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Allen, since he was the actual author of the love-letters.
It is not uncommon for a subject to form a desire for the object of another s
affections. Allen develops an interest in Victoria first of all because of Roger s
attraction to her, and Roger finds Victoria even more interesting when he
becomes the intermediary of love-letters in which he clearly observes Allen s
desire. The collaboration between Allen and Roger thus helps both of them to
46 LOVE ANXIETIES
stay in love with this mysterious woman whom Allen once calls a pin-up girl of
the spirit .
Here we have a case of hysteria, since a hysteric is constantly concerned with
questions about desire. The subject thus first gets attracted to what he thinks is the
object of the desire of the Other, then guesses what kind of an object he is for the
Other but, since he can never get a satisfying answer to the question about the
desire of the Other, the subject interprets and finds an answer in a fantasy that he
creates.
Both Allen and Victoria fall in love with the help of a fantasy which they form
around object a. While Roger is at first a kind of postman who helps Allen and
Victoria keep their fantasies alive, later, when he marries Victoria, he starts to
function as an intrusive intermediary who shatters them. It is significant that
Victoria developed amnesia when she learned that the love-letters she received
were a fraud and that she had not been such an object of desire for her husband
as she believed. At this point, Victoria s fantasy collapsed and amnesia helped
her not to face the truth about her own and her husband s desire. After Roger is
killed, Victoria becomes a different woman: where Victoria appeared like an
innocent girl, Singleton looks like a mysterious beauty who holds a sublime
secret, and when Allen falls in love with Singleton, he is attracted precisely by this
secret. Thus, even before Allen learns that that Singleton is actually Victoria, he
is fascinated by something in Singleton that is greater than herself another
name for this secret is, of course, object a.
Returning to the problem of hysteria, it could be said that the greatest hysteric
in this story is actually Victoria. Both Allen and Roger fall in love with Victoria
because they are fascinated by the desire of the Other, but Victoria is the one
who constantly questions what kind of an object she is in the desire of the Other.
Her conflict with Roger is precipitated by the fact that she does not recognize
herself in his desire as she has recognized herself in the love-letters, and it is
crucial that she suffers amnesia only until she realizes that Allen is the true author
of the letters. In this context we can read Victoria s loss of memory as some kind
of hysteric symptom in which she finds a temporary solution for the traumas
related to her love life.
CYRANO DE BERGERAC: OBSESSIONAL DESIRE
In the case of the hysteric, love-letters are often a means of dealing with his or
her questioning of the desire of the Other, and from such letters a hysteric can
thus get some relief to the anxiety-provoking question as to who he or she is for
the Other. However, in the case of obsessional neurosis, love-letters can be an
attempt to prevent a horrifying encounter with the desire of the Other. An
example of this strategy can be found in the famous play Cyrano de Bergerac,
whose main character, Cyrano, is secretly in love with the beautiful, young
Roxane. Believing he is too ugly because of his large nose ever to win Roxane,
the eloquent Cyrano helps Christian, a tongue-tied soldier, to woo her with love-
LOVE ANXIETIES 47
letters. After many years, Cyrano tries to tell Roxane the truth, but Christian is
killed in battle and Cyrano feels compelled to keep his secret. Years later
Roxane, living in a convent and still faithful to her husband Christian, is visited
by her mortally wounded friend Cyrano. It is then that she realizes that Cyrano was
the beloved author of the love-letters. His secret revealed, Cyrano dies as he had
lived, heroically and fearlessly.
Cyrano is a typical example of an obsessional neurotic for whom the object of
desire is too overwhelming and thus who actually tries to keep this object at bay,
in this instance by writing love-letters for someone else. The obsessional is afraid
that by coming too close to the object of his desire, the object will devour him
and make him vanish and, in order to protect himself from this anxiety-producing
object, he creates all kinds of rules, prohibitions and obstacles, which become the
cornerstone of his love life. When at the end of the play these obstacles vanish
and Cyrano comes too close to Roxane, he tragically dies. It appears that once
there was no barrier between Cyrano and his lover, he could not continue being
in love and live happily ever after, and that writing love-letters for someone else
and thus preventing an actual encounter with the object of his desire was the
necessary prerequisite for keeping Cyrano s love alive.
Cyrano is an especially interesting figure because we have here a particular
problem with the phallus. The whole play is centred around the fact that Cyrano
has a huge nose which appears as some kind of a phallic obstacle in his love life.
When Cyrano admits to his friend that he is in love with Roxane, he himself points
out that he cannot expect that his love will ever be realized because his nose makes
him unattractive. However, when Cyrano has a verbal exchange with some bore
who seems to make mockery out of him, he makes a big fuss out of protecting
the grandeur of his nose. When Cyrano asks: tell me why you stare so at my
nose? he gets no answer from the bore, but then Cyrano goes on and on with
questions like: What is there strange?& Is t soft and dangling, like a trunk?& Is
it crook d, like an owl s beak?& Do you see a wart upon the tip?& Or a fly, that
takes the air there? What is there to stare at?& What do you see? The bore does
not answer to these questions, and only remarks: But I was careful not to look
knew better. To which Cyrano responds: And why not look at it, an if you
please?& Oh! it disgusts you!& Its hue Unwholesome seems to you?& Or its
shape?& perchance you think it large? The bore staggeringly responds: No,
small, quite small minute! Then Cyrano becomes even angrier:
Minute! What now?
Accuse me of a thing ridiculous!
Small my nose?&
Tis enormous!
Old Flathead, empty-headed meddler, know
That I am proud possessing such appendice.
Tis well known, a big nose is indicative
48 LOVE ANXIETIES
Of a soul affable, and kind, and courteous,
Liberal, brave, just like myself, and such
As you can never dare to dream yourself,
Rascal contemptible! For that witless face
That my hand soon will come to cuff is all
As empty&
Of pride, of aspiration,
Of feeling, poetry of godlike spark
Of all that appertains to my big nose.2
So, although Cyrano is supposed to be impeded because of his nose, he at the
same time takes it as an organ which gives him enormous power. And here, the
nose does not seem to be an obstacle, but rather an asset. It looks as if having
such a large nose that it distorted his face, Cyrano developed his language skills
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