Borders of Language

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Borders of Language: Kristeva's Critique of LacanAuthor(s): Shuli BarzilaiReviewed work(s):Source: PMLA, Vol. 106, No. 2 (Mar., 1991), pp. 294-305Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/462664 .

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ShuliBarzilai

B o r d e r s o f Language:

Kristeva's Critique o f L a c a n

SHULI BARZILAI is seniorlecturer in English at the He-

brew University of Jerusalem.

She has published essays on

literary heory,psychoanalytic

criticism, and contemporary

women'sfiction in Diacritics,

the Journal f Narrative ech-

nique,New LiteraryHistory,

Psychoanalysis nd Contem-

poraryThought,Signs,South-

ern HumanitiesReview, tyle,

YaleFrench tudies, nd other

journals. This essay is part of

a work inprogresson Lacan as

a literaryand cultural critic.

N "WITHIN THE MICROCOSM of 'The TalkingCure,"' anessay collected in the volume InterpretingLacan, Julia Kristeva

presents "herown reading of Jacques Lacan's texts and practice."In

spite of-or perhaps in keeping with-her opening promise to exam-

ine "Lacan's contributions" (33), Kristevaproceeds to mount a radi-

cal critiqueof the Lacanianproject(the linguistic interpretationof the

unconscious) and to displaythe contingencies that limit his voyageof

discovery (the return to Freud).Lacan's(in)versionof the Saussuriansign is summarilystatedin his

well-known "algorithm" S/s: "the signifier over the signified, 'over'

corresponding to the bar separatingthe two stages" ("Agency" 149).

Throughout her theoretical writings, Kristeva calls into question therelevanceof this formula to certainsignifying practices,even when she

is not overtlyconcerned with Lacanian psychoanalysis. In particular,she argues that the algorithm inadequately accounts for nondiscur-

sive pathological and creativephenomena, for an experientialdimen-

sion (whetherlived or, say, literary) hat eludes the language function.

As she suggests in "Within the Microcosm," the task of the analyst-and of the critic-reader-is to be attentive to "noises," to try to hear

notonlythrough hedifferentfiguresrspacesmadebythosesignswhichresemblelinguistic signs, but also through other elements . . . which, al-

thoughalways lready aught n thewebof meaning ndsignification, renot caught n the samewayas the two-sidedunitsof the Saussureanignandeven ess so in the mannerof linguistico-logical ategories. (37)

In this text and others, Kristevaproposesthe concept of the "semiotic"

in order to designate those other elements and to facilitate study of

them. She would shift psychoanalysis away from its fascination with

language and toward operations that are "pre-meaningandpre-sign

(or trans-meaning, trans-sign)" ("System" 29), that cut "through lan-

guage, in the direction of the unspeakable" (Tales29).

294



Shuli Barzilai

Within this larger,ongoing project,the essayon

the "talking cure"presents a concentrated effort

to redresswhat Kristevaviews as Lacan's overem-phasis, in his teaching and practice, on the sym-bolic order. She focuses on a specific clinical

instance:the analyticencounterwith "borderline"

patients. Todemonstrate the limitations of a the-

ory by means of a limited example might itself

seem a questionable critical procedure. In what

follows I tryto show that Kristeva's ritiqueof the

Lacanianformula,in relation o the borderlinepa-tient's discourse, has wide-ranging implicationsfor other forms of communication as well. Fur-

thermore, because Lacan offers his algorithm asthe elementarystructureof all language and of all

unconscious processes, Kristeva'sessay,in effect,

challenges the ability of his theory to sustain the

Freudian insight.

Borderline, in the clinical sense of the term,

usually designates a "special category of cases

. . on the fringes of madness" (Clement 55)

and, similarly,"patientswhose problemsaresitu-ated on the frontierbetweenneurosisand psycho-sis" (Moi 239). Kristeva'scharacterization of the

borderline reflects her twofold theoretical orien-

tation as a linguist and a psychoanalyst.

First, a distinctive symptom of the borderline

condition is the appearanceof "bits of discursive

chaos" ("Within the Microcosm" 45); the lan-

guage function disintegrates:"the patient's 'bor-

derline'discoursegives the analyst the impressionof something alogical, unstitched, and chaotic-

despite its occasionally obsessive appearances-which is almost impossible to memorize" (42).These "bits"appear at the limits of the symbolic

order, "outside the transcendental enclosure

within which weareotherwise constrainedbyphe-

nomenology and its relative, linguistics" (40-41).

Eludingthe insideof the language system,border-

line discourse refuses ordered and regulatingarticulations. It does not cause the patient to

transgress he law of languageand logic or to fore-

close the symbolic concept that Lacan designatesthe "name-of-the-father"

(nom-du-pere);rather,

symptomatically, it allows such transgressionand

foreclosure to go into effect. Topographically, he

borderline is where the sovereignty of the sign is

threatenedand wheresomething wild, something

irreducibleto language, emerges. Nevertheless, itshould be noted that this is a border,not a beyond,of language.The dissolutionof the signis, Kristeva

stresses, only "relative,"and a "semblanceof so-

cialization" is sometimes maintained (42-43).

