｢누런 벽지｣에 나타난 상징계와 상징계 너머

Abstract

This article examines “The Yellow Wallpaper” focusing on heroine’s conflict and resolution in Lacanian terms. It criticizes the point of view of the existing Lacanian framework which regards her as a psychotic who fails to enter into the symbolic. But this article shows that the heroine not only fries to integrate herself into the symbolic by analysing her symptom but goes beyond the symbolic and achieve female jouissance. Writing a diary is, of course, a gesture of resistance against the control of the husband. But more importantly it can be viewed as an attempt to integrate herself into the symbolic through the interpretation of the symptoms in terms of language. She interprets the coded message of the symbolic and tries to fix the sliding signifer of female subject on the nodal point in vain. Despite the analysis of her symptom, she finds that there exists sinthome, jouissance which can not be included in the symbolic. Drive beyond the symbolic is revealed through sight and smell. Finally at the end of the story, the heroine identified with the woman jumping out of wallpaper vividly represents ecstatic female jouissance.