“MAN AND WOMAN IN MARRIAGE:
A LACANIAN APPROACH TO THE LIFE AND WORKS OF
ROBERT FROST”
Thesis Submitted for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN THE FACULTY OF ARTS
OF
JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY
Sarbani Banerjee
2010
“MAN AND WOMAN IN MARRIAGE:
A LACANIAN APPROACH TO THE LIFE AND
WORKS OF ROBERT FROST”
ABSTRACT
This thesis is an attempt to study aspects of the life and works of Robert Frost (18741963) dealing with the question of man-woman rapport within the institution of marriage,
together with the views of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) on manwoman rapport and the role of the third in it. Through this research, I have attempted to
read Lacanian psychoanalytic theory with Frost’s poems in order to improve and inform
both fields. Robert Frost, in his poetic career, bestowed great emphasis on the theme of
communication or the lack of it within marriage, which led to the isolation and drifting
apart of the partners involved, giving rise to dejection, despondency and despair. His
dramatic dialogues and monologues in particular accentuate this gap in communication
and voice his speculations regarding why a fruitful two-way interaction or rapport
between man and woman is difficult to come by, notwithstanding the promise of
familiarity and mutual understanding that such a relationship carries. Through deft
characterisation of his dramatis personae, Frost seeks to know why most men and women
within marriage heighten their own isolation by avoiding interaction between themselves,
like the wife in “Home Burial”, or the husbands in “A Servant to Servants,” “The
Housekeeper” and “The Hill Wife”. They consequently destroy their marriage instead of
nurturing it by initiating a proactive communication amongst themselves. This thesis
studies this Frostian theme of lack of communication as a crucial factor intercepting the
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marriage of man and woman from the place of the mediator, or the place of the third,
between them. It has been read in association with Lacan’s psychoanalytical views
regarding the same problematic.
Lacan considers the role of language in the life of speaking beings a matter of utmost
importance. Therefore, its innate inability to give full expression to the speaking being’s
thoughts acts as the principle mediating third factor that interdicts a complete two-way
relationship from developing between man and woman, especially when they are coupled
by marriage. Lacan’s concept of language in its range and depth demonstrates a much
wider panorama than that of Frost. To Frost language has been the medium of thinking
and expression of that thought through speech. But to Lacan, language encompasses the
entire range of symbolic expression, which he envisages as a cut structure inclusive of
two corresponding fields: what can be said, sensed or conveyed through speech by the
speaking being regarding the origin of his thoughts, and what cannot be. Lacan
designates that which cannot be said or sensed in language as lalangue. Lalangue is the
extrinsic fringe field of language that exercises a decided influence on the structure of
language by disturbing language users with its nonsense. What language can and cannot
say is about its supposed source of origin, which is a gap in the linguistic system that is
impossible to be said as well as impossible to be written. The gap in its incarnation as
lalangue, therefore, is impossible to be said in language. And conversely, in its
incarnation as language, the gap is impossible to be written or logically inscribed in
lalangue. Therefore there emerges a cut qua sexual non-rapport in language mediated by
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the excluded third factor of impossibility, which Lacan introduces in the form of the real
order. Impossibility is the question of the limit of language that demarcates the inviolable
gap of the real order that is impossible to say as well as impossible to write. But
notwithstanding this impossibility that is impossible to be known and impossible to be
sensed, the real habitually imposes its stamp on the statements of the language users or
“subjects”, disturbing their communication by making it half-said, half-sensed and halfunderstood.
The imposition of the real introduces the question of the repetition of what the real order
thinks, and how speaking beings come into being by following these thoughts in
repetition. None can decipher or establish a link between his chain of thought and its
original source in the real order. Lacan describes this gap in thinking and the repetition of
the real thought in the thinking of speaking beings as the question of the “possibility of
sexual act.” He thus points at an irremediable gap that habitually occurs in the statements
of all speaking beings, which not only impedes their inter-personal dialogues but their
intra-personal communication with themselves as well. Therefore it is necessary to
approach, brace, or surround this gap by language, to limit and restrict it as well as to
establish it as an impossible gap that is static in its place but generates far-reaching
effects. It is necessary to establish this impossible in language. This thesis aims to explore
the Frostian theme of the gap in communication between man and woman by studying it
in accordance with Lacan’s “third factor” of the real order, which functions as the
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impossible gap in language that hinders all forms of human relationships from proper
development.
This thesis thus follows from the Lacanian standpoint that there can be no sexual rapport
between the two sexes because they are eternally separated as man and woman due to the
extrinsic intervention of the real, and that humans marry because they cannot establish
any fruitful sexual relationship. Marriage, therefore, is a fantasy that serves as a pretence
to establish that a relationship exists. It must be noted, however, that there is a marked
difference between Lacan’s and Frost’s views on marriage. Frost’s poems, particularly
from North of Boston (May, 1914) and West Running Brook (November, 1928), lead one
to believe that the poet views marriage as a relationship that by its very nature runs on
difference. Like the west running brook that ran west while the rest of the rivers of the
region flowed towards the east, man and woman have differently centred positions in
marriage and different opinions, ideas and philosophies of life that run in different
directions. This underlying differentiation leads to their gradual isolation and segregation,
generating a heightened dissatisfaction within each person that eventually proves to be
extremely detrimental to their relationship. Frost advocated in “Master Speed” as well as
in “West Running Brook” that though man and woman in marriage are opposed in some
eternal essence, they must make a concerted effort to accept the place of this difference
between themselves, and should take care to recognise their mutual boundaries and never
try to transgress them. To Frost, mending the wall as in “Mending Wall” was the primary
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precondition for a successful marriage as he believed that man and woman could find
love, faith and trust in marriage only when they accepted this wall between themselves.
The problematic related to marriage that Frost observes and weaves his poetry around is
also a subject of reflection for Lacan. Lacan says that marriage at its very outset is related
to the dimension of speech and language, and that it is a manifestation of the nonexistence of sexual rapport between man and woman, plugging the gap where the rapport
should be. Marriage as a fantasy, therefore, forcibly authorises the “rapport” and tries to
make possible what is really impossible to bring to existence between two speaking
beings. That there is no inherent sexual rapport between man and woman is due to the
intervening effect of the impossible or the inviolable gap in language. This gap, having a
relation to the real order, generates an underlying tension that perpetually prevails
between man and woman and disturbs their harmony. Lacan argues that language as the
structure of human subjectivity accentuates the existence of speaking beings who are
linguistically programmed not to have any rapport with their own selves as well as with
any other. In this comparative study, Frost’s poems on the theme of breakdown of
communication within marriage have been studied in terms of Lacan’s thesis of sexual
non-rapport between man and woman in order to determine how the two sets of views on
the chosen theme inform one another and how they contribute to elucidating the
problematic from two very different directions.
_____________________
(SARBANI BANERJEE)
Date: