REFLECTIONS ON THE FUNCTION OF THE LETTER AND WRITING IN

PSYCHOANALYSIS.
By Lillian Ferrari
Writing; trace and letter
According to some linguists that have investigated the history of writing (Calvet, Jean L,
1996 the etymology of the word to write originally comes from the Latin scribere,
literally !to trace characters", which itself derives from the #ndo$%uro&ean root ker/sker,
indicating the idea of cut, of ma'ing incisions, and thus leaving traces in certain surfaces(
As a result of this gesture of inscri&tion, some linguists have argued that the a&&earance
of writing in its inci&ient origins shows more connections with activities related to
&ainting and the &ictorial rather than with language itself( #ndeed, it will ta'e a long
develo&ment to evolve from the creation of what is considered to )e the first rudimentary
signs of writing *halfway through )etween mar's and drawings$ to the creation of a
&ro&er system of writing with the invention of the letters of the al&ha)et, which is a
system conceived +ust to transcri)e the sounds of a given language(
#n the history of civili,ation, the activity of writing seems to emerge from the slow and
gradual evolving of the inscri&tions of certain gra&hics called &ictograms $which forms
&resented great similarities with the o)+ect re&resented$ to the creation of a system of
characters conceived sim&ly to )e the su&&ort of a certain sound, a notation to transcri)e
certain fragments of sounds( At the end of this long &rocess, the characters of the al&ha)et
will lose any connections with the original o)+ect signified in the character( -hus, the
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system of writing emerges &ro&erly when all its initial traces of the figurative, of the
&ro.imity with the o)+ect or idea re&resented, is lost(
Lacan rescues from this &rocess a notion of effacement that is contained in the idea of a
trace, )ecause the gesture of effacement is essential for the constitution of the su)+ect of
the unconscious( Lacan ta'es u& this idea of effacement as o&erative in the letter in a te.t
he wrote in 19/1, Lituraterre, where he e.&lores the relationshi& )etween 0sychoanalysis
and writing( #n fact, the word 1Lituraterre" is a neologism, a &lay on several words and
their different semantic domains, which illustrates what in fact is involved in the notion
of the letter in 0sychoanalysis( We have the term litura, liturarious from the Latin, which
means to cross out, to efface, or to correct; then, there is the idea of the littoral, a coastal
area in which two distinctive su)stances, water and earth, shared a common )order;
additionally, the signifier 1letter" and its Joycean sli&&age to the word litter, trash,
conveys the lin' of the letter with the function of the remainder, the &rivilege o)+ect that
serves as a vehicle for +ouissance(
2y &laying with the homo&hony )etween littoral and literal, Lacan wants to convey
firstly, that the function of the letter is to locali,e certain effects of the signifier, as in
certain e3uivocations or word$&lay4 !That the letter is the proper instrument for writing
discourse does not render it improper to designate the word taken for an other, even by
an other, in the sentence, thus to symbolize certain effects of the signifier, but this does
not impose that the letter is primary in these effects5(Lituraterre, 6( -he letter &ermits an
o&ening, a new reading through which one can go )eyond the literal meaning initially
intended in the te.t( 7econdly, im&licit in the notion of littoral is the idea of a )order, of a
frontier )etween two domains that are not !reci&rocal5, such as 'nowledge (savoir that
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comes from the articulation of signifiers, and +ouissance (the +ouissance of the )ody,
conveying the sense that the letter also )orders something of the real, of that which
esca&es its articulation in language4 !the edge of the hole in knowledge, isnt it this that
the letter outlines?(Lacan 6
#n his )oo' !-ransmettre la Clini3ue &sychoanalyti3ue5 (trans( %d( 9ueva :ision,
8;;< %ric 0orge conveys with a )eautiful e.&ression the notion of the lin' )etween the
letter and the litter that is reflected in the neologism Lituraterre when he states that
