Gaze, Trauma and Horror: A Lacanian Reading of The Silence of the Lambs

• Main Authors: Ting-Ru Lai, 賴亭儒
• Other Authors: Han-yu Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/42103995082909149640

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系碩士班 === 96 === This thesis endeavors to study the American classic horror film The Silence of the Lambs from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. For a long time, this film is famous for its successful try with a female leading character Clarice Starling who represents the modern woman in American’s 80s. However, my study of the film departs from the feminist reading. In Chapter One, I adopt Lacan’s theory of the gaze in contrast to Laura Mulvey’s male gaze in order to discuss how Jonathan Demme deconstructs feminist conception of gaze. According to Mulvey’s reading of the gaze, the horror films often demonstrate the gender issues with the power struggles: males/to see and females/to be seen. In The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme successfully deals with the power of the gaze in different ways to provide audience a new experience of viewing horror films. In Chapter Two, Starling’s symptom, desire and trauma of losing her father will be the focuses. Many feminist film critics often see Starling’s love for her dead beloved father closely related to her ambivalent feelings for Hannibal Lecter. Through Lacanian psychoanalytic approach of transferential relationship, I will argue that Starling’s love for Lecter and her symptom of dreaming the screaming lambs point to the reconfigurations of the object a represented in the Other that leads her to enjoy the jouissance without traversing the fantasy for the Other’s desire. Chapter Three opens up the issues on the symbolization of the character Hannibal Lecter. To Starling, her transferential relationship with Lecter is obviously connected to her indulgence in obtaining the jouissance from the transgressions of the incest taboo. Through Freud’s theory of the uncanny double, I will argue how Lecter stands as the uncanny double, the Father-jouissance, to Starling and to the Symbolic in this part. Besides, the topic of the Father-jouissance will be discussed combined with textual analysis of his cannibalism to demonstrate the paradoxical relations between the Father-jouissance and the Symbolic.