Second, borderline discourse is an effect or

outbreak of what Kristeva calls "abjection."Describedbriefly andoversimply,abjectionentails

an absence (the normative condition of the pre-

mirror-stage infans) or a collapse (the condition

of the borderline patient) of the boundaries that

structure the subject. In the opening pages ofPowers of Horror, Kristeva repeatedly posits a

connection betweenabjectionand the border.She

defines abjection as "what disturbs identity, sys-

tem, order.What does not respect borders, posi-

tions, rules" (4) and explains that "abjection is

above all ambiguity"(9). This ambiguity developsunderthe impact of "ruptures"or in the collapseof self-limits. The abjectis neithersubjectnor ob-

ject, neither inside nor outside, neither here nor

there.In otherwords,the borderlinepatientis one

who "strays nstead of getting his bearings, desir-ing, belonging, or refusing."Insteadof "Who am

I?"thispatientasks,"Wheream I?"(8). The "bor-

derlander" s alwaysan exile; "'I' is expelled," or

ceases to be, for,"How can Ibe without border?"

This absence of identity-a psychic wanderingor

loss of place-is congruent with a discourse

producedon the bordersof language:"what s ab-

ject . .. drawsme towardthe place wheremean-

ing collapses" (2).ForKristeva, hen, the borderlinehas a complex

resonance. It designates a condition that eludesboth the mirrorstageessential for subject forma-

tion and the castrationanxietythat (by placingthe

maternal object under prohibition) generates

desire, leaving a "strayedsubject . . . huddled

outside the paths of desire." The borderline

also denotes a corollary effect: "a language that

gives up" (11).

II

Now if, asalready noted,

Kristeva'scritique ap-plies only to an exception, only to an interesting

but restricted deviation, it would not seriously

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Bordersof Language:Kristeva'sCritique of Lacan

endangerthe Lacanian rule.However,as the word

"microcosm" n the title of heressay immediately

suggests, this "special" case is an epitome of thespeaking subjectat large; nstead of regarding he

borderline as a pathological entity, Kristeva sees

in it a pervasive aspect of the human condition.

Bordereffects areto be found in the discourse of

everyday ife:"Theproblemof the heterogeneousin meaning, of the unsymbolizable, the unsignifi-

able, which we confront in the analysand's dis-

course . .. characterizesheverycondition of the

speakingbeing, who is not only split but split into

an irreconcilable heterogeneity" ("Within the

Microcosm" 35-36).Nor is that all. The term "heterogeneity"

describes more than an effect of the split or divi-

sion between the conscious and the unconscious

within the speaking subject. The borders of the

symbolic system are whereart, or certaintypes of

art, emergesas well. In "Within the Microcosm,"these relationsarebrieflyindicated:"Theanalyst'sattentiveness to language makes him open to

works of art, since it is so-called aestheticproduc-tion that knows how to deal with [saitfaire avec]

the (de)negationinherent n language,without ac-tually knowing it" (39). This statement alludes to

a convergencethat Kristevaelaborates elsewhere.

She defines poetic language, like borderline dis-

course, as "a practice for which any particular

language is the margin" ("Ethics" 25) and, con-

sequently, as eluding a strictly linguistic inter-

pretation: "the very concept of sign, which

presupposes a vertical (hierarchical)division be-

tweensignifierand signified, cannot be appliedto

poetic language-by definition an infinity of pair-

ingsandcombinations"("Word" 9).At times, shemakesthe connection evenmoreexplicit-"poetic

language . . . by its very economy borders on

psychosis" ("From One Identity" 125)-and, at

other times, more general:"all literature s prob-

ably a version of the apocalypse that seems to me

rooted . . . on the fragile border (borderline

cases) where identities . . . do not exist or only

barelyso-double, fuzzy, heterogeneous, animal,

metamorphosed, altered, abject" (Powers 207).To insist on the primacy of language is, there-

fore,to fail to account for

preverbaland nonver-

bal elementsthatescapethesafetynet of language,that cannot be subsumed under the Saussurian

sign. It is to fail to account for areas of aesthetic

and, in particular, iterary reation situatedbeyond

signification and meaning (beyondthe symbolic).As Kristevaobserves n an earlierrevisionistessay,

"[A] text cannot be grasped through linguisticsalone" ("Word"69). The rhythmsand musicalityof a literary work, like the colors of a painting,

mayinscribe"instinctual residues' hat the under-

standing subject has not symbolized" ("Giotto's

Joy" 221). In brief, Kristevaargues that Lacan's

linguistic conceptualization of unconscious pro-cesses ("Theunconscious is structured ike a lan-

guage") restricts access to essential and hidden

elements of experience.This argument may seem vulnerable at two

points. First, Lacan's concept of lalangue, in-

troduced rather late in his work (in the seminars

of 1972-73), seems to clear a space within the

symbolic order for heterogeneity. Lalangue is,Kristeva oncedes, a "fundamentalrefinement"of

his earlierinterpretationof the relations between

the unconscious and language. "As something

completely different from communication or dia-

logue,"from the symbolic-which is forLacanthe

locus of social exchange-lalangue is calledon "torepresentthe real from which linguistics takes its

object" ("Within the Microcosm" 34). Kristeva

cites Lacan: "Language is what we try to know

about the functioning of lalangue" (Encore 126;

qtd. on 34). However,eventhough lalangueseems

to be "animated by affects that involve the pres-ence of nonknowledge" and therefore seems

"irreducible-to-signifiance," it remains a fun-

damentally "thetic"concept: "it exists and can be

conceived only throughtheposition, the thesis, of

language."On what groundsother than her vestedinterestdoes Kristevamake this claim? "No mat-

ter how impossible the real might be, once it is

made homogeneous with lalangue, it finally be-

comes part of a topology with the imaginary and

the symbolic, a part of that trinary hold from

which nothing escapes" (35-36). By assimilating

lalangueto the realm of the real,Lacan makes the

concept fully coherent with the interrelatedorders

(symbolic-imaginary-real)central to his thought.

Lalangue, too, becomes a part of that triadic

structure.

