“One Long Frightening Climax”: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis

“‘One Long Frightening Climax’: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis argues that Lacan’s Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (1969-1970) may serve as an interpretive tool to analyze Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012) because the novel depicts subjectivity,...

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Main Author: Erica D. GALIOTO
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA) 2014-12-01
Series:E-REA
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/erea/4057
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author Erica D. GALIOTO
author_facet Erica D. GALIOTO
author_sort Erica D. GALIOTO
collection DOAJ
description “‘One Long Frightening Climax’: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis argues that Lacan’s Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (1969-1970) may serve as an interpretive tool to analyze Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012) because the novel depicts subjectivity, discourse, and desire (and its absence) in ways that reflect Lacan’s projections for consumerist society, and it also provides an example of the psychoanalytic act as a necessary precursor to the exalted “other side of psychoanalysis.” As Lacan develops through the entirety of Seminar XVII and the character Amy Dunne portrays in Gone Girl, desire and access to jouissance emerge through the intervention of the signifier. Amy’s signifying act—her self-removal from a poorly-articulated field with no laws and no prohibition on enjoyment—hollows out a lack that provides access to a jouissance that is only made possible due to self-imposed boundaries, limits, and conditions.
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publisher Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)
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spelling doaj-art-ae8fcc38bad649998bae8ea0c909180f2025-01-09T12:54:13ZengLaboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)E-REA1638-17182014-12-0112110.4000/erea.4057“One Long Frightening Climax”: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of PsychoanalysisErica D. GALIOTO“‘One Long Frightening Climax’: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis argues that Lacan’s Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (1969-1970) may serve as an interpretive tool to analyze Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012) because the novel depicts subjectivity, discourse, and desire (and its absence) in ways that reflect Lacan’s projections for consumerist society, and it also provides an example of the psychoanalytic act as a necessary precursor to the exalted “other side of psychoanalysis.” As Lacan develops through the entirety of Seminar XVII and the character Amy Dunne portrays in Gone Girl, desire and access to jouissance emerge through the intervention of the signifier. Amy’s signifying act—her self-removal from a poorly-articulated field with no laws and no prohibition on enjoyment—hollows out a lack that provides access to a jouissance that is only made possible due to self-imposed boundaries, limits, and conditions.https://journals.openedition.org/erea/4057subjectivityJacques LacansignifierpsychoanalysisRealSymbolic
spellingShingle Erica D. GALIOTO
“One Long Frightening Climax”: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
E-REA
subjectivity
Jacques Lacan
signifier
psychoanalysis
Real
Symbolic
title “One Long Frightening Climax”: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
title_full “One Long Frightening Climax”: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
title_fullStr “One Long Frightening Climax”: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
title_full_unstemmed “One Long Frightening Climax”: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
title_short “One Long Frightening Climax”: Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Lacan’s The Other Side of Psychoanalysis
title_sort one long frightening climax gillian flynn s gone girl and lacan s the other side of psychoanalysis
topic subjectivity
Jacques Lacan
signifier
psychoanalysis
Real
Symbolic
url https://journals.openedition.org/erea/4057
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