A Lacanian Reading of "The Well of Babel" and "The Spell of the Lambs" by Reza Ghassemi

This study employs the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan—specifically the triadic model of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real—to analyze the subject in two novels by Reza Ghassemi: The Well of Babel and The Spell of the Lambs. Utilizing a descriptive-analytical method and an interdisciplinary approach (literature-psychoanalysis), it examines the mechanisms of identity formation, disintegration, and suspension in the migrant characters of these works. The findings reveal that both novels represent the Lacanian subject as a "split," "alienated-in-language" being, grappling with a fundamental lack. In The Well of Babel, Mando (the protagonist) becomes trapped within the Symbolic order of both Iranian society and the rejecting society of Paris through the self-destructive jouissance of his singing and his attachment to an unattainable object of desire (Felicia). His eventual blindness objectifies the intrusion of the Real and the collapse of the Symbolic realm. In The Spell of the Lambs, the migrant narrator is confronted with three conflicting discourses (religious, national, colonial) as manifestations of the "big Other," whose voices intensify his identity crisis in the form of a "whirlwind in the chest." The fantasy of returning to the womb and the illusion of mastery within the hospital function as defense mechanisms against the threat of the Real (blindness). By connecting key Lacanian concepts with narratives of migration, this research offers a novel model for analyzing contemporary Iranian fiction and demonstrates that the identity crisis in these works is not merely a product of physical displacement but is the structural consequence of an "imprisonment in language" and the subject's suspension within the fissures of the three registers.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
The identity crisis in multicultural societies constitutes a prominent feature of contemporary Persian literature, particularly in the works of immigrant writers. The novels Chāh-e Bābel (The Well of Babel, 1998) and Vardī ke Barre-hā Mī-khānand (The Song of the Lambs, 2002) by Reza Ghassemi (b. 1949), through their representation of the psychological and social complexities of immigrant subjects, provide a rich ground for psychoanalytic analysis. This research, drawing upon the theory of Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) with a focus on the concepts of the three orders—the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real—seeks to analyze the mechanisms of identity formation, disintegration, and suspension in these two works. Lacan, through his revolutionary reinterpretation of Freudian psychoanalysis and its integration with structuralist linguistics, presents a dialectical model of the human subject. Previous studies have often concentrated on the sociological aspects of migration in Ghassemi's works, while the psychological layers of the identity crisis, viewed through Lacanian theory with its emphasis on language as the prison of the subject, have been less explored. Connecting complex Lacanian concepts (such as jouissance and the Name-of-the-Father) with literary narratives provides a model for analyzing the texts of migrant literature. This research demonstrates that Ghassemi's aforementioned novels are literary embodiments of Lacanian theory; the subject is a wounded entity trapped in a well excavated by the three orders—a well dug not in Tehran or Paris, but within the symbolic fissures of identity.

Theoretical Framework and Methodology
In his later work, Lacan addressed three psychological orders:

The Imaginary Order: The realm of the projected image of a unified self, formed during the "Mirror Stage."
The Symbolic Order: The domain of cultural signifiers governed by a master signifier, the "Name-of-the-Father."
The Real Order: A pre-supposed but unknowable resistance against the Imaginary and Symbolic orders.


• The Imaginary Order
The Imaginary order is the realm of the image, identification, and the illusion of unity. This order is constituted during the "Mirror Stage" (6-18 months), when the child identifies their own unified image in the mirror. This process is inherently alienating, as it separates the subject from their pre-representational state and constructs a false identity based on an image.

• The Symbolic Order
The child's illusions collapse upon entering the "Symbolic order" and acquiring language. The Symbolic is the sphere of language, law, difference, and discourse. It is the primary determinant of the subject's structure and social relations. The "big Other" represents the Symbolic order itself—the field of language, culture, norms, and social laws. The subject does not derive their identity from within but acquires it through identification with the signifiers presented by the big Other.

• The Real
The Real encompasses the non-representational, inaccessible, and traumatic dimensions of experience that lie outside language and image. The Real is not an objective reality but the "impossible." It reveals the fundamental lack at the heart of the Symbolic order.

Discussion
In The Well of Babel, the relationship between Mando and Felicia is shaped within the framework of the modern big Other. Felicia's engagement ring is a symbolic signifier of her belonging to Arnold. This ring is the big Other's mark upon Felicia's body, a sign declaring, "This woman 'belongs' to another." The prevailing social custom deems any desire Mando has for Felicia as "illegitimate." This custom has a definitive function: prohibiting access to the object of desire.
Towards the end of the story, when Mando is homeless and has lost his sight, he pleads with a woman named Nā'ī to take him back into her womb: "I am filth, Nā'ī. Give me shelter. It's cold here. I am becoming dark, Nā'ī. How good it would be if... let me go back. Let me go back to my own darkness. It's cold here, Nā'ī. In darkness, the cold is colder, Nā'ī. Why is there so much difference between darkness and darkness? Why is the darkness of the grave different from the darkness of a room?... Different from the darkness of a well?... Different from the darkness of the womb?... Give me shelter in that burning, moist darkness. Give me shelter in that best of all darknesses. Oh, Nā'ī..." (Ghassemi, n.d.: 221-222). Mando's plea to Nā'ī ("let me go back to the darkness of the womb") signifies a desire to return to a pre-Symbolic state, where the boundaries between ego and non-ego do not exist. In "the Imaginary order," "there is no clear distinction between mind and object; there is no centered self to separate the object from the mind". This request is a reaction to the failure of the Symbolic order to fill the existential void. This desire to return to the "burning, moist" darkness of the womb is a longing for the pre-Symbolic state, before separation from the mother, before entry into language and the law, and before the experience of lack.
The narrator of The Song of the Lambs neither kills his father nor has intercourse with his mother. Yet, in a way, he approaches the brink of both acts. The narrator sees his emaciated mother in his father's arms. The father behaves violently, and the adolescent narrator, angered by witnessing his father's violence towards his mother, even contemplates finishing his father off with a knife to save her. Following customs observed in some Iranian cities and other countries, the father performs a form of female circumcision on the mother and then buries the excised piece of female genitalia in the home garden. The narrator is curious about what has been buried in the garden. Symbolically, both events occur: 1) The narrator attempts to kill the father. 2) The narrator seeks to engage in an act with the mother. As a consequence, for approaching these two Oedipal acts, the narrator's eyesight deteriorates to the brink of blindness, but he does not go completely blind.

Conclusion
This research demonstrates that a Lacanian reading opens new analytical horizons for the study of migrant literature. Such a reading provides a profound structural explanation for the identity crisis. The main achievements of this analysis can be formulated in several points:

The Lacanian reading reveals that the seemingly unique experience of the protagonists in both novels is, in fact, a concrete manifestation of the "ontological condition of the human subject" in Lacanian theory.
Purely sociological approaches often reduce the immigrant character to a passive "victim" of historical forces. The Lacanian analysis, by focusing on the divided subject, highlights the active and tragic nature of this situation.


References
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