Kristeva's rgumentcould be undercut butalso

reinforced) rom a second point of view.Her com-

296



Shuli Barzilai

plaint is not the first, nor is it likely to be the last,directed at Lacan. As she readily acknowledges:

"Critiques of Lacanian theory have included anumber of attempts to give status to affect and to

the heterogeneity it introduces into the discursive

order"(34). What, then, does Kristeva'scritiqueadd to our understanding of this theory and its

limitations? I would suggest that the force andin-

novation of her reading derive from its specificdirection or recourse: the path it takes back to the

writings of Freud.

III

A dense footnote, half a page long, gives the first

indication of the direction Kristeva'sreadingwill

take.It presentsnew and significant(not marginal)material in support of her critical interpretation.The note'sposition is therefore somewhat at odds

with its content. What appears as a detour from

the main path unpredictablyturns into a crucial

step in a series of steps:

We houldkeep nmind heincredibleomplexity f

Freud's otionof a"sign,"which s exorbitant om-paredwiththeclosure mposedon thesignbySaus-sure's toicism.TheFreudian sign"soutlinednOn

Aphasia:visual, actile,and acoustic mages inkedtoobjectassociations hich efer, rincipallyhroughanauditory onnection,o the wordtself,composedof anacousticandkinestheticmage,of reading nd

writing.Thefact hat heacousticmage sprivilegedinthiscasedoesnot diminishheheterogeneityf this

"psychologicalblueprintof word-presentations,"which odaywe stillhavedifficulty ssimilating,venwiththerigorof linguistics ndanalytical ttentive-

ness. Andyet, the natureof this"imagery"will re-main ncomprehensiblenlessweperceivetasalwaysalreadyndebtedinamoreorless"primary"r"sec-

ondary"way,as he would ater ay) o thatrepresent-ability specific to language,and therefore o the

linguistic ign (signifier/signified).While this signservesas theinternal imituponwhichFreud truc-tureshisnotionsofpresentation ndcleavage whatLacanmakes xplicitnhis"linghysteria"),tisbynomeans hemostfar-reachingf Freud's iscoveries.Freud's onceptionof theunconsciousderives romanotionof language sbothheterogeneousndspa-

tial, outlined irstin OnAphasiawhen he sketchesoutas a"topology" oththephysiologicalnderpin-ningsof speech "the erritory f language," acon-

tinuouscorticalarea,""centers"eenasthresholds,

etc.)as well as languageacquisitionandcommuni-

cation (the after-word,he relation o the Other).(37n8)

This note constitutes an essay within the essay,or a kind of subplot in Kristeva'stext. In sec-

tions 3-5 of my discussion, I closely study this

reference to "Freud's notion of a 'sign"' and ex-

amine its immediate intertextualrelations, and in

section 61 assessthe wider mplicationsof thenote

for her challenge to Lacan'stheory and practice.

By "intertextualrelations,"I mean both the inner

play of elements that organizes Kristeva'sargu-ment, "the web of relationshipswhichproducethe

structureof the text(orthe subject),"andthe outer

play, "the web of relationships linking the text

(subject)with other discourses"(Zepp 92-93; see

also Kristeva,Revolution 59-60).The terms "complexity" and "closure" in

Kristeva's pening exhortation function in a man-

ner analogous to "heterogeneity"and "homoge-

neity."These sets of termsalso suggestyetanother

distinction centralto her work. Le semiotique, in

Kristeva's ense, differs from la semiotique, whichis semiotics as a general, traditional science of

signs. Her semiotic is a drive-affected dimension

of humanexperience hat disrupts(evenas it inter-

fuses with) the symbolic: "a disposition that is

definitely heterogeneousto meaningbut always n

sight of it" ("FromOne Identity" 133).This con-

ception of le se'miotiquemay be postulated as a

mediation between the real, which is the beyondor other of language, and the symbolic, between

what is ineffable and what is articulatedthrough

language.Accordingto Kristeva's ormulations, itis aprocessratherthan a system:"meaningnot as

a sign-system but as a signifying process" ("Sys-tem" 28); it involves dynamic, prelinguistic oper-ations rather than thetic or static modes of

articulation, which are the domain of what she

calls" 'classical'semiotics" (32). Le semiotique is

also characterizedby statesof archaicmentation,

closely linked to infantile symbiosis. Thus, for

Kristeva he semioticencompassestwo distinctbut

relatedareas of interest: (1)the "semanalysis"or

semiologyof

signifying practices-that is,of lin-

guistic phenomena-and of "pre- and trans-

logical breakouts"("Ethics"27); (2) in contrastto

297




thetic consciousness, a condition of instinctual

motility that correspondsto the position of the in-

fans before the mirrorstage permits the elabora-tion of an ego and, no lesscrucially,beforethe fear

of castration produces a superego submissive to

the interdiction imposed by the father.

Strategically, then, Kristeva enlists the "com-

plexity" of Freud'smodel of the sign in order to

counter the "closure"and hegemony of the Saus-

surian model privileged by Lacan. She appeals to

authority in order to repeal authority. The invo-

cation of Freud'ssign will enable her to arriveat

the limits (that is to say, the limitations as well as

the borders) of the symbolic system and thus toidentify operations irreducible o the S/s relation.

But why is this sign itself deported to a border?

Any attemptto examinethe implications of this

gesture requires tracing the footnote's progress.For it is a question not only of displacement but

also of repetition.Whereexactlydoes the footnote

first appear? And where does it go from there?

