Becoming the Other, Becoming the God in Vitomil Zupan’s Journey to the End of Spring
Keywords:
literature and psychoanalysis, Slovene literature, Zupan, Vitomil, Journey to the End of Spring, literary interpretation, mimetic desire, ideal ego, mentor-disciple, Girard, RenéAbstract
The article uses Girard’s mimetic theory to analyze the core relationship in Vitomil Zupan’s novel Journey to the End of Spring, namely the relationship between the professor of Slovene and his admired pupil Tajsi. Tajsi’s character is analyzed with the help of Girard’s concept of the model of desire. Tajsi orients professor’s desire and sets an example of the desired identity (ideal ego). The professor is becoming more and more like Tajsi, and there are moments in the novel where he appears as possessed by Tajsi since he begins to speak and act like him. This is one aspect of transformation into the admired model. The mechanics of the second aspect can be understood with the help of Žižek’s reading of Lacan; becoming (like) the other also means taking the other’s place in the relationship structure, thus enacting symbolic identification. Doing this, the subject should realize that a full being which is not lacking does not exist.References
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