Going Beyond The Fantasy

This study focuses on a psychoanalytical interpretation of the self-destructive protagonists in Edgar Allan Poe's typical terror tales from a Lacanian perspective. As one of the giants in the American literary realm, Poe is a craftsman in picturing the innermost mental state of human beings which is full of depression, loneliness and torture. To a greater or less degree, we find that those protagonists in Poe's tales suffer from some interior crises. Specifically conspicuous, they all have problems with self-identification, which, eventually, leads their lives to irrefutable and inescapable self-destruction. In other words, Poe's terrific tales invite a Lacanian reading, because both Poe and Lacan show their concern over an age-old issue: the problem of "Identity".This paper calls particular attention to those anguished protagonists rather than Poe's hand to diction and "calculating design" of his horror tales. This paper, taking the interrelationship between the victims and the victimizers as the point of departure, contrives to seek for a new interpretation of the maniac deeds of those protagonists in Poe's works, and consequently, the probe into "self, by employing Lacan's three Orders of human psyche, will be prior to our discussion of Poe. The paper will dig into the truth from two aspects: the fantasy "I" and the causation of self-destruction. As Lacan states, what is taken as "I" by human beings is merely a fantasy in the mirror. It bolsters our sense of wholeness and completeness. "I" is, as a matter of fact, a complete MISRECOGNITION. Ironically, it is the very fantasy that bolsters up the subject's life destroys him. Some day, when the subject ultimately comes to realize that an "I" is only a fantasy, he will, inevitably, plunge into a world of fragmentation. It's no wonder that he will lead himself on a self-destructive way.