Note 8 is introduced, in the first part of "Within

the Microcosm," at the end of a sentence that

posits "places ofjouissance (when it undermines

the signifier/signified distinction and predicativesynthesis) and of defense (when [jouissance] be-

comes blocked)" (37). By a kind of associative

transposition, the reader is then directed to "the

other scene"-literally, to a block of small type at

the bottom of the page. The materialpresented n

this block reappearsa few pages later, within the

principaltext;that is, in the second partof her es-

say,Kristevaraisesthe footnote out of the bottom

margin and integrates it into the main line of her

argument. (This movement might recall the "up-ward

mobility"of Hamlet after his

original ap-pearance in a note in the first edition of The

Interpretation of Dreams.) Kristeva's footwork

now becomes increasingly intricate. Her note on

the Freudiansign not only moves from the borders

to the body of the essayon Lacan. It also turnsupa thirdtime, in "Something to Be ScaredOf," the

second chapter of Powers of Horror.

This repetition undoubtedly indicates the

theoretical mportanceof Freud'ssign for the crit-

ical evaluation of Lacan'scontributions. Perhapsit is also a trace of the essay's origins in two piecesthat were stitchedtogether for the first time in the

volume Interpreting Lacan ("Within the Micro-

cosm" 33). But, as Freud's founding gesture of

autoanalysisdemonstrates, t is difficult, if not im-

possible, to have a theory without the libidinalpositioning of the theorist. The odd marginalmo-

ment, the emergence of the footnote within her

texts, enacts what Kristevadescribes: the disrup-tiverelation of borderlinephenomena to the sym-bolic system. This moment could also be said to

resemble the interplay between the unconscious

and the conscious. I examinethe footnote, there-

fore, in the theoretical context of hercritiqueand

subsequently n relation to an anxietythat enables

and accompanies the critique'stextual reproduc-

tion. Sucha reading tself cannot avoidrepetition,if only because it brings, conceptually and typo-

graphically,a border(a footnote) to the centerof

discussion. My interpretation is constrained to

duplicate as well as to analyze Kristeva's ext. In

other words, I cannot step outside (again it is a

question of footwork) the circuit of readingsI am

trying to read.

IV

Freud's interest in a psychical, as well as phys-iological, explanation for articulatory distur-

bances is already evident in his monographOn Aphasia (1891). In describing the "speech

apparatus," Freud posits a relation between

"word-presentation"and "object-presentation."

Later,in the 1915paper "The Unconscious," the

same terms enter into different combinations:

"word-presentation" is retained, but what was

called "object-presentation" becomes "thing-

presentation." In "TheUnconscious," as the edi-

tor of The StandardEdition points out, "object-presentation" denotes "a complex made up of

the combined 'thing-presentation' and 'word-

presentation'-a complex which has no name

given to it" in On Aphasia ("Appendix C" 209).This complex, however, is named in Kristeva's

footnote and its reiterations. Kristeva calls it

Freud's"sign," usually indicating herapplication

by means of italics or quotation marks.

Now, to use "sign"for that which Freudrefers

to in On Aphasia as "the functional unit of

speech" and "acomplex concept"

seems to

underscore the similarity between Freud's and

Saussure's linguistic formulations (73; see also

298



Shuli Barzilai

"AppendixC" 210for an alternativetranslation).Such a designation suggests not only that Freud's

"functionalunitof speech"adumbratesSaussure'sbut, more crucial for Lacan'slinguistic emphasis,that Freud'sconception does not fundamentallydiffer from the signified-signifier distinction set

forth in the Course in GeneralLinguistics (1915).If so, the monograph providesstrong grounds for

a defense (rather than a critique) of Lacan's

assimilation of the Saussurian schema into his

theory.Kristeva expressly notes these grounds in the

second chapter of Powers of Horror: "Obviously

privileged here [in OnAphasia], the sound imageof wordpresentation and the visual image of ob-

ject presentation become linked, calling to mind

very preciselythe matrix of the sign belonging to

philosophical tradition and to which Saussurian

semiology gave new currency." This recalling,

however,emphasizes certain elements in Freud's

definitionalstatementswhilerepressing rneglect-

ing others: "it is easy to forget the other elements

belongingto the sets thus tiedtogether" 51).What

are these"otherelements"?Orwhat, accordingto

Kristeva, s the difference between the two signs-Freud's and Saussure's?

For a reply it is necessary to return,as Kristeva

indicates, to the monograph on aphasia, in which

Freud defines his "complex concept" (Kristeva's

"sign") as "constituted of auditory, visual and

kinaestheticelements"(73;see also "AppendixC"

210).Freudexpandsthis concept-the word "cor-

responds to an intricate process of associations

entered into by elements of visual, acoustic and

kinaesthetic origins"-and then repeats it: "The

idea,or

concept,of the

objectis itself

anothercomplex of associations composed of the mostvaried visual, auditory, tactile, kinaesthetic and

other impressions" 77-78; see also "AppendixC"

213).This is indeeda complexobject-presentation.In addition to linking visual and acoustic compo-nents, it allows nonverbalelements of expressionto be integratedinto the "[p]sychological schemaof thewordconcept"(77).For thisreason,Kristeva

asserts in her footnote that Freud's notions of

presentation are among "the most far-reaching"of his discoveries. Certainly Freud, like Saussure

(as JacquesDerridashows in Of Grammatology),privileges the sound image in his later writings,

just as he does in the 1891monograph. Neverthe-

less,Kristeva ontends,"[t]hefact thattheacoustic

image is privileged in this case does not diminishthe heterogeneity of this 'psychological blueprintof word-presentations,'which today we still have

difficulty assimilating"-and which Lacanappar-

ently never did.

