Prisoner of the Signifier, Returnee to the Real: Subjectivity in Orlando through Lacans’ Three Orders

Abstract

This paper systematically deconstructs the mechanism of gendered subject formation in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, through Jacques Lacan’s three orders—the Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real. The first part takes up the Symbolic, showing clothing as a quilting point that anchors Orlando into shifting gendered positions. The cross-dressing plot exposes gender as a floating signifier, and more pointedly, satirizes the alienating force of the Symbolic order. The second part turns to the Imaginary, analyzing the mirror projection in Orlando’s two erotic experiences with Sasha and Shelmerdine. Heterosexual desire emerges as structurally determined, produced by the combined effect of symbolic castration’s asymmetry and imaginary méconnaissance. The third part unfolds from the dimension of the Real, setting the jouissance of Orlando’s erotic life against that encountered in his relation to nature. The paper argues that emancipation cannot be reduced to the acquisition of new signifying positions within the Symbolic. It requires, rather, holding open a space that resists symbolic confirmation, in which the subject can bear its constitutive lack and remain exposed to the jouissance of the Real.