Assignment #2

What are the ways in which the poetry and essay bring up themes we spoke about last week (problems of desire, imagery, alienation, etc.). What new ideas do you see here that further complicate or elucidate issues involving love and/or desire? Use specific quotes from the poetry and the essay to support your comments.

Zizek's essay shows many of the problems of desire.  We see the "Courtly Lady" who is the definition of a demure innocent woman whom the knight in shining armor protects.  However according to the essay this is not true as "The Lady in courtly love has nothing to do with actual women, how she stands for the man's narcissus projection which involves the mortification of the flesh-and-blood woman" (91).  The major complication between love and desire is that men confuse desire with love.  As the text states "[he notices] that [he is] actually her slave- since she wants the beating and provoked [him] to deliver it- [he gets] really mad and [beats] her" (94).  For men, they believe that love is dominating women because subconsciously that is what they think we want them to do.  Thus, they mix of their desire to love us than actually loving us.  In which case, this whole concept of dominating women gets misconstrude as simply just showing love.  This is problematic, as this in fact, the complete opposite way to show love.  

1. Why do you think the film is titled “That Obscure Object of Desire”? What is this “obscure object”? How does the film present it as such (imagery, characters, dialog, etc.)? How might this “obscure object” relate back to v1our discussion of Narcissus and Lacan?

The film is titled "That Obscure Object of Desire" because the movie is about a man craving something that is almost unattainable to him.  The "obscure object" in the movie is sex.  Matthieu lusts for Conchita and wants nothing more than to consummate their relationship.  Throughout most of the movie,though, Conchita denies Matthieu of this fulfillment of his desire because she knows that once they consummate the relationship, he will no longer desire her as his need will have been met.  We see this back and forth between the two in many ways throughout the movie.  For one, we see this in the imagery of the mouse and fly.  Conchita's innocence is something that keeps pestering not only Matthieu, but the relationship and general.  Despite all efforts of chasing this, this desire just will not get fulfilled.  On the other hand, we see the cat and mouse like play between Matthieu and Conchita through their dialogue.  Since their are two actresses that play Conchita, this shows the difference in her personalities.  On the one hand, Conchita will act very innocent and pure and will not want her innocence to be touched.  Then she will change such as when she used her friend as a ploy to say that she was never innocent.  Thus, Conchita uses this "obscure object" to wield it over Matthieu's head.  This can relate back to Narcissus especially with Matthieu.  When Narcissus looks into the spring, he doesn't fall in love with himself.  Instead, he falls in love with his ideal image of love. When he realizes that this perfection does not exist, he kills himself.  This similarly occurs with Matthieu.  Matthieu sees his consummation with Conchita to be the only thing he wants; he believes that this will make his life perfect.  It is not, however, Conchita that he desires, but rather the chase of this ideal image.  Thus once he consummates his relationship with her, he no longer wants her because he realizes that his reality is not exactly what he would have wanted it to be.