It should be stressed, however, that Kristeva

neither slights nor denies the importance of the

Saussurian-Lacanian distinction for linguisticsand for psychoanalysis. In the footnote and its

permutations, she repeatedlygivescreditwhereit

is due. The Freudiansign, she says, is "alwaysal-

ready indebted . . . to that representabilityspecific to language, and therefore to the linguis-tic sign (signifier/signified)" ("Withinthe Micro-

cosm" 37);"onecan saynothing of such (effectiveor semiotic) heterogeneity without making it

homologous with the linguistic signifier"(Powers

51); "one should not forget the advantages that

centeringthe heterogeneous Freudian sign in the

Saussurianone afforded"(52). Yetshealso closelyand frequentlyremarks he disadvantages.The as-

similation of Freud'ssign to Saussure's eavesout

"whatconstitutes all the originality of the Freud-ian 'semiology' and guarantee[s] its hold on the

heterogeneous economy (body and discourse) of

the speaking being" (51-52). Lacanian theory, in

emphatically nsistingon the "unitarybent" of the

sign, neglects Freud'snotions of "a complicated

concept built up from various impressions"

(Aphasia 77):"whenLacanposits the Name of the

Father as the keystone to all sign, meaning, and

discourse, he points to the necessarycondition of

one and only one process of the signifying unit,

albeit a constitutive one" (Powers 53).

Before discussing other implications of Kris-

teva'scritical position, I would like to recapitulatethe argument already presented. In his muchvaunted "return o Freud,"Lacandoes not go far

enough, either theoretically or chronologically.

Despite the considerableexplanatorypowerof his

theory,Lacandoes not takein or allow for the full

complexityof Freud's nsights.HenceKristeva m-

phasizes the need to "rehabilitate this Freudian

sign; thestudy

oflanguage-in linguistics

or in

psychoanalysis-can no longer do without it"

("Within he Microcosm"42). Hence shecautions

299




those who would apply Lacanian formulations n-

discriminately that "a reductiveness of this sort

amounts to a true castration of the Freudiandis-covery" (Powers 52). In Kristeva'sview, a funny

thing happened to Lacan on his way back to

Freud. He murdered his father, perhaps without

knowing it.

V

A furtherunderstandingof the drama hat unfolds

here requirestransposing a different kind of cas-

tration onto the one just mentioned. This trans-

position will lead to the "maternal" mode ofreading recommended and practiced by Kristeva

as a supplement-in the Derridean senseof addi-

tion and substitution-to the "paternal" mode

that marks Lacan's access to the unconscious.

In the treatmentof borderlinepatients,Kristeva

remarks, he analystoften encounters"alanguagethat gives up." This implies that something is

surrendered or, more precisely, sundered at the

borders of language. The signifier is cut off from

the signified; the material specificity of the sign

remains, without any signification and affect.Thus the border is a cutting edge, a place of scis-

sion: "It is, in short, a reduction of discourse to

the state of 'pure' signifier, which insures the

disconnection between verbalsigns"(Powers49).The fundamental signifier, the "name-of-the-

father," s repudiated,and fragmented,nonverbal

elements or "pure" signifiers prevail. Language

(the patient's or the text's) "keepsbreakingup to

the point of desemantization,to the point of rever-

berating only as notes, music, 'pure signifier'";

similarly, "there is a collapse of the nexus con-stitutedby the verbalsignifiereffecting the simul-

taneous Aufhebung of both signified and affect"

(49-50).In more strictly psychoanalytic terms, there is

a foreclosure (Verwerfung)of the paternal func-

tion and a regression o apremirror tagein which

the individual forms a fusional dyad with what isno longer perceivedas an alterity,as an (m)other.In such regressive tates, the unstableego tends to

produce echolalia-that is, an echoing infantile

discourse.This semioticdisposition may

beheard,according to Kristeva,"in all of these divergences

from codified discourse, but also in gestures,

laughter and tears, moments of acting out"

("Within he Microcosm"38). Yet he semioticap-

pears not only within and through infantile ordivergent modes of expression: "Beneath the

seemingly well-constructed grammatical aspectsof these patients' discourse we find a futility, an

emptying of all affect from meaning-indeed,even an empty signifier" (41).

But if borderline discourse and, by extension,certain types of poetic language are full of the

symptom called the "pure"or "empty"signifier,how can the analyst (who is inevitably caught upin the symbolic) respondto such a discourse?How

can the "talking cure"or any interpretationtakeplace when the bottom has dropped out of the

sign? What kind of analytic technique is called

for?

In "Within the Microcosm," Kristeva offers a

primarilytheoretical account of her work in this

area. (She includes more extensiveclinical exam-

ples in Talesof Love, published in 1983,the same

yearthat InterpretingLacan appeared.)The title

of the second partof the essay-"Two Typesof In-

terpretation in the Cure of a Borderline Patient:

Construction and Condensation"-points to heranalyticapproach. Although Kristevadoes not ex-

plicitly make the connection, the two types maybe consideredas correlative o the signs previouslycontrasted in her essay.The constructive type as-

sumes the Saussurian-Lacanian distinction; the

condensed type draws on the interplay of "other

elements."Thesemethods of interpretationdo not

excludeeach other,however.Condensation serves

in one of two supplementarycapacities:as an op-tional accessory or a requiredsubstitute. That is,

just as Kristevadelineates the limitations of theLacanian algorithm but acknowledges its neces-

sity, so she suggests, in this part of her essay, the

need for going beyondconstructionwithout aban-

doning it. In the exposition that follows, I do not

attempt to evaluate the clinical aspects of con-

struction and condensation. Rather, as a reader

trained n literary riticism,I exploresome interest-

ing analogies between these techniques and the

analysis of literarytexts.