ultimately Lacan"s as&iration for the transmission of 0sychoanalysis was to &roduce !a
&oetics of the ru))ish5( Why= 2ecause he wanted to find a way for the transmission of
&sychoanalysis that would resonate with the nature of the su)+ective truth, a truth that *as
>reud taught us$ is not the -ruth in ca&ital letters, )ut rather a half truth revealed through
the least im&ortant, through those 1insignificant" occurrences neglected )y the ?fficial
@nowledge such as sli& of the tongues, forgetfulness, +o'es, myths and dreams(
Auras
-hese two dimensions are very much &resent in the writings of >rench writer Bargarite
Auras, and it is through one of her novels !-he Cavishment of Lol : 7tein5 that # want to
a&&roach the relationshi& )etween writing and 0sychoanalysis( -his novel, indeed a very
)eautiful and strange novel conveys a dee&ly understanding of the structure of love,
desire and the nature of su)+ective suffering, with a writing techni3ue that it is as &recious
as it is thrift( Jac3ues Lacan, in a short essay written in 196D gives homage to the
writings of Bargarite Auras, &raising the novel and the writer for having artfully
e.&ressed something that resonates with the unconscious structure of desire, insofar as
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human desire is always su&&orted in a fantasy that resem)les a certain 1staging", a
&erformance in which each character" role is intertwined with the other as in a 'not(
7omething is )eing articulated in the novel$in the content of the novel, as well as in the
form$ that advances 3uestions that are &articularly relevant for the analyst( Lacan says
(196D !That is precisely what " acknowledge to be the case in the ravishing of Lol #$
%tein, where it turns out that &argarite 'uras knows, without me, what " teach, (169(
#n this sentence, is he referring to the e&isode in the novel that descri)es the ravishment
of Lol, or is he referring to the novel itself which title is, &recisely, -he Cavishment of
Lol : 7tein= #t seems to me that in the novel this two as&ects $the content of the story and
the form, that is, the manner in which the novel is written as reflected )y the choice of
words, the names of the characters, the voice of the narrator, etc$ are ine.trica)le lin'ed,
)ecoming at times indistinguisha)le, there)y conforming a surface, a te.ture in which its
inside is in contiguity with its outside, echoing in this manner the surface of the
unconscious( #n his &raising, he goes as far as to say that this )eautiful novel reveals
$once again$ that the practice of the letter coincides with the workings of the unconscious
(169 leaving in sus&ense whose unconscious is at sta'e4 Lol"s unconscious= Bargarite
Auras"= ?urs as readers= #t is o)vious from the first &ages of the novel that, in her
writings B Auras su)verts the roles traditionally assigned to the &osition of the su)+ect
and the o)+ect in the narrative, ma'ing it difficult to reali,e who is tal'ing, or rather from
which &lace those words are s&o'en; the voice of the narrator switches from the 6er
&erson to the first in a manner that left us &u,,le as to who controls the narrative, or from
where emanates the loo' from which the story is told(
<
-he title of the novel raises an interrogation4 7hould !-he ravishing of Lol : 7tein5 )e
ta'en in su)+ective or o)+ective terms= #n other words, #s Lol the su)+ect of this ravishing
or are we, as readers the one who are )eing ravished )y the novel= -a'en to the letter,
)oth &ossi)ilities seem e3ually true( 7o let me summari,e the story4 Lol *whose real
name is Lola :alerie 7tein$ is a )eautiful and young American who is engaged to )e
married with a handsome and wealthy man called Bichael Cichardson( Auring a )all that
ta'es &lace in the Casino of the 2each where they are vacationing, he has a chance and
fateful encounter with another mysterious and )eautiful woman, Ann Barie 7tretter( #t
will ta'e +ust an instant *the instant of the loo'$ for these two to recogni,e their sudden
and mutual &assion as they &roceed to the dance floor( #n the mean time, Lol can not hel&
)ut watch the scene in fascination, una)le to move or scream, her eyes glue to the
