『마지막 한잔』 : 상징계의 분열과 타락한 주체

『One for the Road』: The splitting of the Symbolic and the fallen subject

This paper aims to identify the offshoot point where a subject is canceled, rather than comes into being by accepting the order of the Other. Nicolas, the totalitarian fascist leader in One for the Road is featured as such a subject who devotes himself absolutely to the Ideology of the country. Nicolas voluntarily undertakes a role of a faithful agent trying to fulfill the will of the Symbolic, so that he takes the place of object, rather than subject, by choosing to be a tool of the state institutes. In spite of the cost of the demise of his subjectivity, Nicolas wants to pursue, so called, unlimited satisfaction of desire paradoxically with the very name of the Law which is supposed to put a limit on the desire of individuals. In other words, the ‘exceed’ identification of the private desire with the order of the Symbolic unwittingly reveals the rupture of the Symbolic system itself, further the perverse subject like Nicolas inhabits the gap in the middle of the order of the Other. In addition, the violence which Nicolas wields ruthlessly corresponds to desperate gestures concealing the splitting of the Symbolic. The position as Nicolas’s subject mandated by the Symbolic can be dangerous due to the splitting of the Symbolic itself as the Other. In addition, Nicolas is splitted between the order of the Symbolic, “Observe the public Law!” and the injunction of the superego, “Enjoy!”. Harold Pinter, by avoiding specific political description in his late plays, does not try to criticize the political situation of a certain country but to make us think the interrelations between us and what the plays present, and to request the rational and ethical reaction regarding our emotional experience.