초록 열기/닫기 버튼
This paper is concerned with what makes Antigone completely ignore her living sister, Ismene, while being obsessed with her dead brother, Polyneices, from the perspective of Lacanian theory. Previous critics generally define Antigone's desire to bury her brother in defiance of the national act of Creon in terms of what Lacan calls ‘pure desire.’ This suggests that she pursues and realizes her own unique individual desire, not the desire of the Other, the Symbolic order. This paper presents a contrary view, which considers Antigone's desire as a form of Lacanian ‘alienated desire,’ consisting of the values of an unwritten law common to blood families, prevalent among community members of the time. This view is verified by Antigone's fascination with death. Antigone commits suicide in response to Creon prohibiting the burial of Polyneices’ corpse, and desperately wishes to re-unite with her whole family in the afterlife, having been deprived of them due to their tragic fate. This wish can be called the Lacanian ‘fundamental fantasy’ inscribed deep in her unconscious, controlling her desire. Lacan defines the fundamental fantasy as an attempt to recover 'totality,' something complete that, an individual believes, is lost. Antigone’s wish can explain her undue allegiance to her dead brother, and thorough disregard for her living sister. In this respect, Antigone's desire cannot be regarded as her individual and pure desire, since her desire is governed by the fundamental fantasy, the Utopian fantasy, derived from the ‘image of a complete family,’ which is demanded by an unwritten law common to blood families.
