The Pain of Loss and Abandonment: The Case of Lol V. Stein in Marguerite Duras
Abstract
In 1964 Marguerite Duras publishes Le ravissement de Lol V. Stein. In the next few years, the novel becomes one of the most studied texts within psychoanalytic circles, because the central character, Lol V. Stein, reflects the singular pain produced by loss and abandonment in a subject whose integrity is fragile and unstable. After all, exiled from herself, Lol V. Stein is a prisoner of the imaginary relationship she has with the figure of the other, because the significant law of the Name-of-the-Father has not been registered, as a result of a foreclosure in the second phase of the mirror stage. Therefore, after being abandoned by her fiancé, the ravishing of Lol V. Stein is unleashed and, unable to resort to the symbolic dimension of language, she collapses forever, incapable of going through a mourning process for the loss of the loved object.
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