There are the Police, who cannot see ( similar to the King in the first scene). He makes a kind of substitution, takes the original letter and puts a fake one in its place. Third of all, there is the Minister in this first scene. You see an image, you see something that doesn’t see you, so you conclude that you are powerful, and that you are able to see it. Lacan associates Queen basically with imaginary position not exactly as repetition of mirror scene but similar. Queen thinks she is able to see, and she is safe. 3) The third one can come and pluck the second one’s rear. 2) Second one sees that it has put its head in sand, so it can see what first one cannot see. There are total of three ostriches: 1) First one puts its head in sand and thinks he’s invisible by doing that. In his seminar, Lacan tells this story, the myth about ostriches.

She is the first person who feels secure because of the possession of the letter she sees that King doesn’t see. Queen knows that if she puts the letter full-view on table, King would not notice it and be curious. In relation to letter, Queen is person who sees that the “other” doesn’t see the letter. We can think of the King as symbolic system that’s blind to signifier. The King in a way signifies the “ law” which is blind to the signifier. In the first scene, King is in the role of “ blind”, doesn’t see the letter, the signifier, phallus. The letter locates different people according to their relations to the letter. In these two scenes, there are three available positions in relation to the other. One could think of a third scene for sure, but I’ll talk about this in the next post.

I wish I could draw triangles but I can’t, so it’s better if you imagine.įirst scene: Lacan talks about these two scenes where the two different events of stealing the letter take place. Second scene is Minister’s apartment, where this time Dupin who can think like his opponent with empathy, steals the letter. First one is the primal scene, the events taking place in Queen’s room when the letter is stolen for the first time. He talks about two basic scenes that he’s interested in the story. Jacques Lacan, in his analysis considers this structure as triangular one.

At his point, the function of the letter in the story is to simply position people. The letter in “ Purloined Letter” by way of its movements, links, connects positions of people in different ways in their relationships to others.

The purloined letter point of view