Construction resembles a more or less con-

ventional but essential "thematic" criticism. As

Kristevadescribes it, constructive interpretationentailsa "repetitionor reordering . . that builds

300



Shuli Barzilai

connections"; "it reestablishes plus and minus

signs and, subsequently, logical sequences." Be-

cause borderline states often involve a breakdownof the linguisticsign, theemphasisin treating hem

is on the process of construction. The analyst is

a kind of contractor who builds meanings out of

disparate,"empty"elements. The taskof this con-

tractor is to repairthe paternal function, "to con-

struct relations, to take up the bits of discursive

chaos in order o indicatetheirrelations temporal,

causal, etc.), or evensimply to repeatthese bits of

discourse, thereby alreadyordering these chaotic

themes." By introducing a sequential, relational

logic into a discourse that is marked by discon-tinuity and fragmentation, this type of interpre-tation attemptsto reconstitute"theverycapacitiesof speech to enunciate exterior referential reali-

ties." Reactivating the defunct S/s connection,"constructiveinterpretationreestablishessignifi-cation and allows meaning to rediscover affect"

(45-46).In certainrespects, condensation seems analo-

gous to deconstructive criticism. It calls for a free

"play of signifiers" (46), for puns and other ver-

bal manipulations in the analyst's own interpre-tive discourse. So whynot call it "deconstructive"

or "deconstructed"nterpretation,especiallysince

such terms bring out the contrast with the con-

structivetype?As already ndicated, construction

and condensation do not constitute a diametric

opposition for Kristeva,nor does she in any way

enjoin us to view them as such. To assign the la-

bel deconstruction to the supplementof construc-

tion wouldperpetuatea polarizationthatKristeva,

deliberatelyand consistently,attemptsto forestall.

It is a question not of choosing one and exclud-ing the other (a logic of either/or) but, rather,of

deployingthe two types (a logic of both/and). Per-

haps, morecomplexly still, the borderlinepatientis better servedwhen the analyst maintains an in-

terpretive tance that moves freelybetween the op-tions presented by these forms of logic.

Such a stance is itself close to, and yet not iden-

tical with, that of deconstruction. It is like decon-

struction in its moments of play and in its

movements between the either/or and both/and

logicsof

interpretation.t is unlikedeconstruction

in the ethical position the analyst takes vis-a-visthe "text," in the analyst's obligation to alleviate

suffering, to enable a cure by returning meaningand signification to the patient's symbolic uni-

verse. The literary critic is, of course, under nosuch obligation. On the contrary, the ethics of

philosophical and, by extension, literary nstruc-

tion, writes Derrida in "Violence and Meta-

physics," is to be found in or founded on "the

disciplineof the question." Accordingto Derrida,

"[T]he question must be maintained. As a ques-tion. ... A founded dwelling, a realizedtradi-

tion of the question remaininga question. If this

commandment has an ethical meaning, it is not

in that it belongs to the domain of the ethical, but

in that it ultimately authorizeseveryethical law ingeneral" (80).

Psychoanalysismaintains hediscipline(andthe

freedom)of the question by puttingit in question.There aretimes, as Kristeva howsin Talesof Love,whenthe question must be superseded,when con-

structive interpretation or "a knowledge effect,"howeverprovisional-"this means such-and-such,for the moment" (276)-is required:"Tothe ex-

tent that the analyst not only causes truths to

emergebut also tries to alleviatethe pains of John

or Juliet, he is duty bound to help them in build-ing their own proper space." Note that she says

"truths," however, not one truth, and uses the

present progressive tense, "building." Kristeva

adds:

It is not a matter of filling John's"crisis"-his

emptiness-with meaning,or of assigninga sure

place o Juliet'sroticwanderings.ut otrigger dis-coursewherehisown"emptiness"ndherown"out-

of-placeness" ecomeessential lements,ndispens-able "characters"f

youwill,of a work n

progress.(380)

Yet,even if Kristeva's efusal of the termdecon-

struction may be understood, the question re-

mains: Why condensation? Kristeva borrows

Freud's erm for one of the essential mechanisms

governingdreamworkand joke work. She quotesFreud,"Condensation . .. [is]a processstretch-

ing over the whole course of eventstill the percep-tual region is reached" (Freud, Jokes 164), and

immediately continues, "Thus, a condensed in-terpretation has a more erotic and more bindingeffect"("Within he Microcosm"46). Theconnec-

301




tion between these two statements is not immedi-

atelyapparent.Nevertheless, heyindicate another

important distinction between construction andcondensation. Whereasthe constructiveinterpre-tation would provide a signified (a meaning) for

the "empty" signifier, the condensed interpreta-tion evokeswide-ranging, translinguisticassocia-

tions. In keepingwith this distinction in psychical

rangeand with the different roles assumed by the

analystin each interpretivemode, I would suggestthat construction can also be characterized as

