Izaki Metropoulos
Jacques Lacan’s Concept of Desire and the Discourse of the Other
When approaching the Wife of Bath, I began with a simple Lacanian question: “Is desire located in the body or in human relationships?” (Kirchner 83). Early psychoanalytic thought begins with the works of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), who sees the subject as primarily influenced by a series of biological drives (Eros, Thanatos, etc.) (Felluga, Critical 93). Perhaps it is true that, as pleasure-seeking creatures, humans generally seek dopamine-boosting experiences—indicating a causal relationship between biology and behavior. However, many of Freud’s successors, such as Jacques Lacan (1901-1981), assert that there is much more to human behavior than material causes. According to Lacan, human desire is inevitably tangled in and influenced by the Symbolic Order,[1] a technical term referring to the intricate web of social customs and rules (Felluga, Critical 307). To complement Freud’s “organic model,” Lacan presents a “linguistic model,” which explores “the ideological structures that, especially through language, make the human subject… understand his or her relationship to himself and to others” (Felluga, “Modules…Psychosexual”). In other words, for Lacan, it is necessary to witness the interplay of somatic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal experiences when analyzing human behavior, particularly the origin of desire.
To preface, it is useful to examine a fundamental psychoanalytic presupposition about human nature: “no matter how full of conscious intent they may be, people do not always know exactly what it is that they are up to” (Ingham 463). Like Freud, Lacan emphasizes unconscious causes of behavior that elude subjective experience. One of such causes is an “underlying fantasy structure” that attaches expectations to objects of desire; however, Lewis A. Kirshner notes, “Because this promise is not attached to any clearly realizable or realistic goal, desire…cannot be fully satisfied,” and thus it reproduces itself (84-5). To illustrate this concept, it is practical to examine the common goal of attaining “wealth.” It is perhaps a truism to state that pursuing material wealth does not lead to lasting satisfaction. This lack of satisfaction is partly because “material wealth” is an ill-defined goal—it is both relative and even subjective– and the underlying promise of complete satisfaction lies in something other than the acquisition of goods: e.g., emotional comfort, social status, etc. However, the metaphysical promises underlying this fantasy are difficult to accurately identify. Ultimately, as Kirshner writes, “[b]ecause achievement of this aim [total satisfaction] is impossible, we substitute fantasies of sexual, romantic, narcissistic, or material accomplishment that stitch desire to the fabric of social reality” (87). Likewise, when Lacan maintains that “the unconscious is the discourse of the Other,” he means that the ubiquitous influence of culture defines human desire (Felluga, “Modules…Desire”), and, by extension, the articulation of fantasies often conform to societal conventions and expectations.[2]
Acknowledging the complex and often contradictory nature of human desire yields to non-conventional analytical approaches to literature; after all, psychoanalytic criticism follows the principal that—due to unconscious factors— not every utterance should be taken at face value (Ingham 463). For example, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, what establishes the Wife of Bath as a complex character are the multiple inconsistencies in her narrative, moral prescriptions, and desires. Demonstrated by her experience with marriage, is it plausible that Alison truly desires dominance over her spouses? Or perhaps, as Susan Crane asserts, her indefinite pursuit of marital satisfaction points to a quality of being “inarticulate, even about the meaning of sovereignty she imagines” (24-5). Regardless, the Wife’s endless quest invites an exploration of the interplay between deferred desire, fantasy, and contemporary social rules. The illusory and inexhaustible nature of the Wife’s desires are fueled by a fantasy of achieving sovereynetee, which both serves as a promise of complete fulfillment yet paradoxically perpetuates the lack of it. More specifically, the Wife continually attempts to invert the gendered role of power in her marriages, yet never finds satisfaction in doing so.[3]
Historicists and Taboo
Before sitting the Wife of Bath on the analyst’s couch, it is important to address the skepticism towards psychoanalytic theory—especially in the realm of literary studies. As Slavoj Žižek puts it, “One of the seasonal rituals of our intellectual life is that every couple of years, psychoanalysis is pronounced démodé, surpassed, finally dead and buried” (7). A common refutation, as previously demonstrated by historicist critics such as Stephen Greenblatt, Frederick Crews, and Lee Patterson (Marshall 1207), claims that psychoanalysis’ lack of biological falsifiability disqualifies the theory as a hermeneutic. Patterson argues that as the Freudian system suffers “a collapse of credibility in the real world,” its theoretical principles—by extension— lose any claim to universality and use in medieval literary studies (67). However, his critique judges psychoanalysis only on its ability to make scientific causal claims, which is, simply, not what the theory has evolved into. Admittedly, Freud’s system is a mixture of “qualitative hermeneutics with quantitative theories” (Axmacher 1); but, as Cynthia Marshall writes, “the theory… is something organic and renewable—an evolving body of ideas that provides techniques for reading” (1207). For example, Lacan deviates from Freud to focus on linguistically-based social constructions, Julia Kristeva necessarily reinterprets psychoanalytic thought through a feminist lens, and Slavoj Zizek uses Lacanian and Hegelian philosophy to analyze politics and culture (Felluga, “General”).
