Lacan and Prufrock. How does this work?
10-8-19
The minute I found out I had to do a psychoanalytic paper, I thought to myself “No way am I writing about Freud. Not again.” Freud plagued three years of my high school academic career, in three of my English classes and especially in senior year AP Psychology. I never really learned about any other psychoanalysts, except for a brief introduction to Jung. Dr. Pennington gave us an intro to a few different psychoanalysts though, and I have arrive on one that interests me: Jacques Lacan.
Well, now here begs the question: How can Lacan be implemented into a piece of writing? My thoughts are that if Lacan’s theories all center around the fact that humans cannot say what they really mean, then poetry is the approach to go. Poets always use imagery and different literary techniques to send a message when they can’t just say it flat out. That is completely parallel with what Lacan says. So, I’m gonna use Lacanian theory with T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I think it’ll go well.
Poor Prufrock…
10-12-19
Turns out, this poem actually works really well with Lacanian theory. The mistake I made, however, is that I tried to bring every single concept that Lacanian theory involves into my paper. My paper turned too much into a summary of Lacan than an analysis of Prufrock. Dr. Pennington made sure to let me know in his comments on my first draft that I needed to narrow my focus. So I cut out a lot of my paper in trying to navigate how to really analyze Prufrock. I’m gonna look at quotes first, and then analyze using Lacan, rather than picking a Lacanian concept and then trying to find a quote that fits it. I probably should’ve done that in the first place.
I started looking at quotes more, and can I just say: Prufrock really is having a bad time. I feel pretty bad for him. He just wants to ask a nice woman out on a date but he’s too plagued with insecurities and some deeply seeded psychological problems. Obviously, that’s where Lacan comes into play, and my analysis should focus on what his language says about his unconscious desires. But all in all, I think he just needs a hug.
“It is impossible to say just what I mean!”
10-27-19
…Prufrock has the perfect line in the poem to explain what Lacan is all about. I’m finishing up my third draft right now, focusing on a little bit more quote analysis. I’m also trying to see if there are any other quotes in the poem that I can add to some body paragraphs without needing to start another claim. The draft should be pretty easy to fix, and then I think I’m good to go.
I’m officially halfway through the curriculum for this class now, which is exciting. The workload has not managed to kill me yet, so I would say I’m in a good spot right now. I have the feminist paper to work on next which seems a little more in my comfort zone now. I had to actually teach myself about Lacan in order to apply him to literature, but for feminist analysis I feel a lot more confident. It’s almost self-explanatory, in a way.
