The reader's quest : reading and the constitution of meaning in five novels

In this thesis, I attempt to show how the concept of reading as literary interpretation has been influenced by the insights of the psychoanalyst and theorist Jacques Lacan (1901-1981). Broadly speaking, I call for a revised view of the role of the reader and the act of reading in the light of arguments such as the following: firstly, that the linguistic subject is "split" rather than "autonomous"; secondly, that since language is a representational rather than transparent medium, "truth" can only ever be regarded as partial and irreducibly open to revision; and thirdly, that reading as an interpretive activity arises from the unconscious Desire to resolve the sense of incompleteness which language acquisition produces in the linguistic subject. Following the lead of various interpreters of Lacan's theory and psychoanalytic procedure, I offer an introductory outline of his thought and its relevance to literary theory and criticism. Then in the four chapters which follow, I attempt to demonstrate this relevance through readings of a selection of novels. In the first chapter, I come to the conclusion that reading should be viewed less as a quest after "the truth" of the text, than a quest to discover what "the truth" must disregard in order to be "the truth." In the second chapter, I conclude that narration is an effect of reading, that the relationship of the narrator and the reader is therefore supplementary, and that the notion of literary "truth" is established by consensus. In the third chapter, I conclude that the attempt to satisfy Desire by an attainment of a "full disclosure" of "truth" or "meaning" must result in a loss of meaning per se. Finally, in the fourth chapter, I attempt to synthesize the conclusions of the earlier chapters in the argument that the reader is potentially both the unveiler of the authorial unconscious and the unwitting performer of the conflict of meaning dramatized in the discourse of narrative.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of English Language and Literature

Year dc:date.issued

1984

Author dc:creator

• Saville, Julia

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Coetzee, John M

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22511

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/22511