"Wow.. I can be sexual too..."

First off, thank you Ms. Shelden for your interesting post regarding Lacan's ideas. Your examples helped clarify the difficult concepts Lacan discusses in his "mirror stage."

After reading this post, I feel as though I now have a better understanding of certain ideas like jouissance and how often through our enjoyment we can lose our identity by getting caught up in this pleasure.

Personally. I feel that is what happens with Miles Green in Mantissa. In the first section of Mantissa, Green shares with the readers how he feels as he enters the mirror stage - the idea that he no longer knows who he is, or what certain objects are. For the first time, he can identify himself through the concept of other.

While Lacan believes that sexual satisfaction and identity are contradictory, I personally feel that Fowles thinks otherwise. For example, through his illicit affair with Dr. Delfie and Nurse Cory, Miles Green was able to understand and come to terms with more and more of his identity. The idea of the "death drive" according to Lacan is found mainly within the concept of orgasms because technically you lose the sense of yourself within this release. While you're not supposed to think about who you are or where you are, but rather experience "jouissance" - a blind sense of enjoyment. When Green releases he does not lose his concept of self, but rather he gains more about his identity because his release creates something. A book. A book which helps spawn Green's true sense of identity.

I'm hoping I'm on the right path with this post, but the thing about theory, is that one idea can be completely different than an idea that someone else has. It just proves the idea that there is not one specific meaning for something. In fact, there is often more than one meaning.