"unitary"nterventionand condensation as "com-

plex" participation. Condensation supplements

"logico-constructiveprotection"bycolludingwiththe borderline patient's "manic or narcissistic

manipulation of the signifier" (46). The analyst

responds to non-sense with non-sense; that is, in

the analyst'splay of metaphors, puns, and manip-ulations of words, as in the borderline patient's

discourse, "sense does not emerge out of non-

sense, metaphorical or witty though [the non-

sense]might be"(Powers50). The analystimitates

or borrows from the patient's rhetoric, rhythms,and intonations, thereby nvoking heterogeneous

dispositions (the semiotic), in addition to tryingto reassemble inguisticsigns (the symbolic). In ef-

fect, theanalystechoes theecholalia of thepatient.Kristeva briefly suggests why this type of in-

terpretation is effective. By reinforcing archaic

modes of articulation, it activates a "maternal"

transferencen which thepatientdirects oward he

analyst an "entire gamut of . . . desires and

needs"("Within he Microcosm"46-47). Conden-

sation promptsthe reemergenceof a presymbolic,infantile organization and, therefore,has "amore

erotic and morebinding effect" in the transferen-tial situation. In contrast to the unitary interven-

tion, which attempts to reestablish the paternal

function, the analyst'scomplex participation maybe said to comply with the patient's pressurefor

symbiosis. This participation enables the patientto experience a fusion or "death-in-the-mother"

and, then, a second birth.

Thus condensation extends the critique of

Lacaniantheory and practice.It points to the limi-

tations of an analytic perspective that privilegesthe

paternal function,that stresses the advent of

the subject into the discursiveworld of desire. La-can writes in "The Agency of the Letter in the

Unconscious" that "man's desireis a metonymy"

(175).Kristevacomments in the first partof Tales

of Love, entitled "Freudand Love:TreatmentandIts Discontents":

Lacan ocated dealizationolelywithin he fieldofthesignifier ndof desire; eclearlyf notdrasticallyseparated t . . . fromdriveheterogeneityand its ar-

chaicholdonthematernal essel.To hecontrary, y

emphasizing he metaphoricity f the identifyingidealizationmovement,we canattempt o restoreothe analyticbond located there(transference nd

countertransference)ts complexdynamic. . .. (38)

Kristeva's argument necessitates taking into

account the Lacanian alignment of the mecha-

nisms of displacement (Verschiebung)and con-

densation (Verdichtung) with what Lacan calls

"their homologous function[s] in discourse":

metonymy and metaphor ("Agency" 160). This

alignment follows Freud'sdefinitions of displace-ment as "thereplacingof some one particular dea

by anotherin some way closely associated with it"

and of condensation as the compressionof two or

more elements into "a single common element"(Interpretation 339). In a state of love (such as

transference), Freud's common element corre-

sponds to the subject's movement toward iden-

tification with or idealization of the other; in

metaphor, this element is the area of overlap in

which two semantic components fuse. Likewise

Kristeva'suse of condensation suggests both a

mode of unconscious mental functioning and its

linguisticcorrelative,metaphoricity. n contrast to

Lacan,who emphasizes he metonymicdimension

ofdesire,

thedisplacements imposed by

a third

party, the mythic father of Totem and Taboo,Kristeva investigates-through her condensed

interpretations-the metaphoric dimension of

love: the bond with(aswellas separation rom)the

mother.

VI

Kristeva'sessay in InterpretingLacan constitutes

only one moment, albeit a significant one, in her

effort tochallenge

theprivileged position of thesymbolicpaternalorderas articulatedbyLacanian

theory. Perhaps inevitably, in presenting her ac-

302



Shuli Barzilai

count of Lacan's"castration of the Freudian dis-

covery,"Kristevareduplicatesher subject matter.

Her essay opens with a brief acknowledgment:

It would be strange or a psychoanalyst, skedto

present erownreading f JacquesLacan'sextsand

practice,o considerherself itherapropagator r a

criticof hiswork.For hepropagationf psychoanal-

ysis . . . has shownus, ever sinceFreud, hat in-

terpretationecessarilyepresentsppropriation,nd

thus,an act of desireand murder. (33)

Jane Gallop comments on the broader sig-

nificance of this opening statement: "Outsidetheimmediatecontext, it remindsus that, psychoana-

lytically, interpretation s alwaysmotivated by de-

sire and aggression, by desireto have and to kill"

(27). But what does the text have that the reader

must kill-or interpret-to possess? The reader

wantswhat the text is supposedto know;or,as La-

can might put it, the readerdesiresthe signifierof

desire, the "phallus": "signifier of power, of

potency" ("Desire" 51).Inthe first sentenceof the nextparagraph,how-

ever,Kristevamay be said to begin the essay onceagain, with a modest disclaimer immediately fol-

lowed by the promise of "contributions":"Inthe

following pages, I will first try to presentone pos-sible reading-my own-of Lacan's contributions

to the interrelations between language and the

unconscious" (33). YetKristevahas alreadynoted

that everytext is an incorporation and transfor-

mation of another text. If, as she also remindsus,

"everyhero is a patricide" Powers181),everycritic

might be one too. The role of the writer as patri-

cide is, of course, what Harold Bloom documentsin his poetics of influence. But whereas Bloom,

following Freud'sTotemand Taboo,envisagesin-

terpretiveappropriation as a father-son conflict,as the strugglebetweenstrongmalepoets or critics

and their paternal precursors, Kristeva clears a

space for the daughter in this engagement.Kristevaenters nto a conflictual relationshipwith

a powerfulpaternalauthority.This daughter s not

to be seduced by the father; instead, she masters

and murders him. Her example invites other fe-

male descendantswho formerlywerespectatorsorobjects in the male drama of desire to join in the

ritual feast.

Significantly, Kristeva is not only contendingwith a symbolic, with an already "dead," father.