However, as Patterson emphatically declares in his lengthy polemic, “the news of the demise of psychoanalysis as a reliable mode of inquiry seems to not have reached the small circle of academic literary and cultural criticism,” and he further claims that the hydra of “orthodox Freudianism” is still “a largely unquestioned source of authority” (70). Yet, Patterson disregards modern developments in the field on the grounds that many, such as Lacan, use Freud as a foundation of psychological discourse: if the Freudian foundation is flawed, Freud’s successors, by extension, are also (72). “As for Žižek,” Patterson argues, “his neo-Lacanian psychoanalysis of culture has a political and sociological interest that is lacking in Lacan himself” (72). On the contrary— this argument demonstrates the present state of psychoanalysis not as a dogmatic system of beliefs but a living system of metaphysical observations that have supplemented studies of popular culture, as well as relevant critical theories such as feminism and Marxism. Regardless, the domain of literary criticism is often polarizing. John A. Sebastian recounts, “Both historicists and psychoanalytic critics have upon occasion undertaken to situate themselves not only in one of the two theoretical camps but also specifically in opposition to each other” (771). Although Patterson warns of the use of psychoanalysis as an interpretive method, viewing it as an anachronistic approach, this is merely a partisan stance; rather, an eclectic approach to criticism can incorporate various elements of psychoanalytic thought. This method of criticism, which Sebastian describes as “a democratizing of approaches,” is becoming increasingly mainstream in literary studies (774). Therefore, this essay will combine elements of Lacanian thought with historical accounts of contemporary sexuality in order to provide an adequately contextualized yet alternative perspective.
“Sovereynetee” as the Object of Desire
In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” Alison provides a clear articulation of what she considers the essential female desire to be: “Wommen desyren to have sovereynetee” (1038). However, how is “sovereynetee” defined in the context of the tale? As Susanne Sara Thomas notes, “it is given a limited definition by being paired with the word ‘maistrie’” (89). The Oxford English Dictionary lists sovereynetee as, “supremacy in respect of power, domination, or rank; supreme dominion, authority, or rule.”[4] Furthermore, maistrie borrows from the Old French word maistrier: “to rule” or “overcome” (OED). Thomas acknowledges these definitions, but she also relies on a few contextual definitions in order to properly define sovereynetee. Because the Wife views “gentility, poverty, and beauty” as subjective qualities and therefore self-definable, Thomas extrapolates that sovereynetee is “the ability to define, and thus control, one’s own desires” (89). This distinction is further exemplified in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” To Thomas, it is implausible for the knight to suddenly relinquish his marital right to sexual ownership at the end of the tale (87). She argues, then, that the knight’s desire is never his own, and he is only fully satisfied when allowing the wyf to define his desires for him. Therefore, the knight does not properly display sovereynetee, whereas the wyf does. Only through the transference of marital power from the husband to the wife do, “they lyve unto hir lyves ende / In parfit joye,” or lasting happiness (1257-8).
