A Lacanian Reading of Angela Carter's the Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and Nights at the Circus

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine Angela Carter s The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and Nights at the Circus with regard to the Lacanian concepts of three Orders, which are the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real, the Mirror Stage, the Father, the ultimate object of desire and discursive reality. It is argued in this study that these novels can be analysed according to Lacanian theory of the infantile development, the name of the Father, desire and fantasies in the constitution of human subjectivity, the subjectification process of the infant, deconstruction of discourse and reconstruction of identity with respect to the different layers and levels of reality. In this regard, at the beginning, the fundamentals of both Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis and through these methods, the framework of the study on these novels are introduced.