FatherLacan, although legendary,was still alivewhen the two parts of "Within the Microcosm"

were nitiallypresented.The firstpartappeared n

the autumnof 1979 as "IIn'ya pas de maitrea lan-

gage"'There Is No Masterof Language,'in a spe-cial issue of Nouvelle revuedepsychanalyse. The

title could be read as a refutation of Lacan's

"truth":"IIn'est parole que de langage" 'There s

no other speech but language' ("Chose" 412;"FreudianThing" 124).According to Kristeva, n

borderlinecases (which, as I havesuggested,cover

a lot of territory)the speakeris not spoken by orsubjectedto language. Moreover,she arguesthat

attempts to assimilate psychoanalysis to linguis-tic models ignore the radical difference between

the two fields, "l'impermeabilite e la ratiolinguis-

tique a la decouverte freudienne"("Il n'ya pas de

maitre" 127). Thus her title could also be under-

stood to announce: Lacan is not the master of

(psychoanalytic) anguage.The second partof her

essay was delivered as a seminar at the Centre

Hospitalier SainteAnne in the springof 1981.La-

can died on 9 September 1981.Yet,as theorists and practicing psychoanalysts,

both Kristeva and Lacan are-and will alwaysremain-the childrenof Freud. From this stand-

point, Lacanis not the father; nsteadhe is the self-

appointed son and hero. Kristeva hus entersinto

a rivalrywith Freud's"French son" (Kerrigan x).She finds that the son, who, as it were,guardsthe

paternal power,avails himself of it. His interpre-tation is an act of self-empowerment that strips

awaythe full originality of the Freudian insight.

Kristeva hallengesthis appropriation.A defenderof the father and his faith, she attempts to resur-

rect his word (the privileged signifier) after the

murderous son's incorporation of it. "It is neces-

sary,"as she says,"togo back to the Freudian he-

ory of language.""Go back" is a marked phrase in this context.

At stake, for all sides, is more than how, or more

than who knows how, to read Freud well. Recast-

ing King Lear's question, we might also ask,Which of them shall we saydoes return he most?

Interpretation is an act of love and devotion, asmuch as of hate and slaughter, by a son or a

daughter.WhereverKristeva ites Freud's ign, she

303



Bordersof Language:Kristeva'sCritiqueof Lacan

gives two elements prominence:the suggestion of

a return to origins (namely, to a very earlyFreud-

ian text)and, often in conjunctionwith thisreturn,the concept of heterogeneity.For example, note 8

of "Within the Microcosm" concludes: "Freud's

conception of the unconscious derives from a no-

tion of language as both heterogeneous and spa-

tial, outlined firstin OnAphasia when he sketches

out as a 'topology' both the physiological under-

pinnings of speech . . . as well as language

acquisitionand communication. . .. "This state-

ment sums up Kristeva's ritiqueof Lacan: t is the

"extraterritorial" or semiotic dimension of ex-

perience, together with the sphere of symbolicinfluence, that constitutes the Freudian uncon-

scious. As Lacan himself declares, the Freudian

concept of the unconscious is indeed "somethingdifferent" from his own (Four Fundamental

Concepts 21).Kristeva reiterates later in her essay that her

return to Freudoutdistances Lacan's: "Inreread-

ing Freud's initial, preanalytic text on aphasia.. we find Freud's own model of the sign and

not the Saussureansignifier/signified distinction"

(42). Again, in Powers of Horror, she links herreturnwith heterogeneity: "And returningto the

moment when [theFreudiantheory of language]starts off from neurophysiology, one notes the

heterogeneity of the Freudian sign" (51); the

documentation reads: "See Freud's first book,

Aphasia (ZurAuffassung der Aphasien, 1891)"

(213). In the two-paragraphsection of Powers ofHorror entitled "The 'Sign'according to Freud,"the words "heterogeneity" and "heterogeneous"

appear five times (51-52). These terms, as already

noted, arealso among the defining characteristicsof le semiotique, Kristeva'smajor theoretical cor-

rective to the preeminence granted the symbolicorder.

Thus Kristevaaligns the complexity of her no-tion of a semiotic approach with Freud and

against Lacan and the closure of the Saussurian

sign. This observation does not invalidate

Kristeva's eadingof Lacan or consign it to the cat-

egory of an intrafamilial disorder. Yet, in the

course of her critical assessment, Kristevaentersinto a

doubly binding relationshipwith heradver-

sary. Not daughter, but sister; both sister and

daughter.

Having gone thus far,it is difficult for me to ig-nore the double bind that my presentation of

Kristeva's critique is itself caught up in. I willbriefly try to step outside-as if I could-and de-

scribe this complication.In choosing to engageKristeva'sworkand, par-

ticularly,her essay on the "talkingcure,"I repeatand applaud hercriticisms of Lacanian theory as

too narrowly enclosed in its linguistic formula-

tions. My readingof Kristeva's eadingof Lacan's

reading of Freud would establish a communion,a sisterhood. I follow not only the movements of

herfootnote but also herreturn o the monograph

on aphasia, therebyexhibiting an analogous am-bivalence: a defense of the "good" father (Freud)and a challenge to the "bad"(Lacan). But, in situ-

ating Kristeva's exts in relation to Lacan's, I am

also committed to an act of appropriation. Myclose reading of Kristeva'ssubtextual lines of de-

fense is not entirely innocent. It implicates what

were formerly omissions at Freud's totemic fes-

tival. It raisesthe specterof a conflictual engage-mentbetweenmothers anddaughters.I havetaken

pains to defendmyself and avoidedany footnotes.

For the fathers hoverdimly, recede into the back-ground, as I find myself in the coils of a transfer-

ence with a powerful maternal authority. Not

sister, but daughter; both daughter and sister.

Nevertheless, no longer silent onlookers at the

brothers'banquet, we come up to the table. And

we are hungry.

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Borders of Language