To further expand on the ideas of Susanne Sara Thomas, it is certainly arguable that the Wife’s Tale establishes that attaining sovereynetee does not only constitute the “ability to…control one’s own desires” but equally the ability to control the desires of another. The Wife’s tale does not mirror a reciprocal relationship but one in which the woman is in the position of dominance. John A. Pitcher proposes that “understood as a type of wish fulfillment, the mechanical conversion of… the Knight from violence to obedience may simply reflect Alison’s fantasy of mastery over aggressive men” (41). Demonstrated by the Wife’s experience, it is evident that her fable reflects her desire for dominance and autonomy. For example, in the Wife of Bath’s prologue, she is rather explicit about her ability to choose partners based on sexual virility and wealth: “Yblessed be God that I have wedded five / Of which I have pyked out the beste, / Bothe of here nether purs and of here cheste,” (44-44b).[5] She later declares, “Why hydestow, with sorwe, / The keyes of thy cheste away fro me? / It is my good as wel as thyn, pardee,” which indicates an entitlement to her husband’s wealth (308-10). This, of course, is a one-sided relationship. She warns, “thou shalt nat bothe…be maister of my body and of my good” (313-14). Here, it is important to address the specific combinations of the words “purs” and “cheste,” and likewise, “body” and “good.” By combining sexual language with monetary language, the Wife evokes the prevalent link between material acquisition and sexual ownership. A parallel can be drawn to the Wife’s tale: shortly before achieving sovereynetee, the wyf suggests: “syn I knowe youre delit, / I shal fulfille youre worldly appetit” (1217-18), implying a connection between sovereynetee and sexual ownership. However, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is not a purely sexual fantasy of dominance; rather, Alison’s fantasy is also political, as it is expressed through a negotiation of contemporary marital hierarchical structures.[6] In Chaucer’s age, the issues of marital power, sexual ownership, and material acquisition were often intertwined.
The Wife of Bath in Context: Sexual Politics in Chaucer’s Age
The theme of sex is prevalent in “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” Through her self-descriptions, Alison not only uses sexual language but often equates her sexuality with male virility. For example, she yearns to be “refresshed[7] half so ofte as” King Solomon (35-38), a biblical figure who had seven-hundred wives and three-hundred concubines. Moreover, when referring to her husband’s duty to pay his sexual “dette” in marriage (l. 130), she proclaims, “Now wherwith sholde he make his paiement, / If he ne used his sely instrument” (131-32). Here, she represents the phallus in material terms, as an instrument or tool to be used. Soon after, Alison uses the equivalent term to describe her sexuality: “in wyfhod I will use my instrument / As frely as my Makere hath it sent” (149-50). Furthermore, the Wife’s “use” of her “instrument” is also peculiar because it implies motion, will, and force, traits that are antithetical to contemporary views of female sexuality. Alcuin Blamires observes that “a keystone of medieval thinking” was based on the premise that “male sexuality is essentially ‘active’ and female sexuality is essentially ‘passive’” (211). In other words, what distinguishes masculine and feminine sexuality is the language of motion; therefore, by desiring to be the “user” or “initiator” of sexual contact, the Wife of Bath seeks to invert contemporary sexual norms.
Shortly after, she employs the language of marital debt to describe her ideal sexual relations with her husband: “Myn housbonde shal it have bothe eve and morwe, / Whan that hym list come forth and paye his dette” (152-53). The Wife’s use of the word “dette” should not be overlooked, as in Chaucer’s age, it is nearly impossible to separate sexual agency from uxorial debts. Blamires writes, “Ownership of sexuality—especially female sexuality—was a matter for intense regulation in the Middle Ages” (216). Chaucer was especially preoccupied with the topic of sexual ownership and was well aware of how “it generally reduces wives to the resignation of their bodies in the marital bed” (Blamires 217), so it comes to no surprise that this political and religious matter is echoed in The Canterbury Tales.
Matters of sexual ownership were largely influenced by a few primary sources. First, Blamires recalls Paul’s 1 Corinthians 7:4-5, in which the apostle states, “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise, also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife” (216). The doctrinal obligation of reciprocal marriage sexuality is mirrored in the Wife of Bath’s prologue: “A housebonde I wol have… Which shal be bothe my dettour and my thral” (154-55). However, what adds to the controversy surrounding Alison is exactly how she employs the language of debt to establish herself as a powerful figure. When describing her first three husbands, she immediately contradicts her established ideal of a reciprocal sexual relationship and instead assumes a position of dominance. Alison recalls, “The thre were goode men, and riche, and olde; / Unnethe myghte they the statut holde / In which that they were bounden unto me” (197-99)— pointing to their inability to satisfy marital obligations.[8] Moreover, what points to the inversion of marital power is the fact that, in the Late Middle Ages, two other widespread sources ultimately place the husband in the position of “dettour” and the wife in the position of “thral,” which is precisely why Alison, placed in her historical context, is controversial.
