From “I Want” To “They Want”

Saul Bellow is regarded as one of the most prominent writers in contemporary American literary circle. His insightful understanding of humanity and in-depth analysis of contemporary culture enables him to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. Published in 1959, Henderson the Rain King falls into the category of Bellow’s most important novels. The novel depicts the life of an American millionaire Eugene Henderson who is severely tortured by isolation and agony. Meanwhile, he incessantly hears inner voice I want, I want. Stimulated by a series of tragic occurrences of death, he is forced to exile to Africa, seeking for what he really desires. Eventually he succeeds in finding spiritual tranquility with his inner voice transforming into they want.The previous studies of Henderson the Rain King mainly focus upon the macro-aspects like theme studies and cultural background. Adopting the assumptions of desire and death of Jacques Lacan, the renowned French philosopher, this thesis attempts to make an analysis of the novel from the creative micro-psychological perspective. Jacques Lacan distinguishes three concepts in his theory of desire, namely need, demand and desire. According to him, need equates with some biological instinct which can be gratified with real objects. Yet human-being has to articulate to express his or her needs, which give rises to the appearance of demand. Co-occurring with demand, the Other not only supplies the subject with food and shelter, but also personifies love. However, the Other cannot provide unconditional love due to the fact that it is itself incomplete, too. As a result, despite the fact that people succeed in having his or her needs satisfied, their demand for love is never fulfilled. The surplus between the two is desire. Lacan then boldly asserts that “as a characteristic of an animal at the mercy of language, man’s desire is the Other’s desire”. He maintains that desire is something ontological rather than individual, and it is the social product built by language. As to Lacanian viewpoint of death, he is deeply-influenced by Heidegger and Freud. Lacan regards death instinct as the limit of the subject’s historical function and death is unconditional and unsurpassable.This thesis is going to resort to Lacan’s assumption of “need, demand and desire” to analyze the causes behind Henderson’s inner voice I want I want by the application of Lacan’s assumption of “need, demand and desire”. Although Henderson was born in an affluent family which guarantees that most of his biological and material needs can be taken care of, his inner demand for the unconditionality of love fails to be gratified due to his impaired subjectivity in his family and the unsatisfactory social reality as well. The huge gap between the two gives rise to his intense desire. Since there is no solution of meeting his desire, Henderson behaves eccentrically and has an awful relationship with other people.The third chapter touches upon the trigger for Henderson’s transformation from I want to they want, namely the happening of a series of deaths around him. He is quite afraid of death, for he cannot accept calmly the unconditional and unsurpassable features of death and fails to identify death with the limit of the subject’s historical function. Yet he has to confront with it. Death even draws him closer to the real order, cornering him toward self-destruction. Thanks to the symbolic order represented by the inveterate anti-suicide Judo-Christian culture, he is able to get rid of the death consciousness. However, he has to flee from America and becomes a vagrant in Africa.The next chapter reveals and has a detailed exploration that the essence of Henderson’s they want is his desire for the Other. In the two primitive African tribes, he unconsciously desires to reenact the saints’ deeds of the Holy Bible and wants to be an archetypal western hero, too. His African experience justifies Lacan’s theory of “man’s desire is the Other’s desire”. Besides, the particular African travel renders his inner voice to change into they want and he restores his inner peace, too.Chapter five concludes with a review of the framework of the thesis, namely the whole process of Henderson’s inner voice changing from I want to they want. Despite the fact that Henderson lives a rich life, his demand for unconditional love is unfulfilled. Thus the gap between the two results in his strong desire reflected by the insuppressible cry of I want. The ignorance of what he desires leads to his queer behavior. At the same time, the incessant deaths of his family and friends drive him to Africa where he unconsciously practices Lacan’s theory of “man’s desire is the Other’s desire”. At last, he finds the inner peace and the inner voice calmly changes into they want.