Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

231the impossible pre-linguistic Real: a desire for a recovery in which both senses of the word maybe said to coincide. Such desire for the Real is activated by the omnipresence of objet a. Situatingtrauma in the Real, Lacan defines the human experience of a traumatic event as a missedencounter with the Real. As I explained in the first chapter of this dissertation, the automaton islinked to the spontaneity and regularity of the Symbolic; tuché is associated with the domain ofhazard and the Real.The entry into the Symbolic Order creates a perpetual lack, a viral return to/of the Real,which Lacan calls objet a. Lacan’s theory emphasizes the impossibility of having completeaccess to this impossible state. This, however, does not mean that trauma is beyondrepresentation. In other words, trauma exists only in its symbolic construction: “It is the world ofwords that creates the world of things—things which at first run together in the hic et nunc of theall in the process of becoming—by giving its concrete being to their essence, and its ubiquity towhat has always been” (Lacan, Écrits 229). This is reminiscent of Freud’s dream analysis whichoffers free access to the unconscious. 69 The failure of the inscription registers trauma in thedomain of the Symbolic. This means that the Real of trauma is intrinsically Symbolic. This is thecommon ground between Lacan and Freud. It is only through language that there can be a Real.Freud refutes the argument that trauma is inherently beyond representation and argues in favourof a theory of working-through trauma. Raising the threshold of Freud’s concepts of workingthrough,dream-work and Lacan’s concepts of Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary to literature andculture, one can argue that these practices not only reflect reality but also, and more importantly,produce it.