The two other sources that dictate marital relations are Lorens of Orléans’ widely-read source on morality, The Book of Vices and Virtues and the underlying cultural views of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ sexual roles (Blamires 216). In religious life, there were two exceptions in which marital sex was not considered immoral: first, when it is performed with the intent to procreate, and second, “when one yields to the other his debt when it is asked” (Blamires 216). These two sources of gendered expectations become problematic because they reinforce aspects of male authority in relationships. As the husband is culturally expected to be the sexual initiator, the wife, in the passive role, is expected to fulfill her marital debt. However, nearly every time the Wife mentions matters of debt, she articulates a fantasy that authorizes her as the debtor. In the Wife’s Tale, the wyf seduces the knight by remarking, “syn I knowe youre delit, / I shal fulfille youre worldly appetit” (1217-18)— this establishes that the wyf both knows and dictates what the knight truly desires (Thomas 90). When the knight gives up his illusions of “sovereynetee,” the wyf assumes the role of debtor and becomes the “active” sexual partner.
Yet, if the knight’s desires are never his own, does this have implications for the Wife’s view of desire itself? Another equally perplexing question addresses the fact that the knight is the only character that experiences complete satisfaction: “his herte bathed in a bath of blisse” (1253). If the Wife’s Tale—as Pitcher suggests—reflects Alison’s wish of complete satisfaction, does she truly desire to be in the position of the knight or the wyf?
Complications of Desire and the Demands of the Other
Despite the clear and persuasive articulation of what Alison desires, her marital history provides evidence to suggest that the Wife’s object of desire, sovereynetee, is only appealing if it remains out of grasp. Speaking generally about the desire of women, she proclaims,
We wommen han, if that I shal nat lye,
In this matere a queynte fantasye:
Wayte what thyng we may nat lightly have,
Therafter wol we crie al day and crave.
Forbede us thyng, and that desiren we. (515-19)
Regardless of establishing her fantasy of dominance as the object of desire, she paradoxically denies herself the satisfaction of attaining that object. The lack of satisfaction drives the pursuit of the object and renders the quest indefinite. Here, one may employ Slavoj Žižek’s conceptualization of desire: “desire’s raison d’etre… is not to realize its goal, to find full satisfaction, but to reproduce itself as desire” (150).
Furthermore, after assuming the position of dominance in her relationships, Alison abandons it. She excuses her husband’s infidelity only after he relinquishes his “right” to sexual ownership:
Namely abedde hadden they meschaunce:
Ther wolde I chide and do hem no plesaunce;
I wolde no lenger in the bed abyde…
Til he had maad his raunson unto me;
Thanne wolde I suffre hym do his nycetee. (407-12)
Also, as Pitcher writes, “the desire for mastery seems to last only so long as it remains unsatisfied, for Alison abandons the position of mastery the instant Jankyn yields it to her” (41). “Is mastery then,” Pitcher asks, “simply a means to an end, an instrument for realizing a more basic feminine desire for reciprocity or mutual submission?” (41). It is difficult to answer this question, as Alison evokes images of marital reciprocity, then overshadows these with endorsements of uxorial dominance– all while paradoxically demonstrating a history of submissiveness after attaining her goal of sovereignty. These contradictions point to an inability to properly identify and articulate what Alison desires, and therefore, they engender an endless pursuit of a hidden and unidentifiable object.
Likewise, why does the Wife continue to seek satisfaction in unsatisfactory marriage agreements? When speaking of Jankyn, the Wife proclaims, “I trowe I loved hym best, for that he / Was of his love daungerous to me” (ll. 513-14). It is often evident that human fantasies motivate subjects beyond what is pleasurable. Ingham writes, “subjects tend to seek out not only (or even mainly) satisfaction and fulfillment, but the dissatisfactions of limitation, frustration, painful repetition” (471). When pursuing a goal, for instance, desire does not simply motivate a subject beyond the pleasure principle. Rather, to understand the mechanisms of desire, one must also understand the perverse elements of satisfaction in the denial of pleasure. What motivates human behavior transcends the notion of what is nominally pleasurable or self-evidently “good” for an individual. Therefore, the Lacanian hermeneutic is useful in understanding irrationality, as exploring one’s habits of dissatisfaction and self-abasement lend to questions about the authentic motivations underlying fantasy structures. Often, and ultimately, when the object of desire is attained, the subject realizes both the irrationality of the pursuit and another key revelation: they never truly desired it in the first place.