dancing cou&le at the moment in which she is a)out to )e ro))ed of her lover( ("f she
herself had been the agent not only of its advent but of what would come of it, Lol could
not have been more fascinated by it$ (-he Cavishment, &(E 2ut stri'ingly, Lol does not
&resent any sign of suffering or &ain4 !)s the evening wore on, it seemed that the chances
that Lol might suffer were growing increasingly slim*(9( Lol"s crisis will ta'e &lace
only at the end of the )all, when the )rea'ing of dawn announces that the time of
concluding is near( As if she has )een awa'en from a dream, she des&erately tries to
arrest time, to immo)ili,ed the scene while screaming that !it was not late5(18 Late for
what or for whom= After the fateful scene of the )all, Lol colla&ses in a state of crisis )ut
there is no indication that she is going through a mourning &rocess, no allusion to the loss
of her fiancF, or to her sense of a)andonment and )etrayal( #nstead, she will re&eat (how
boring, how long it was, how interminable it was to be Lol %tein5(1<( %ventually she
D
will recover *at least she will give that im&ression$, get married, have children and move
out of her childhood town( After ten years however *ten uneventful years$ she comes
)ac' to 7( -hala, the town where the traumatic scene had ta'en &lace( -here, in what one
may thin' is an attem&t at reconstituting the scene of the )all, she hoo's u& with another
cou&le of lovers, -atiana @arl *who was a childhood friend and witness at the )allroom
scene$ and Jac' Gold, the man who is also (we learn this with a certain sur&rise halfway
through the novel the narrator of the novel( When Jac' enters, the voice switches from
the omniscient third &erson to the !#5, the first &erson narrator( -he esta)lishment of a
time of enunciation mar's the emergence of the su)+ect"s desire( Jac' falls in love with
Lol and it is essentially through his s&eech *&roving once again that the Aesire is the
desire of the ?ther$ that Lol )ecomes &resent, yet ever more elusive( Who is Lol= What
does she want= -hroughout the novel Lol is &resented to us as an elusive and mysterious
creature, someone whose intentions are difficult to fathom, seemingly lac'ing any
&assions or definitive &references that would &ermit one to &lace her somewhere, to
characteri,e her( 7he carries herself with a constant air of a)sence, almost indifference in
her interactions with others; her friend -atiana remar's (*"n school, there was
something lacking in Lol, she was already then, strangely incomplete, she had lived her
early years as though she were waiting for something she might, but never did, become
(+,- )nd (Lol was funny* and very bright, even though part of her seemed always to be
evading you, and the present moment*There was already something lacking in Lol,
something which kept her from being, in Tatianas words, !there(5(6 #n >rench 1there"
reads !l.5 which is interestingly, the same sylla)le that is contained in Lol"s name,
shortened for Lola( 7omething of this im&ossi)ility of )eingH 1there" $)ut also )eing at
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the level of her coming to e.istence$ is inscri)ed in her name that is reflected in the
dro&&ing of the letter a; the name with the missing letter a is re&eated so many times in
the novel that we can not &ay attention to it4 strange, incom&lete, almost anonymous, as if
something of this a)sence that characteri,es her is contained in the name( -his feature
that mar's Lol"s name is echoed )y her silence, )y her seemingly ina)ility to find a word
to name her &ain, the &ain of se&aration from the other( -his se&aration *a se&aration that
at the level of the structure e.&resses an effect of language insofar as language is a
mediation that ultimately &recludes any relation of immediacy$ is dou)le4 its a se&aration
with a &art of our )ody, and also a se&aration with the other; indeed creating the function
of the other(
-his se&aration is structurally connected to the function of what Lacan designates ob/ect
a which could )e understood in light of >reud" conce&t of the 1lost o)+ect", which means
that as a result of the entrance of the su)+ect in the field of language the su)+ect
e.&eriences an irremedia)le loss of any ade3uate, natural relationshi& with an o)+ect,
