Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst. Lacan was deeply invested on identities, which he later named 'The Mirror Phase'. Which is when you're between 6-18 months old and you begin to recognise your reflections so you're showing a representation of your permanent structure of subjectivity. We have to understand and control the way we look on the outside because it's the only way others can understand you, or at least try too. This mirror phase can also be linked to more recent topics such as cinemas. cinemas essentially present to use a large mirror full or concepts, that us as the viewers have to try and understand just from what is presented to us.
Lacan was extremely negative about love all together. He said that 'There is no such thing as a sexual relationship' ( Badiou, 2013). 'Men and Women don't exist' and that 'Man knows nothing of woman and woman nothing of man'. He said that we peg our love fantasies from childhood experiences, so our expectations aren't unbelievable and we can't be too disappointed when love fails. So the overall connection in love, was never truly there, it was just fantasies. So Lacan said that it's better to be alone so you can mature on a more realistic lifestyle, eventually allowing you to build more mature relationships. The symbolic version of the phallus, a phallic symbol is meant to represent male generative powers. According to Freud, males possess a penis, no on can possess the symbolic phallus.
Lacan's views on politics was that most people were interested in finding someone to look up to and worship, to be in power. This is because the majority of people are dependant on others telling them what to do and when to do it, without this authority many people are unmotivated and lost, so in these cases, power is needed. This need for a person in charge is usually started from dependance on a parent when they were younger, it sticks with them.
He created the idea of 'lack' and that it causes to arise. A quote from Lacan, 'Desire is a relation to being too lack. The lack of being properly speaking. it is not the lack of this or that, but lack go being whereby the being exist'. Freud's approach of 'lack' is the hedonistic features strive us to act on moral principles and vice versa.
In the novel, (Mamoulian, 1931) Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde the mirror is very significant to the whole story as it displays the physical manifestation of Dr Jekyll's transformation into Mr Hyde. In this novel the mirror is a way of showing how the subject in the mirror that we normally see is just a representation of us. When Dr Jekyll first looks at himself in the mirror, he sees Mr Hyde who is depicted to be his darker personality which is able to carry out his darkest desires. The representation of himself in the mirror isn't what he wants to portray to the public because people create personas of themselves to please others and so others don't judge them. So the representation of Dr Jekyll in the mirror is his true self, even when he's in the mirror, Hyde is still a part of him.
In the Film versions, 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' staring Fredric March in 1931. They use camera tricks and techniques such as Point of view shots to represent how Dr Jekyll sees himself at the beginning, this point of view shot is then show again 2 more times later on in the film, and it begins to show his true form of Mr Hyde. This shows how everyones secrets that they're trying to hide and remain perfect for, always see the surface eventually.
References:
Badiou, B. C. (2013). There’s No Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship. Columbia University Press.
Mamoulian, R. (Director). (1931). Dr.jekyll and Mr.Hyde [Motion Picture].
Mirror POV Trick in "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" (Fredric March, 1932) -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm59kdak8w0
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