Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

69event”; for Freud, “the primal scene.” These concepts concern something which appears in theguise of the encounter, as something that happens to us; surprises us, because it always inscribesitself as a rapture or interruption. Lacan argues that the Real is “impossible.” The fact that ithappens to us does not refute its basic “impossibility.” We encounter the Real as impossible, asthe impossible Thing that wreaks havoc in our Symbolic. Hester’s encounter with the Real leadsto the reconfiguration of this world. The Real is linked to ethics. Hester acted in conformity withthe desire which inhabits her. It is desire that aims at the impossiblethe Real. In his Civilizationand its discontents, Freud studies the sources of human suffering. Insofar as the subject inconstructed in the materiality of the signifier, he remains subject to the affects of Real and“unsuccessful … precisely in this field of prevention of suffering” (33). In other words, Hester’sshame is the psychological affect of the missed encounter, its residue (i.e., the non-fulfillment ofthe demand for forgiveness).Many critics have emphasized the underlying importance of The Scarlet Letter to theunderstanding of shame. The embroidered A on Hester Prynne’s chest represents a symbol ofsocial shame. The public display of this symbol of stigma is countered by an ostensibly privatedisplay of shame in the case of Dimmesdale. This play of internal and external shame dynamicsmakes shame itself unbearable. The birth of shame has long been considered as a sign of humantolerance and social bonding. Dimmesdale interprets the A-shaped meteor in the sky as indexinghis own scarlet letter and his own guilt: “what shall we say, when an individual discovers arevelation addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record! In such a case, it couldonly be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state” (116). This is explained by: