A Study Of The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie From The Perspective Of Lacan's Subjectivity Construction Theory

Muriel Spark,as one of the greatest Scottish novelists in the second half of the 20 th century,plays a pivotal role in the English literary firmament.Spark's novels are original in form,detached in style,and profound in theme;at the same time they are very praiseworthy in both the literary aesthetic value and thematic exploration of the times.The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,one of Spark's most worldwide-received novels,develops around Miss Brodie and her six henchmen students,with the teacher-student relationship as the starting point for the elaboration of the characters' self-exploration.The thesis adopts Lacan's theoretic ideas on subject construction,i.e.identification,mirror image and the three orders as the backbone of the probe into the selfhood establishment of Miss Brodie,Sandy and Rose.According to Lacan's theory,the inherent incompleteness is rooted deep in the subject.Ms.Brodie's libidinal erotic projection on deceased Hugh,physically-disabled Mr.Lloyd and mentally-restrained Mr.Lowther reflects the imperfections beneath her subjectivity.Sandy and Rose carry out imaginary identification with Miss Brodie because of their unsophistication and inner void;nevertheless the ego coming from the imaginary identification is doomed to be delusionary and unreal.Furthermore,Miss Brodie and her Brodie girls are excluded from the real world because of their disobedience to the laws of the symbolic realm,thus they are divested of the access to the secondary identification.To fill their inner void,the three adopt different methodologies for subjectivity construction.Miss Brodie takes the role of a tyrant and a saboteur of laws in the hope of building independent identity via the overthrowing of the Other.Sandy gets split because she takes cognizance of the huge gap between the ideal Brodie and the real one,and then she embarks on the path toward the extermination and replacement of Miss Brodie for her self-realization.As for Rose,she breaks free from the grip of Miss Brodie through her conformity to the Other and her resistance to erotic snare.In the end,the three reach different destinations respectively.Miss Brodie lives an exile life in the Imaginary wasteland to death;Sandy returns to the cloistered seclusion within the Real;Rose settles in the Symbolic in happy marriage.Finally,in light of the comparison among the different means and results of Miss Brodie's,Sandy's and Rose's selfhood realization,this thesis points out that only through the obtainment of clear self-awareness,the clarification of relationships between the self and the other,the disentanglement from the imaginary illusion,the compliance with laws and then the entrance into the Symbolic can a subject pinpoint his own position in the real world and establish relatively complete subjectivity.In addition,the subject has to maintain balance between reason and emotion and at the same time combine the two organically.The probe into the three's subjectivity construction by means of Lacan's theories of selfhood establishment also reflects that Muriel Spark's attitude toward male-female relationship is not binary opposition but fusion.At a deeper level,this unveils Muriel Spark's profound thinking in Scotland's pursuit of national identity.