Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

311words, the sexual aggression has not necessarily happened; it can be imagined, fantasized, andinvented. In his analysis of the Wolf Man and the Rat Man, Freud has realized that the fantasy ismore important and productive than the event itself. This means there are two moments of trauma: aoriginal (repressed) event and a second (fantasized) moment. As we know, trauma is by definitionunrepresentable and unassimilable. Yet, it finds representation in the symbol of the double.44 The mirror, one of the figurations and configurations of the double, reflects and thinks. It is thesymbol of all symbols. In this way, all knowledge and any representation are only reflections.Therefore, any reflection is very elusive and subjective. I am not interested in valuing the validity ofthis syllogism. It has long been proved that the senses are not reliable, but they are the only vesselthat guarantees the reflection. Beside the literal mirror, there exists a mirror stage through which anyperson goes. At this stage, the child starts to know the human condition because he starts to thinksymbolically (i.e., the subject who looks and the image of the subject that is looked at). To knowoneself, one has to be recognized first as an individual. One needs an Otheras a shadowto have areflection that allows one to say “I am.” For a mirror to play its symbolic role as an effectivereflective vessel it has to be held by someone else. Without the Other it is nothing.45 The origins of the double in American literature, and in American culture in general, have not beenelucidated satisfactorily. This voluntary marginalization of the double attempts to restore the unity ofthe self and to repudiate separation and difference at the level of society. The motif of the double,