Author(s)

Xinya Wang ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ College of Chinese Language and Literature, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730070, China

Corresponding Author

Xinya Wang

ABSTRACT

Jacques Lacan's theory of the Other posits that the human subject is structured through the interpellation of the "I," emphasizing the Other's aggression toward the subject. Within the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a complex multi-layered interpellation by the Other exists among Pygmalion, the ivory woman, and the goddess of love (Aphrodite). Through carving and expectation, Pygmalion utilizes the "I"-image to facilitate the ivory figure's initial construction of a pseudo-ego within the Imaginary order. As Pygmalion's Other, the goddess interpellates his desire for love and beauty, which motivates his expectation for the ivory figure. The signifier within the Symbolic order is concretized through Pygmalion's prayer to the goddess. Both the ivory figure, now a living woman, and Pygmalion, desiring beauty, are sculpted into false selves by the Other, revealing the fundamental void of the ego's existence.

KEYWORDS

Ego; The Other; Pygmalion; The Pseudo-Subject

CITE THIS PAPER

Xinya Wang, The Sculpted "Self" by the Other: Reinterpreting the Pygmalion Myth through Jacques Lacan's Theory of the Other. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2025) Vol. 8: 6-11. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2025.080402.

REFERENCES

[1] Hegel, G. W. F. (1807). Phenomenology of Spirit (A. V. Miller, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Chapter IV, pp. 111-119.
[2] Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Monthly Review Press. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses", pp. 170-177.
[3] Silverman, H. J. (2010). Malabou, Plasticity, and the Sculpturing of the Self. Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, 36(2), 89-102.
[4] Ovid. (8 AD). Metamorphoses, Book X (A. S. Kline, Trans.). Poetry in Translation. Lines 243-297.
[5] Lacan, J. (1978). The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Penguin. pp. 207-219.
[6] Lacan, J. (1977). Écrits: A Selection (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Tavistock. pp. 1-7.
[7] Wilde, O. (1891). The Picture of Dorian Gray. Penguin Classics. Chapter 2, pp. 21-30.
[8] Shaw, G. B. (1912). Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts. Penguin Classics. Act II, pp. 45-48.

Sponsors, Associates, and Links

---

• Journal of Language Testing & Assessment
  
  
• Information and Knowledge Management
  
  
• Military and Armament Science
  
  
• Media and Communication Research
  
  
• Journal of Human Movement Science
  
  
• Art and Performance Letters
  
  
• Lecture Notes on History
  
  
• Philosophy Journal
  
  
• Science of Law Journal
  
  
• Journal of Political Science Research
  
  
• Journal of Sociology and Ethnology
  
  
• Advances in Broadcasting