Abstract
Since Jacques Lacan regards James Joyce’s father, John Joyce, as a “deficient father”, this paper understands Joyce’s writing, especially Finnegans Wake, in terms of the failure of his father to fulfil his paternal duty and of Joyce’s attempt to redeem himself. It is argued, with Lacan, that Joyce had a latent disposition to schizophrenia due to a de facto foreclosure of what Lacan calls the “Name of the Father” and that, just as Finnegans Wake is structured like a Borromean knot which is constructed by the crisscrossing of three circular lines, Joyce’s making a name for himself through his work repaired the error in the knotting of the three dimensions of his subjectivity, the Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary, and so restored the paternal function for him which in turn prevented the precipitation of schizophrenia.
How to Cite:
Dalzell, T., (2018) “A Lacanian Reading of Paternity in James Joyce”, The European Journal of Psychoanalysis 5(2), 1–13.
Rights: Incopyright
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