For Lacan, desire is inevitably intertwined with the demands of the Other and is frequently driven by ideological forces that artificially create fantasy (Felluga, Critical 72). In the Wife’s tale, the knight’s bliss is only possible through submission, specifically to the wyf’s promises of satisfaction. Complete and total satisfaction, jouissance, is only achieved by acknowledging that his desires are the result of artificial implantation. If sovereynetee, as Thomas describes, truly is “the ability to define, and thus control, one’s own desires” (89), the knight and the Wife lack the means to properly articulate and control their desires. Perhaps then, to echo the Lacanian maxim, the Wife implicitly admits that, “our desire is never properly our own” (Felluga, “Modules…Desire”). But also, “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” reflects the view that sexuality is simply impossible to separate from the demands of the Other—this is precisely why her search for dominance relies on achievement through existing marital structures. On Lacan, Dino Felluga writes: “Desire…has little to do with material sexuality for Lacan; it is caught up in social structures and strictures, in the fantasy version of reality that forever dominated our lives after our entrance into language” (Critical 72). Applying this framework, it is certainly understandable that Alison repeatedly negotiates her sexual agency through appropriations of biblical allegory.
To conclude, the Wife of Bath, as anomalous as she is, elucidates a common trait of the human psyche: its unpredictability. Alison as a character exists in a social network of demands, and her puzzling quest for sovereignty reflects the subject’s endless struggle for satisfaction against the demands of the Other. Ultimately, one of the goals of psychoanalytic criticism is to explore the common contradictions in narrative structures and accept cognitive and behavioral incongruency as an axiom of human character. As Lee Patterson notes, “literature…is, or has been, a primary means by which literate persons negotiate their experience. One of the reasons we read literature is because it shows us different ways of being human in the world” (94). As the reader, one engages in a dialogue with characters, and thus, these characters serve as a vital window into subjective experience.
Works Cited
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Blamires, Alcuin. “Sexuality.” Ed. Ellis, pp. 208–223.
Crane, Susan. “Alison’s Incapacity and Poetic Instability in the Wife of Bath’s Tale.” PMLA, vol. 102, no. 1, 1987, pp. 20–28. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/462489.
Ellis, Steve, ed. Chaucer: And Oxford Guide. Oxford UP, 2005.
Felluga, Dino Franco. Critical Theory: The Key Concepts, Routledge, 2015.
—. “General Introduction to Psychoanalysis.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue U, 31 Jan. 2011, https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/Theory/psychoanalysis/psychintroframes.html.
—. “Modules on Lacan: On Desire.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue U, 31 Jan. 2011, https://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/psychoanalysis/lacandesire.html.
—. “Modules on Lacan: On Psychosexual Development.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Purdue U, 31 Jan. 2011, https://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/psychoanalysis/lacandevelop.html.
Ingham, Patricia Clare. “Psychoanalytic Criticism.” Ed. Ellis, pp. 463-478.
Kirshner, Lewis A. “Rethinking Desire: The objet petit a in Lacanian Theory.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, vol. 53, no. 1, 2005, pp. 83-102. SAGE Journals, https://doi.org/10.1177/00030651050530010901
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[1] The symbolic order is defined as, “the social world of linguistic communication, intersubjective relations, knowledge of ideological conventions, and the acceptance of the law” (Felluga, Critical 307). Lacan’s concept of the “Symbolic Order” is often compared to Freud’s idea of the “Super Ego.”
[2] The “Other” (“the big Other”) is often interchangeable with the “Symbolic Order” (see page one). Italics mine.
[3] John A. Pitcher argues that, “Alison’s desire…is to be the other” (42). This is not exactly a claim that Alison desires to be male; however, she—at least claims— to desire male power and privilege by achieving mastery in her relationships.
[4] The Oxford English Dictionary, “sovereignty” 2. The OED also notes that in 1374, Chaucer similarly used the word “sovereynetee” in Troilus & Criseyde: “Ye shul no more have sovereynte / Of my love, than right in this cas is.” In its use in Troilus, “sovereynte” denotes mastery or authority, not simply independence, which may point to the Wife of Bath’s underlying fantasy of domination.
[5] Italics mine.
[6] Italics mine.
[7] The OED defines “refresshed” (1. b.) as, “To make oneself fresher; to restore one’s strength or energy, esp. by resting, walking, having food or drink, etc.” A common interpretation of this line is that the Wife desires to be refreshed sexually (Kolve and Olson 103).
[8] Italics mine. According to the OED, Chaucer uses “statut” as, “An authoritative rule or direction” (1. c.), “That which is considered to be ordained or decreed by God, a god, or fate” (1. d.), and “An enactment, containing one or more legislative provisions, made by the legislature of a country or state and expressed in a formal document” (2. a.). In this case, the Wife of Bath not only evokes the image of debt, but is speaking from an authoritative standpoint, possibly also implying divine justification.