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Falstaff: A Signifier Above and Beyond
WEI Dianke
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DOI:10.17265/1539-8072/2020.12.004
Nanhu Vocational and Technological College, Shanghai, China
This paper investigates the character of Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I and Henry IV Part II, using philosophical concepts drawn from the thought of Jacques Lacan. Here, Falstaff is treated as signifying the complete satisfaction of desire for eating, drinking, love-making, and the primitive and ideal states of the ego. Thus, Falstaff is beyond the pleasure principle. To satisfy his desire and become the ideal ego, Falstaff manipulates signifiers, facts, time, and common logic. Falstaff is above signifying chains, in that he uses others around him and disobeys the others (God, the king, and the Chief Justice). However, Falstaff cannot be reduced to nothing because he represents the primitive nature and existential desire of human beings. To allow people to enjoy Falstaff’s pleasures is a task in social development. Due to the excesses he reaches in satisfying his desires, Falstaff can only be allowed to exist in fantasy. Falstaff is thus a signifier haunted above and beyond.
Falstaff, Shakespeare, signifier, Lacan
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