Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

84The objet a is a Thing that is related to the Gothic. The narrative economy of the Gothicconstructs a fetishized object that is organized by the logics of synecdoche. The letter A which isonly part of the whole narrative becomes the fixation of desire and hermeneutics at the same time.Like synecdoche, the letter A functions as an index. The letter A is not the Thing itself but itpoints to the Thingthe past, the archive, or memory. It, however, participates in the circuits ofdifférance. Like the Derridean and Lacanian models which are structured around a certain void oraporia, the Hawthornesque model stages the impossibility of the encounter between the Thing andits signified. To see the letter A as a Lacanian Thingparticularly in its discursivemanifestationsis to say that the Thing, as a signifier that indexes multiple signifieds or as onethat resists signification altogether, is an extension of the void that moulds the figures ofHawthorne’s narrative. The letter A is a nodal point (point de capiton), a discursive point whichfixes meaning only ironically and temporally, depending on the context and the desire of theinterpreter at any given moment in the narrative. In short, it promises coherence (i.e., as theColeridgean symbol does) but it reneges continually on that promise. In other words, as a point decapiton, it is fixed only in the sentence in which it recurs; it will subsequently slide in thenarrative. The promise of coherence maintains the narrative of desire by constructing a knot ofmeanings and by concealing secrets and ambiguities. However, the letter Aa fetishisdetermined and over-determined 25 by the logics of desire. The Thing itself (i.e., the thing behindthe Lacanian Thing) is never present in The Scarlet Letter. What we have is a chain ofsupplementarity that allows us to argue that the narrator in both the “The Custom-House” and TheScarlet Letter is a mere pulsation of desire. He is a desiring subject that stages the politics of themissed encounter at the level of the narrative. In fact, “The Custom House” comes to supplement