including one"s own )ody as a li)idinal o)+ect( Conse3uently, any o)+ect will )e a re$
found o)+ect, and never identical to the original 1mythical" one( -his loss, however, will
cause the su)+ect"s desire to search for its re$finding it, eventually &ermitting himIher to
esta)lish li)idinal connections with numerous others(
-he fall of this o)+ect is the condition that &ermits )oth, the constitution of one" own
narcissistic )ody, and the constitution of the su)+ect"s desire that sustains itself in the
fantasy( #n the case of our )odily image, the effect of this fall ta'es the form of a
detachment that se&arates the narcissistic )ody from the )ody as a 1living organism", as a
result of which we have a )ody and not a &iece of flesh( -o have a )ody and !not to )e a
/
)ody5 is a conse3uence of language since the )ody itself is ca&tured in the networ' of
signifiers that the ?ther *&arents and significant others$ transmits to the child, a
transmission that includes their ideals as well as their unconscious desires( -his ca&ture
im&lies ultimately that the relationshi& that we maintain with our )ody is at the same time
intimate, yet strange and distant )ecause the mediation that language inter&oses &recludes
any form of immediate, direct relationshi& with it( #n the last instance the image of our
)ody, made u& with words and re&resentations, will function as a veil to cover u& the
1real" of the )ody, otherwise inaccessi)le(
We may con+ecture that in Lol" case there occurred a certain failure in the &rocess of
inscri)ing her into the dimension of the ?ther, into a dimension that condenses not only
the sym)olic and cultural as&ects of the &lace into which a child is )orn, )ut also the
unconscious desires and fantasies of the &rogenitors; this failure is noticea)le at the level
of her nomination, as if this very im&ortant act with all its su)+ective conse3uences, did
not fully conclude for her( As a result of this failure something remains without
articulation, unnama)le and uns&ea'a)le, never really a)le to )ecome a memory, and yet
&ersisting in its real &resence as a hole, as a ga&, as a hole0word, as the &lace where
s&eech itself encounters its own limit, its own im&ossi)le to articulate( #t is this very limit
of s&eech that Auras" &rose ma'es vi)rate em)odied in the figure of Lol, somehow
conveying the moment of the emergence of s&eech, this almost original moment in which
each and every word has the &otential to )ring meaning, yet at the same time it causes
silence to emerge as ine.trica)le lin'ed to language( #t is &recisely the &resence of this
hole what will center all efforts on the &art of Jac' Gold to &roduce a narrative(
#nevita)ly, he will fall in love with her enigma, striving to snatch a word from her, and in
E
so doing, &ushing her more and more to the &oint of madness( #n Bargarite Auras
writing, this unnamed that Lol"s name somewhat evo'es is condensed in the following
&assage4 ! %he has no memory, not even an imaginary one, she has not the faintest notion
of this unknown$ 1ut what she does believe is that she must enter it* that it would
always have meant, for her mind as well as her body, both their greatest /oy and their
greatest pain, so commingled as to be indefinable, a single entity but unnamable for lack
of a word$ " like to believe 0since " love her0 that if Lol is silent in her daily life it is
because, for a split second, she believed that this word might e2ist$ %ince it does not, she
remains silent$ "t would have been an absence0word, a hole0word, whose center would
have been hollowed out into a hole, the kind of hole in which all other words would have
been buried*by its absence, this word ruins all the others, it contaminates them, it is
also the dead dog on the beach at high noon, this hole of flesh. (6E
We may interrogate what is the meaning of this rather a)ru&t, almost )rutal a&&earance of
the real of the )ody conveyed in the figure of the 1dead dog in the )each" that the te.t
raises in con+unction with the !hole$word5( -he im&act of this figure is not sim&le to )e
found at the level of the content *a level that could always )e dece&tive in its a&&eal to a
!&rofound dimension5$ )ut is rather reinforced )y the structure of the synta.es4 &laced
almost at the end of a long sentence it &roduces a rather arresting effect, as if somehow
the &resence of this odd element interru&ted the continuity of the thoughts that were )eing
conveyed, sus&ending, at least tem&orarily the dimension of a )eyond that is always
&ossi)le to evo'e through s&eech( -he &resence of this odd element that resonates
together with the 1hole$word" creating a feeling of vacuity, isn"t it evocative of the
function of the stain, of the dar' s&ot in the visual field which )rings a)out the function
9
of what Lacan calls the ob/ect a as !&ure ga,e"= 7tri'ingly, that is e.actly the manner in
which Bargarite Auras descri)es Lol in another scene of the novel, a moment which
a&&ears to )e an attem&t on her &art to recreate the !event5 as one may call it, of the
)allroom scene( Lol has followed -atiana and Jac' to the Gotel were they are a)out to
meet for their rende,vous, and &lacing herself within the landsca&e of rye that surrounds
the )uilding, she watches the cou&le of lovers from this vantage &oint, as they a&&ear
through the o&ening of the room"s window( ! 1efore her is that lighted window*the
shadow of a man crosses the rectangle of light*"n turn, Tatiana 3arl, naked in her black
hair, crosses the stage of light*Lol does not stir*she knows that unless they had been
forewarned of her presence in the field, they would not be able to detect her$ Tatiana does
not see the dark spot in the rye(5 (Auras D6( We have here all the elements that
characteri,es the structure of the fantasm, in this case framed )y the o&ening of the
room"s window, that antici&ates the &athos of the moment of the constitution of the
su)+ect at the moment where she is a)out to fall, transfi.ed )y that moment in all its
am)iguity of fascination and re+ection, in which she is a)out to e.&erience her )ody as
waste, as a reminder left )y the other"s desire( #n terms of the structure, this moment
though, corres&onds to the vanishing of the su)+ect, a vanishing that the su)+ect su)mits
to )y virtue of his )eing re&resented )y the signifier, there where this re&resentation
re3uires at the same time its disa&&earance and its a)sence so that the signifier can ta'e
its &lace( -his su)+ective vanishing, this moment of ecli&se that the su)+ect e.&eriences as
an effect of hisIher re&resentation in the signifying chain is what the fantasm tries to
&ortray, staging the moment in which the su)+ect is in the verge of falling( And that is
why the actions that are fre3uently re&resented in the scene of the fantasm ()eing )eaten,
1;
mutilated, defecated, etc( are different ways in which the su)+ect &ortrays imaginarily
this moment of 1fading"( -he construction of the fantasy *or the fantasm in Lacanian
terms$ )ears witness to the fact of the effectiveness of the o&eration of castration insofar
it is after the loss of the o)+ect that the su)+ect may have access to desire and en+oyment(
#n the case of Lol, though, it is dou)tful that in setting u& this 1scenario", she is trying to
&ortray her own 1falling" as ob/ect a connected with the ga,e( 7he does not seem to )e
ta'ing the &osition of the one who finds 1en+oyment" *al)eit a torturous en+oyment$ )y
s&ying on the lovers, )ut rather the one who, &laced outside the window, does not see4 she
em)odies the non$loo'(
Lol a&&ears 1dece&tively" to want to loo', however as Lacan insists, she is not in the
&osition of the voyeur, the &erverse su)+ect who aims at im&osing his fetish ga,e into the
other( As her &osition outside the window suggests, Lol is rather the em)odiment of the
function of the ga,e, which in &rinci&le can )e understood not as an o)+ective relation
)etween the su)+ect and its o)+ects, )ut as a li)idinal one; for Lacan the constitution of
the visual field im&lies a dou)ling u& )etween the ga,e and the image, there where the
ga,e can also )e conceived as non$loo' in so far as the li)idinal constitution of the ga,e
re3uires always a &oint of non$visi)ility( -his &oint of non$visi)ility is evocative of the
)lind loo' *as for instance in the case of hysterical )lindness$ and of the 1odd" element in
the landsca&e, insofar as any odd element, )y standing out forces one to loo' at it( #n that
sense, Lol as 1the dar' s&ot in the field of rye" ma'es &resent the function of the stain that
structurally accom&anies the constitution of the image( Why= We can read the &resence of
this dar' s&ot that somehow distur)s the &eacefulness of the landsca&e as conveying the
moment in which the ga,e is originated, re&resenting the &oint of origin in which our
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desire is motivated( #ndeed, what causes the su)+ect"s desire, including hisIher desire to
loo' is a lac', an a)sence( As any other desire, my desire to see is triggered )y a lac', )y
an a)sence that the stain or dar' s&ot a&tly conveys )ecause it mar's &recisely the &lace
of the non visi)le, the &oint where the image falters( -hrough this &oint of non$visi)ility,
the stain ma'es &resent that which is necessary to su)tract from the visual field in order
to cause the ga,e to emerge( 7ays Lacan again in the Gomage !Jou can verify it, the
ga,e is everywhere in the novel( And the woman of the event is easy to recogni,e, since
Bargarite Auras has de&icted her as non$ga,e (non0regard-5 (1<;( #f this loo' * regard
in >rench$ loo's at you without loo'ing at you is in the sense that we say that some
matter re3uires one"s attention, that one can not hel& )ut 1ta'e a loo' at it" )ecause it
concerns oneself, !forcing oneself" *whether we li'e it or not$ to direct one"s attention to
it(
-here is another as&ect that is inevita)le connected with the 3uestion of the ga,e,
and that again is &ossi)le to hear through the letters of the novel( -his as&ect concerns the
&ossi)ility of the ga,e )ecoming a !voracious eye5, a destructive force that carries the
&otential to consume everything that it coveted, )ecoming the 1evil eye" that Lacan
evo'es in 7eminar 11 (196< with the term facinum$ #n that sense, Lol as non loo' is
evocative of the &ower of the ga,e as fascimun, having the &ower to fascinate, the &ower
to somehow summon a magical effect, enchanting us )ut also &osing the danger to
disarm, to immo)ili,ed, arresting the movement of life that is ultimately evocative of the
&resence of death(
18
-he fact that in the novel Lol has to sustain with her real &resence the fantasmatic
scene *&lacing herself outside the window o&ening as if watching, whereas in fact she
can"t see anything$ suggest a structure where there has )een no detachment of the ob/ect
a as a meta&hor for castration, no 1&iercing" affecting a &art of her )ody that would
account for the emergence of an erogenous )ody, which ultimately im&lies a )ody that
could )e e.&erienced, en+oyed, and even suffered( 9one of this a&&ears to ha&&en for Lol,
where she seems to lac' a su)+ective e.&erience of her )ody, carrying her )ody as some
'ind of thing that one ought to ta'e or to move from here to there, something li'e an
o)+ect that one &ulls from one &lace to another, )ut not 'nowing e.actly what to do with
it( 5%he is still asking herself where this body ought to be, where e2actly to put it, so that
it will cease to be burden to her (-he Cavishing, 166 #n my view, the o&eration of the cut
that esta)lishes the relation )etween the su)+ect and its o)+ect of desire remains
inconclusive, and this lac' of conclusion maintains her fi.ed to the scene in the &osition
of remainder, a remainder however that does not end u& falling(

?nce again this inconclusiveness resonates with your name, Lol, where the very letters
of your name configure a trait that can )e e3ually read from the right side to the left side,
where the )eginning meets the end, giving the im&ression that one can reverse
intermina)le from one to the otherHloosing oneself in the eternity of the ball in the
cinema of Lol #$ %tein(Auras 69(
Lillian >errari
16
WORKS CITED
Calvet, Louis$Jean( 4istoria de la 5scritura$ 2uenos Aires4 0aidos(8;;E
Auras, Barguerite( -he Cavishing of Lol 7tein( 9ew Jor'4 0antheon 2oo's( 1966(
Lacan, Ja3ues( 4omenage to &arguerite 'uras, on Le 6avissement de Lol #$ %tein$ #n
7riting and 8sychoanalysis( -rans( 2y 0eter Conor( %d( )y John Lechte( Kreat 2ritain4
Arnold, 1996(
Lacan, J( Lituraterre$ 0u)lished in the Journal Litterature, 19/1 and re&rinted in
9rnicar? 6evue du :hamp freudien( 0aris( 19E/
1<