. I like to cook, but I had been
deliberately refraining at Peter’s for fear he would feel threatened. Besides,
he had always liked smoked meat before, and it was perfectly nourishing. I was about to make a sharp comment, but repressed it. Peter after all was suffering. Instead I asked, “How was the wedding?” (64)
From the above instance, we can assume that Marian develops her “hysterical
symptoms” not only because she is oppressed by the patriarchal standards as feminists have pointed out but also because she herself has always repressed her “affects” and
“ideas” for a long time so that those accumulated affects along with the incompatible ideas have no way to discharge but transfer to her body, the symptoms occurred by which is called “conversion” by Freud.
Since I have enumerated several examples of what has caused Marian’s anxiety, I will then elaborate how Marian tackles her overwhelming anxiety by using Lear’s re-interpretation of “transference” in Dora’s case. According to Lear, people use their own structured, idiosyncratic ways to face people and events in the world, so
sometimes misunderstandings, fights, and break-ups will happen in their personal relations (124). Lear thus argues that Dora reveals her relatively limited and distinct way to experience people and events, for she can only experience the surrounding things by putting them into a fixed Herr K position. Once her anxiety is aroused, she can only be quelled through her own idiosyncratic way of experiencing the world in a familiar pattern (124). In this way, Lear accounts, “Dora’s slap is a manifestation of an anxiety defense” (125). Lear further censures Freud as to why he does not inquire Dora the reason of lining him to Herr K and that of slapping Herr K since Freud might find earlier events to explain that Dora’s slap at Herr K is itself a repetition (125).
Lear indicates, “Dora has been reacting to anxiety since childhood with angry outbursts” (127). In other words, the developmental history of her emotion is disrupted by her constant defense of overwhelming herself with anxiety. The
insufficiencies of her emotional resources, which are not fully developed, impel her to
act out immature angry outbursts to tackle her anxiety. Therefore, Lear deduces that Herr K.’s proposition is the occasion rather than the reason for Dora’s angry reaction (127). Likewise, when Marian’s anxiety is evoked because her surplus affect as accompanied by the incompatible ideas is blocked, she does not develop various emotions or reactions during the process of growing up to manage her anxieties as adults will adopt. Instead of expressing her discomfort or resentment through the normal way with words, she releases her overwhelming anxieties via the methods of crying, running, hiding, and raising a tremendous uproar as a three-year-old child usually performs when his or her desires are not fully satisfied. Nevertheless, we probably will ask the question what Marian desires. A glance at the given description of the novel, we are asserted by Marian’s confession that she wants to escape from certain people and places. However, if we take another close look, we will detect that actually Marian wants more than just “escaping.”
2.2.2. Wishing to Be the Phallus
I have argued that Marian repeatedly acts out her idiosyncratic ways of bursting out suddenly, irrationally running, and hiding away from people since her childhood in order to tackle her overwhelming anxieties, but which are evoked instead by her incompletely developed emotions and behaviors. Marian has claimed that she herself does know her motives behind these unusual actions, in which she indeed presents herself as a victim. However, I would like to offer a different perspective to treat Marian’s self-justification. In my account, that Marian attempts to stay away from people is in fact a way to control others, for she wishes to be the phallus for others.
Before I elaborate the arguments of Marian’s wish to be the phallus, it is necessary to first define the “phallus” I employ in my thesis. I want to take
Juan-David Nasio’s viewpoints to mark the difference between penis and phallus and
why “being” the phallus is more urgent than “having” the phallus for the hysteric.
According to Nasio, in the child’s eyes, what the mother lacks is not the penis but “the idol of the penis,” or “a simulacrum of the penis,” which psychoanalysis terms it as the “phallus” (42). In the same way, the body of castration anxiety suggested by psychoanalysis is also a psychoanalytic body, so what terrifies the child is the
intimidation of his “phallus” instead of the castration of his “penis.” Nasio also claims that “The hysteric, then, is the child who has not progressed beyond this stage [the phallic stage] but remains fixated there” (42). In this light, if we plumb the world of
intimidation of his “phallus” instead of the castration of his “penis.” Nasio also claims that “The hysteric, then, is the child who has not progressed beyond this stage [the phallic stage] but remains fixated there” (42). In this light, if we plumb the world of