| Possession: A Romance, A. S. Byatt’s representative novel, wins the BookerPrize of1990---the highest prize for literary fiction and attracts many scholars toanalyze it from various perspectives, such as feminism, archetype criticism, postmodernity etc. Although some critics explore the psychic development of theprotagonists in the perspective of Freud’s psychoanalysis, a few scholars study it inthe light of Lacan’s Mirror Stage Theory. Therefore, the thesis tries to analyze thepsychic development of LaMotte based on the theory of Mirror Stage and the threeconcepts: the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real.The thesis chooses the Victorian female protagonist LaMotte as the subject toresearch and tries to explore her psychic development. In the Imaginary Order,LaMotte projects her Ideal-I on three mirror images: her father, Miss Glover and Ash.And starts her subjectivity construction. In the Symbolic Order, LaMotte is on theway to construct her subjectivity. It is intolerant for LaMotte to behave with rebelliousspirit in the patriarchal society. Finally she comes to the Real Order, where LaMotterecognizes her social status in the patriarchal society and accepts the failure of hersubjectivity construction.The paper reveals the existential state of the Victorian female in the patriarchalsociety. In addition, it probes into LaMotte’s reactions to the requirements imposed onfemale in the Victorian period and her self-consciousness of identity construction.Therefore, the process of identification, to some degree, can be regarded as a psychicjourney. |
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